Their voices faded as they walked away, but their words echoed in Kat’s mind, growing louder and louder until they were screaming—
The dream fractured again, violently.
Theron stood before her; his scarred face twisted with anger.
His gray eyes were cold as winter ice, and blood stained his hands—fresh blood, red and wet, dripping onto the stone floor.
“She defied me,” he snarled, his voice rough with rage.
“Questioned me.
Challenged my authority in front of my men.
Forgot her place.
Forgot that she was mine to command.”
He stepped closer, and Kat couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but stare at the blood on his hands.
“She thought she could leave me,” he continued, his voice dropping to something dangerous and low.
“Thought she could pack her things and run away in the night like a thief.
Thought I wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t care, wouldn’t stop her.”
His hand shot out and grabbed Kat’s throat—not squeezing, not yet, but the threat was there.
She could feel his pulse through his palm, could feel the strength in his fingers, could imagine how easy it would be for him to squeeze, to crush, to kill.
“Will you make the same mistake?” he asked, his face inches from hers.
“Will you defy me?
Question me?
Try to leave?”
She tried to shake her head, tried to say no, tried to promise she’d be good, she’d be obedient, she’d never anger him, but her stutter locked her throat and no words came.
His grip tightened, just slightly.
“Answer me.”
No—
The dream wavered and reformed, the anger draining from his face like water.
Theron turned to face her, and his expression was different now—not cold, but sad.
Weary.
Haunted.
The blood was gone from his hands, but she could still see the ghost of it, could still smell the copper tang in the air.
“I loved her,” he admitted quietly, his voice breaking.
“Elara.
I loved her more than anything.
More than my lands, my title, my own life.
She was everything to me.
Everything.”
His hand came up to cover his face, and she saw his shoulders shake.
“And when she died…”
His voice broke completely, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.
When he continued, his words were barely audible.
“They say I killed her.
That I pushed her, struck her, threw her down the stairs in a fit of rage.
But I didn’t.
I swear by the old gods, by everything I hold sacred, I didn’t.
It was an accident—a terrible, senseless accident.
She slipped.
The stones were wet from rain.
She fell.
I tried to catch her, but I was too far away, too slow.
I watched her fall, and I couldn’t stop it.”
He looked at her with those storm-gray eyes, and she saw pain there. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Grief so deep it had carved canyons in his soul.
And something that might have been desperation.
“But no one believes me,” he continued.
“They see the scars on my face and assume I’m a monster.
They hear the rumors and assume they’re true.
They look at me and see a murderer.”
His hand reached out toward her, trembling slightly.
“Will you believe me?
Or will you fear me like everyone else?
Will you see a man, or will you see a monster?”
She wanted to answer, wanted to reach for him, wanted to say she believed him—
But the dream shifted violently before she could move.
She was in a tower room now, circular, with windows all around.
Wind howled outside, rattling the glass.
Elara stood at one of the windows, her golden hair streaming behind her like a banner.
She wore a white nightgown, and her feet were bare.
“He didn’t kill me,” she said softly, not turning around.
“I fell.
I slipped.
It was my own carelessness, my own fault.
The stones were wet, and I was hurrying, and I wasn’t paying attention.
I fell.”
She turned to look at Kat, and her face was sad but peaceful.
“He’s not a murderer.
He’s a man drowning in grief and guilt.
He blames himself for not catching me, for not being faster, for not somehow preventing what happened.
He’s been drowning for five years, and no one has thrown him a rope.”
She stepped closer, and Kat could see through her now, could see the window and the storm beyond.
“Can you save him?” Elara asked.
“Can you be the rope he needs?
Or will you drown too, pulled under by his grief and the weight of my memory?”
Before Kat could answer, the dream fractured into a thousand pieces—
Theron’s face scarred and cold: “You’ll warm my bed when I want it and produce my sons.
That’s all I require.”
Theron’s face, scarred and sad: “I loved her, but she’s gone, and I don’t know how to move forward.”
Theron’s face scarred and gentle: “We can build something new.
Something different.
Something ours.”
The golden-haired woman, smiling: “He loved me more than life itself.”
The golden-haired woman, fading: “They say he killed me in a rage.”
The golden-haired woman, falling: “It was an accident, but he’ll never forgive himself.”
Blood on his hands, dripping onto stone.
Tears on his face, falling like rain.
A body at the bottom of stairs, twisted and broken.
A grave in the cold northern ground, covered in snow.
His voice: “You’ll never be what she was.
Don’t even try.”
His voice: “I don’t want you to be her.
I want you to be yourself.”
His voice: “I didn’t kill her.
You have to believe me.”
His voice: “Will you believe me?
Or will you fear me?”
Elara’s belongings, untouched, preserved like a shrine.
Elara’s portrait, hanging in the great hall, her eyes following Kat wherever she went.
Elara’s grave, fresh flowers placed there every day.
Elara’s ghost, standing in doorways, watching from windows, a constant presence.
Which one was real?
Which one would she find when she reached the North?
Would he be the man who’d murdered his first wife in rage, who had blood on his hands and violence in his heart?
Or the man who’d lost her to tragedy and been falsely accused, drowning in grief and guilt and desperate for someone to believe him?
Or would he be the man ready to move forward, to build something new with someone new, to let the past rest and embrace the future?
The dream splintered faster now, images flashing past like lightning—
Standing in a great hall, invisible, while Theron stared at his first wife’s portrait with longing in his eyes.
Standing in a garden, Theron showing her the flowers his first wife had planted, telling her about their names in Elara’s voice.
Standing in a doorway, hearing him call her by the wrong name—”Elara, I—” and then stopping, his face crumbling with grief.
Standing at a dinner table, servants serving food on plates that had been Elara’s, pouring wine into cups that had been Elara’s, everything touched by the ghost of the woman who came before.
Standing in a bedroom, wearing a nightgown that had been Elara’s because all the clothes in the wardrobe were Elara’s, and no one had thought to provide anything new.
Standing beside him, his hand warm in hers, as he said: “You’re not her.
And I’m glad.
I’m so glad.”
Standing in a corridor, servants whispering as she passed: “She’ll never measure up.
Poor thing doesn’t even know how to embroider.”
Standing in a library, trying to read books Elara had read, trying to understand things Elara had understood, trying to be someone she wasn’t and never could be.
Standing at the top of a tower, the stones slick beneath her feet, rain falling, wind howling, and Theron’s hand reaching for her—
To save her?
Or push her?
His fingers closing around her wrist—
Pulling her back from the edge?
Or pulling her over?
Which one?
Which one?
Which—
She was falling, falling, falling, the stones rushing past, the ground coming up to meet her, and she couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t—
Kat woke with a gasp, her heart racing so fast it hurt, her nightgown damp with sweat that had soaked through to the sheets beneath her.
Gray dawn light filtered through her window, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow, making the familiar room look strange and foreign.
She lay still for a long moment, trying to catch her breath, trying to slow her racing heart, trying to separate dream from waking, fear from hope, imagination from reality.
Her hands were shaking.
Her whole body was shaking.
The dream clung to her like cobwebs, sticky and persistent.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Elara falling, saw blood on Theron’s hands, saw his face twisted with rage or grief or both.
Her chest ached with a confusion of emotions so tangled she couldn’t separate one from another.
Fear and hope and dread and anticipation all twisted together until she didn’t know what she felt, only that it was overwhelming.
The golden-haired woman haunted her thoughts—Elara, the first wife, the perfect wife, the accomplished wife, the beloved wife.
The dead wife.
The murdered wife?
Did he kill her?
The question pounded in her skull like a drumbeat, relentless and inescapable.
If he did, why?
What had she done to provoke such rage?
Had she defied him?
Questioned him?
Tried to leave?
And if he could kill a woman he’d supposedly loved—a woman who was everything Kat wasn’t—what would he do to Kat?
A woman he didn’t even want, a woman forced upon him by politics and duty, a woman marked as cursed and broken and worthless?