CONNECTIONS
Ignify (verb): to form into fire.
DAY 7, HOUR 3
My nightmares usually consisted of flames and failing my mates, of red fire pouring from my skin while I screamed without relief.
There was a recurring theme to my dreams.
In some of them, I had all three of my mates around me, but I couldn’t find my Revered. I used to dream about a faceless male cowering somewhere in need of protection. Now I dreamed about a fierce woman with eyes like ice who didn’t want my protection.
I knew something was very wrong because this dream was not like the rest.
I knew in my gut that I was trapped in someone else’s body, experiencing their memories.
The person was lying partially naked on a marble floor. Ornate frescoes decorated the walls, and the high ceiling seemed to go on forever. Everything flickered in shades of gray as if the person’s vision filtered out warm colors.
There were no windows.
No escape.
They—the person whose body I was inside—shivered uncontrollably.
Somehow, I was aware of the person’s emotions, but could still have separate thoughts.
It was overwhelming and disorienting.
Eight men stood in a circle around them in matching uniforms, and for some reason, I recognized the insignia as that of the fae guard. I knew, without reason, that I was in the grand basement of the fae palace.
The guards stepped closer, caging the person in so there was nowhere to go.
For a second, I was distracted by the delicate pale arms that trembled as they held them up because they were so different from my dark, bronze muscled limbs.
The waves of terror streaking through them were wholly unfamiliar.
I’d never experience fear like this.
A guard reached out and slammed the toe of his thick black boot into the person’s side, and they gasped at the sharp sting. Their fragile frame curled up on the marble floor. Their joints ached with growing pains.
They were all gangly limbs and bones.
The person was young.
Scared.
Weak.
Their anxiety swelled as they dragged fragile forearms across the floor and tried to hoist themselves up.
A guard slammed a boot down on their spine, and they collapsed.
A high-pitched whimper escaped their lips.
Indignation flared in my chest because my gut was telling me the person being kicked was young. These men were pathetic cowards bullying a child.
Pressure burned behind their eyes, but no tears fell.
Their bravery impressed me.
Few children could be surrounded by so much adult cruelty and hold themselves together, and the vitriol wafting off the guards was staggering.
They loathed this child.
Another kick sent them sprawling back into a guard’s leg, but instead of crying, the child gritted their teeth and tried to stand up. They didn’t complain or break down even as blind terror was coursing through them.
They were resilient.
Brave.
Shivers racked through their unclothed frame, and their teeth chattered.
The experience was bizarre because I’d never been cold a day in my life. Yet this child was plagued with bone-freezing chills.
No one else in the room appeared to be cold.
Suddenly, all the guards took a big step back and opened the circle wider. There was more space around them to flee, and it should have been a good thing, but the child started to hyperventilate.
Something was very wrong.
They were paralyzed with noxious panic.
A distant part of me recognized I could escape this nightmare if I wanted to; all I had to do was wake myself up.
Curiosity had me consciously trying to stay asleep.
I wanted to know what in the sun-god-damned realms was going on. I wanted to know who these people were.
It felt important.
High heels tapped loudly against marble, and a woman approached in a long gossamer dress composed of rare silk webs. She was stunningly beautiful with an unusual coloring—blue hair and eyes.
The child’s terror peaked.
My heart plummeted.
The woman’s voice was frosty as she said, “Your tutors have told me you were slacking in your lesson today. Is that true?”
There was something off about the woman’s expression, like she was just mimicking emotions.
Fear seized the child, and they tried to crawl away.
They needed to escape.
It was a life-or-death situation.
A soldier’s boot slammed down across the child’s back and halted their progress. A crack echoed in the cavernous space, signaling something had broken.
Air left the child’s fragile lungs in a loud oomph, and they whimpered on the floor.
The guards laughed.
I wanted to rip their spines. From the child’s thoughts, they were innocent. Young. Helpless. They didn’t understand why this was happening to them.
The fae guards were monsters, and the child viewed the woman as the worst of them all. Even with pain radiating from the broken bone in their back, the child was more afraid of the beautiful woman.
Their every thought was consumed with escaping her.
The child stuttered desperately, “I-I-I just f-forgot one l-l-line from a thousand-page book. I’m not slacking, Mother.” The voice was soft and feminine, and I jolted as I realized I was in the body of a young girl.
The sinking sensation became a plummet, and rage burned brighter inside me.
“Lies!” the woman screamed, and her pleasant expression dropped. Mania shone in her wide, glassy eyes as she smiled wider.
The girl reeled back and begged, “No, Mother. I promise I’ll be better. Please don’t. I promise. Please listen to—”
The woman snapped her fingers.
Blue flames everywhere.
Agony like I’d never experienced decimated the girl’s body, and it was so intense that her broken back cracked as it bowed. Mouth opened wide, she screamed silently as mind-numbing, paralyzing pain racked through her.
It was heinous.
Obscene.
She wanted to die.
I wanted to kill for her.
The flames stopped, and the girl threw up all over the floor as her muscles twitched in the aftermath. Embarrassment flooded through her as she realized she’d soiled herself.
The guards wrinkled their noses with disgust, and she groaned in shame.
Why won’t any of them help me? What did I do to deserve this? Her thoughts were despondent.
I wanted to smash the guards and woman to pieces; I wanted to make them suffer like they made this defenseless girl suffer.
They deserved to die.
At times like this, I was glad for my abilities because it would be too easy for my mates and I to hunt them down. I’d snap their puny necks with my bare hands.
It would be much easier than the efforts they were exerting to torment a child.
Consciousness pulled me away from the child’s form, but I forced myself to stay in the memory and not wake up.
I wanted to memorize faces.
I wanted names.
The cruel woman clucked her tongue and knelt next to the girl’s convulsing frame. “We’ve been over this, darling—you’re powerless, pathetic, and an embarrassment to my name. You will suffer until you learn.”
She snapped her fingers.
Blue flames.
Silent screams.
Unfathomable torment.
The torture stopped, and the woman gloated down at the girl. “The palace aides told me you freed those monstrous birds from their gilded cages.” Her smile contorted into a frown. “Your maid told me you defended a filthy villager child that was caught stealing.” Her frown deepened. “And that was just from this week. Do you see why I must do this?”
The girl shook her head. “S- S-Sorry. I won’t. I promise. I swear. I’ll stop.”
She snapped her fingers.
The world burned blue.
The blue flames stopped, and as the girl coughed and shivered on the cold marble floor, I started to put the pieces together.
The woman’s unique blue hair and familiar otherworldly beauty, the fae palace surrounded by fae guards, the girl being tortured by her mother.
It was obvious, but I desperately wanted to be mistaken.
I needed to be.
The woman snapped her fingers, and yet again the girl suffered in shades of blue. Her world was a cruel hell, and she knew only torment.
Her slight frame felt like it was breaking at the edges because she was too young to withstand such torture. Few adults could.
Again.
The agony stopped.
The woman grabbed the girl’s chin, and as she leaned close, she smelled like corrosive acid.
She whispered, “You’ll never amount to anything if you keep being so softhearted. Nothing good comes from being weak.” Her eyes were unfocused. “That’s what they want you to believe. They want you to be tethered to righteous morality and neutered like a dog with a fucking handler—they’re wrong. These realms will destroy you if you give an inch. So much power in your ancestry—yet you produce nothing? Not even a single shard of ice. At your age, I could move mountains.”
The woman paused, then spat, “You disgust me, Arabella.”
Horror engulfed me.
The girl zoned out as the mother ranted; she was used to her senseless prattling during torture.
“We’ll continue these lessons every night until you learn.” The woman smirked, and Arabella dropped her forehead to the floor.
Every night. Horror seized me.
My gut feeling had been correct—I was experiencing Arabella’s memories. I was living through her torture.
The child on the ground was my mate.
She was helpless.
Tortured nightly.
I could tell from her thoughts that there was not a single soul in the realm who had protected her from her mother.
The fae guards had kicked my mate.
They’d broken her back.
Sneered at her as she convulsed with agony for hours, naked.
My Revered had suffered in unimaginable ways, and we’d failed her more than we ever knew.
Unholy rage pierced the veil of sleep as I was thrown out of the sickening memory. I sat up in my bed, panting.
The bedroom was quiet, and the clock read three a.m.
My body burned with heat, and even in the darkness, colors were richer. The grayish-blue filter was gone from my vision.
The strange emptiness I’d felt inside her chest was replaced with an overwhelming need for control.
Immediate regret filled me as I remembered how I’d treated her. How I’d lost control of my temper and yelled at her, just like her mother—I’d been afraid for her safety, but it was no excuse. I was disgusted with myself.
A whimper echoed in the sleeping room.
In a blur, I flung myself at the lower bunk on the opposite side of the room and knelt before her.
It took me a second to realize Scorpius and Orion crouched beside me.
I turned to my mates with confusion and asked, “Did you experie—”
“Yes,” Scorpius cut me off.
The silence among us was fraught with angst and regret as we processed what we all knew.
We knelt together in disbelief.
Disciples at her altar.
Since we’d all been affected, it was obvious what was happening—the bond sickness had connected us to her memories. It was punishing us like we deserved.
“No, Mother, please,” Arabella whispered in her sleep as she tossed and turned before us. Her forehead glistened with sweat, and her covers were a mess. She slapped her arm back and forth like she was trying to fight off an invisible assailant.
I ordered, “Wake up,” as Orion shook her gently and Scorpius patted her face.
She whimpered louder.
Then she opened her mouth, bowed her back, and silently screamed.
Helplessness churned in my gut. I hated that I knew exactly what torment she was experiencing.
“Please,” I begged as my mates tried frantically to wake her.
Nothing worked.
She continued to thrash about.
Suffer.
We couldn’t wake her, but I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Flames exploded across my shoulders, and red blurred my vision.
They had desecrated my Revered. I needed vengeance, or I was going to burn the war camp to the ground and murder everyone within it. Embers fell around me as I turned to my mates.
“We need to make this right,” I said roughly. “I refuse to do nothing.”
“I agree.” Scorpius cracked his knuckles. “We need to go now, or I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”
The eye tattooed on his neck shot wide open. It stared down at Arabella’s thrashing form.
I nodded in agreement, flames crackling hotter across my shoulders.
“One of us has to watch over her,” Orion whispered. “I’ll stay.” He caressed her sweaty blue curls as she thrashed about.
“Then let’s go.” I grabbed Scorpius’s arm to guide him and stalked from the barracks.
We ran through the snowy forest. It was eerie at night. The once steaming ground was covered in a thin layer of ice and snow slammed against us from all directions.
The white contrasted with the vibrant green and rich brown conifer trees.
It was nothing like the shades of blue and gray that had painted Arabella’s vision.
What was wrong with her sight? What was that crushing sense of emptiness she felt?
I couldn’t breathe as another terrible thought struck me. Did Arabella still experience the world this way? Had we made the emptiness worse?
We’d failed our Revered in every possible way.
For a second, I stopped running and tilted my head back to the storm.
I inhaled.
It smelled like winter and rage.
It smelled like her.
The fire crawling beneath my skin intensified like it recognized her presence in the ice. Flames multiplied on my shoulders. The urge to unleash my powers spiked dramatically.
Sun god, I’m ruined for her.
When we got to the strategy room, I threw open the door with a bang and unlocked the desk’s drawer. Then I grabbed the RJE device Lothaire had given us before the war started.
The world whirred.
Crack.
We disappeared.
Only one thing was on our minds.
Vengeance.
