The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch #3)(21)

“I think you’ll agree with me when I say we should prepare our own food and drinks from now on. I make excellent baba ghanoush.”

“I’m serious, Kalen.”

“So am I.” He gathered my face in his hands. “What can I do to help you?” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Are you still having nightmares?”

“I had one when we left Kion,” I admitted. “A waking nightmare, on the azi. I turned and saw the city in flames.”

He frowned. “Has it happened again?”

“Not since arriving here, no. And my heartsglass has been clean for nearly two weeks. I’ve seen no specks of black. Do you think…perhaps I’ve…?”

“It’s possible. You’ve been taking better care of yourself and drawing in less of the Dark might have been the simplest solution all along.” He kissed me again, long and sweet. “Trust yourself a little more than you trust me, Tea.”

“That would be impossible, love,” I whispered back.

? ? ?

I burned.

I was flames and carnage. Howling, all the more terrible for how human it sounded, emanated from the thick of smoke. Fires sprouted around me, the air and screaming all the nourishment they needed.

But I felt no heat. The searing pyres bowed their pointed heads at me, a grotesque parody of genuflecting, and crackled their names. I expected them to pirouette out of my way like loyal dogs, but they brushed against my hua and lingered, ringing fire across my back like wings. There were silhouettes against the bonfires, figures in the ember. I approached.

Althy lay on the ground before me, dead. Her face was smeared with blood, and a knife pinned her to the ground, the hilt buried in her stomach. Likh was beside her, his legs folded unnaturally beneath him like a broken marionette, his graceful face upturned for a kiss that would never come. I saw the unmoving figures of other corpses in shadowed relief. Bodies lay atop each other, eviscerated and sharing the same shadow. Empty heartsglass watched me pass.

A figure staggered out of the darkness and tangled itself in my dress. My sister, Daisy. Her blood-soaked face stared back at me. “Why?” she whispered. I looked down and saw that my hand was buried inside her chest, staining my hua red.

No, I thought. Despite the smells of death, enough light filtered through the darkness to shine on my senses. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

“No!” I cried, but the knife wouldn’t drop from my hand. It dug into my palm, and I felt its blade slide through flesh. “No, no, no, no—”

“Tea.”

The fire wavered, faded, and I stood, rooted in complete darkness. The voice was familiar but odd to my ears. It held a note of fear, which I didn’t associate it with.

“Tea. Listen to me. I’m here, Tea.”

I opened my eyes—and nearly toppled off the ledge when I saw the hundred-foot drop before me. Why am I standing in an open windowsill? I thought, dazed. Why was I here? I could feel every breeze that sang through the palace, striving to upset my precarious balance.

“Tea. Take my hand.”

I turned slowly and saw Kalen, arm outstretched, ready to interfere should the winds have their way. “What happened?” Hadn’t I been asleep?

“Let’s talk after you get down from there.”

I took his hand. All gentleness disappeared. He dragged me inside in the space of an exhale, wrapping me in arms that threatened to squeeze the breath out of me, his heartsglass digging into my rib cage.

“What were you doing?” he choked out. Only then did I see Likh standing behind him, petrified.

We were in the castle library. I stood before an open window, staring down at what would have been a fatal fall. Clad in only a thin nightgown, my skin was chilled at the cold. “What happened?” I repeated.

“You walked in,” Likh gasped. “You opened the window and tried to climb out! I tried to stop you using runes, but they didn’t work!”

Kalen added grimly, “When I woke and you weren’t in bed, I thought you were sneaking off to do more research. Then I heard Likh call out. My runes didn’t work on you either.”

“I don’t—I don’t remember anything except for a nightmare.” I’d never sleepwalked before. My gaze traveled down. Even in the gloom, I could see the fading swirls of black in my heartsglass. I trembled.

“You scared me.” Kalen’s lips were on my hair. “I thought you were negating our runes somehow, that you wanted to—”

His voice broke. I began to cry, apologies pouring out of me in hiccups and tears. I clung to him, letting out all the frustration I’d tried to keep bottled in since Polaire had died, since my heartsglass had turned black, since the nightmares had begun. I heard Kalen saying something to Likh, promising to explain everything in the morning, then he rose with me in his arms and carried me back to our room.

“You need watching,” he murmured, his hands trailing down my back, willing me to stay with him—here, in bed with the twisted sheets and the familiar heat of his skin, not in the hellscape of my mind where my body attempted to step off towers with neither my cognizance nor my permission.

“Will you watch me?” I had never been so afraid before. Not even when Aenah or Usij controlled my thoughts, not when facing down daeva. There was no outside influence to blame, only a traitorous heartsglass that tainted the rest of me with secret plagues. Kalen had given me the best of him, but the best of me lay in pieces. Hardly a fair trade.