A gentle hand traced the planes of his face as his sister’s voice murmured soothing nonsense in Drakhar. When Caius failed to open his eyes, the touch went from soft to sharp. Fingers clutched his jaw as Tanith jerked his head to one side.
“I said, ‘Wake up, Brother.’?” Tanith’s voice was unrecognizable. She’d never spoken in the high-pitched lilt favored by some of the ladies at court, but then, she’d never been much of a lady either. Tanith’s speech had always been sharp and deadly; now Caius could hear something insidious laced through it that wasn’t Tanith. The ku?edra—housed in Tanith’s body after she’d bound herself to it—had poisoned her so thoroughly that its stain could be heard in her clipped vowels and her harsh, grating consonants.
Caius’s eyes blinked open. The room was illuminated by a single candle on the small table beside his bed, but even that meager light sliced through his head with the ferocity of a blow from an ax.
“Go away,” he mumbled, his voice as rough as gravel.
“Now, now. No need to be impolite.” Tanith dabbed at his face with the cool washcloth.
He hated how soothing it felt. He wanted to smack the cloth from her hand, but his arm managed only to twitch about on the sheets. Rebellion of the physical sort was beyond him. He would have to make do with words. “Leave me to my nightmares. They’re far better company.”
The washcloth retreated. Tanith peered at him with her horrible, blackened eyes. There was hardly any red left to the irises. The ku?edra was colonizing her body, inch by condemned inch. “Must you be so disagreeable?”
“You kidnapped me. You stole my magic. You had me beaten.”
“Yes, but the pain was only to make you more pliant. You fought me when I tried to borrow your power. It would have been much easier for you to bear if you had not resisted.”
This was not his sister. Caius pushed himself to sitting, despite the intense wave of nausea that passed through him with every pained movement. His body was a litany of complaints.
“And why did you need my magic?” Caius had little hope of receiving an honest answer from the thing that was not his sister, but he had to ask. “What was that seal? And why did you break it?”
Tanith tsked and dabbed at the fresh beads of sweat on his forehead with a tenderness at odds with her steely gaze. “One would think that with as many books as that ostentatious library of yours has, you would hardly need me to explain such things to you.”
“Indulge me.”
“It is as I said,” Tanith began. “In order for a new world to begin, the old must first make way.”
“What new world?” Caius pressed.
“Ours.” There was a gleam in Tanith’s eyes that spoke of chaos. “Do you wish to live in a world where we are beholden to the whims of an inferior species? Where humanity dictates the terms and conditions of our existence? Where we live in fear of discovery, of extermination?”
There was logic in her words, and that was precisely what made them so insidious. “No,” Caius said, “but I have a sneaking suspicion your noble intentions will come to a bitter, bloody end.”
“Nothing worth doing is ever easy.” His sister placed the washcloth on the bedside table and plucked at a loose thread on the sleeve of her gown. The old Tanith—the real Tanith—would never have tolerated such slovenliness. But this new being, this entity wearing her skin, appeared to have greater and more terrible concerns. “The seals are a stopgap. A dam. They are the lock that holds back that which lies beyond.”
“The in-between,” Caius said. The sickly feeling that had washed over him when the seal had ruptured returned, with friends in tow: Fear. The first inkling of panic.
Tanith nodded. “Yes, the in-between. For so long, we’ve viewed it as a passive force, a river to be crossed. But it can be so much more than that. It is so much more than that.”
Caius shook his head, alight with the bright and vicious spark of disbelief. “You intend to weaponize the in-between?” To attempt that was insanity. It was insanity to even consider such an attempt, as breaking the barrier between worlds would result in nothing but destruction. “Do you hear yourself when you talk? Or does that beast you bound yourself to control your mouth with a hand up your ass like a puppet?”
A fist cracked across Caius’s face. He fell back against the headboard. The pain was nothing compared to how satisfying it had felt saying that. He smiled, wincing at the pull on the fresh cut on his lip. “Touched a nerve, did I?”
Flames crackled around Tanith’s fist. Something dark slid behind her eyes, blotting out the remaining sliver of crimson. The fire in her hand turned black, and then it was gone.
“You provoke me. Why?”
He shrugged one shoulder. Shrugging both would have been too painful. “Boredom.”
A blond eyebrow arched. For a moment, his sister looked like herself again. “Would you be better behaved if I sent up a book?”
“Do you think my compliance is that easy to buy?” Caius asked.
“Every soul has its price,” Tanith said. She looked at the hand that she had used to strike him. It was still curled in a fist. Her fingers unfurled slowly, as if she had to fight to make them do so. “I know that better than most.”
Her moment of self-awareness was far too little, far too late. But her suggestion had merit, even if she didn’t know it. Yet. She had been the only person to darken Caius’s door since she had deposited him back in his bed at Wyvern’s Keep. If only he had an opportunity to see someone else, to talk to them…perhaps hope was not entirely lost.
“Fine,” Caius said. All he needed was a sympathetic ear, and there was no shortage of those in the fortress, even if Tanith was too blind to see them. Her cruelty had started to fray her already fragile support. All his people needed was a push in the right direction. He might not be in a fight at this particular moment, but even from the confines of his sickbed, he could still help the people to whom he’d sworn himself prince.
“I’ll be a good boy.” He hoped Tanith didn’t hear the lie in his voice. “But it had better be a good book.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The dream was never the same, not exactly, but it was similar, and it happened every night. It seemed to be the only dream Echo could remember. If her subconscious entertained other flights of fancy during her sleeping hours, her mind didn’t see fit to retain the details. She knew just what her dreams would serve her the moment she laid her head down on the pillow. Though she’d fought off sleep as long as possible, burying her growing exhaustion in the stack of books beside her bed, slumber won, as it always did, and pulled her into its wicked embrace.