Page 51 of House of Gilded Nightmares

Hebiah strides forward, passing the guards in the archways, and I have no choice but to follow. Beside me, Zyren is a storm rolling across the marble floors. He is heat and magic and shadow and blade. As my guardian, he should protect me from anything and everything. But he can’t protect me from this. From fate itself.

It seems an eternity passes in the journey to the throne, but then we are there, and I look up at the man I’m to marry in the next few hours. I’m surprised by how young he looks, only a few years older than me, though no doubt, with fae blood, he could be centuries in age. Tall, with dark skin and hair and bright blue eyes. A gold coronet rests on his brow, and he wears a deep blue cloak to match the colors of his court. His eyes land on mine.

“So,” he says, “I suppose meeting each other a few hours before our wedding ceremony is more than some people get.” A wry, disarming smile follows.

I nod slowly. “Perhaps that’s true.”

The king gestures to the guards to retreat. After several moments he turns to his advisor and says pointedly, “Thank you, Hebiah. You may retire for the night.”

Hebiah’s cheeks pinch slightly at those words, but he bows and exits the throne room.

“I received the raven you sent from Yiltsa,” the king says, eyes pinning to Zyren. “But I know nothing of what happened after. Tell me everything.”

Zyren begins his tale. But, of course, he can’t tell the king everything. Because everything includes a drunken dance with the Veyeni, a kiss atop a mountain, and something much more intimate not two miles from where we now stand. My cheeks heat just thinking of it.

But Zyren tells him the important parts. Namely that the nightmares are on the loose, and the appearance of the Septarus, and how they’ve joined forces. Of both my capture and my subsequent rescue.

At the latter, the king’s gaze grows sharp. “Is Avonia dead, then?”

Zyren shakes his head. “I injured her badly, but she disappeared. Not dead, I’m afraid.”

“Well, then,” the king says, leaning back in his chair. “All the more reason to finish this ceremony quickly.”

I tense. I can’t help it. The king cocks his head to the side ever so slightly, his eyes moving to mine again. As piercing blue as they are, they remind me of the High Priest, and another night that seems forever ago, when I was in a similar predicament, giving myself over to someone to fulfill my duty. Everything inside me screams in rebellion. I try to remind myself that I chose this, that the survival of realms depends on it.

“Tell me more about yourself, Sarielle,” the king says. “Since you are to be my wife.”

“There’s not much to tell,” I begin, my words stiff and halting. “I grew up in the Amethyst Palace in Eldare, never leaving the palace grounds. I was not taught to use my magic much, and I have not seen the world except in these last two weeks.”

The king’s expression is one of curiosity, studying me as if I’m a butterfly pinned to a board. “You did not learn magic, and yet you somehow managed to transport yourself and your guardian to Valaron.”

“I’m not sure how I did that,” I respond.

“And have you used your magic since?”

Looking at the king, some instinct tells me not to admit to him all the other times I’ve used my magic. And especially not what I suspect of my heritage after the last time. “Not much,” I say quickly, instantly hoping that Zyren doesn’t call out my lie. But he stays stonily silent beside me.

“You obviously have a vast hidden talent,” the king says. “You will need to undergo much training to learn to use it properly. Once that is done, you will be a strong ally in the fight against House Septarus. Until then, it’s essential you stay within the palace. It’s too dangerous beyond the walls.”

And just like that, I am a prisoner again, a prisoner in this house of gilded nightmares.

The king sees the dismay on my face and misinterprets its meaning. “Do not worry, you will be safe here, and you have your guardian. I made sure to choose my very best warrior to guard my future wife, someone I could trust absolutely and completely.” He pauses and looks at Zyren. “That’s why I chose my brother.”

Interlude

The guardian wasn’t sure, looking back on it, the exact moment he fell in love with his ward.

He had watched her for years and years, and for the vast majority of it, his role was exactly as it should be: one of duty and honor. The continuation of a sacred union between House Otreyas and House Lyonian that had spanned millennia. He’d seen through her dreams the struggles of her life in the Amethyst Palace. How she lived as an outcast, different from the others and treated like a pariah, never knowing why. How out of place she felt. He saw her transition into a woman, never knowing her true home, her true destiny.

Perhaps it was her resilience, her strength, her rebellious nature. Despite being raised as an orphan in a place that suppressed everything she was innately born with, she would not bow down. He could see the valley in her dreams, memories mixed with the conjurings of her sleeping mind. The place she went with her only friend, the kingdom she declared for herself, small as it was.

And then, one night, perhaps a year before her twenty-first birthday, she confronted him. Told him, in her dream, that she could see him and had for years. Asked him who he was.

The guardian had been astonished. How could one raised outside of her realm, with no knowledge of her real magic and power, not only see him but control her dream in such a way? He did not answer her. He tried to observe and not interact. She was clearly curious about him, but it was his duty to protect only. To make sure the nightmares that visited her, as they visited everyone, did not realize who she was. Because if they did, goddess only knew what they would do.

It was at some point after she spoke to him that things began to change. That his admiration for her fierceness and power turned to feelings that ran deeper. And he was not the only one to notice the growing magic within her, how she could now control her dreams. As he’d feared, the nightmares began to take notice of her also.

Nights of quiet watchfulness became nights of hunting and savagery. He stalked the monsters as they stalked her, and he took them out one by one, making sure to stay out of view of his ward. More and more began to visit, drawn by the power within her, her destiny taking shape. She was born to be their queen, to rule them, and it could no longer be denied. They wanted their freedom, and she stood in their way.

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