I took a step closer to it. Suddenly, it was all I could see, all I desired. I walked through blood, stepped over the countess’s body, and I was rising, rising to take it. All the things I could do, all the things I could change.
My ambition was broken by Emrys, whose gaze flickered beyond me, as if someone else had entered the hall. I paused on the steps; a warning crept over my skin. Someone was following me.
I spun to see who it was but was met by the blur of a shield, swinging to knock me off my feet. Pain bloomed across my skull, burst behind my eyes.
And down I went. Deep into the darkness.
It was peaceful; the darkness held me like a vise. But when the light started to creep in, I was met by a sea of strange sensations.
Cold fingers tracing my face. Cold fingers on my neck, covering my throat.
A ring of voices, calling a name that sparked nothing within me.
Anna? Anna!
A pant of breath, breaking through the watery commotion, saying, “No, let me take her. She’s mine.”
Arms carrying me, up into the clouds. Down into the depths of the mountain. A soft fur and bed and the crackle of fire. The smell of pine and meadow grass.
“Clem.”
It was Phelan, trying to rouse me.
My head felt split open. My chest wept with pain.
“Get the dagger out,” I whispered to him, but I couldn’t open my eyes or show him where I hurt.
“Clem.”
I drifted away from him and his hands, down into a place where not even dreams could reach.
39
When I woke, my memories were scrambled.
It was afternoon again, but the light was icy and tinged in blue, as if a storm brewed beyond the windows. I was lying on a bed of furs, Phelan close beside me. I watched his chest rise and fall as he dozed. Slowly, I put the pieces together, and I remembered what had led me here, shut away in his room with a splitting headache.
The moment I moved, he woke.
“Easy, Clem.”
“I want to sit forward,” I croaked, and he eased me up. The world spun, and I fought a wave of nausea, settling against the wooden headboard. “How long have I been asleep?”
“For several hours.” Phelan moved off the bed to stir the fire in the hearth and pour me a cup of water. He brought it to me, and I took long, greedy drafts. “It’s about noon now, although the snow is making it difficult to tell time.”
I glanced out the window, struck by the haunting beauty of the snow as it fell. I watched its dance for a moment longer, until I raised my hand to feel the back of my head. There was a tender lump, hidden in my snarled hair.
“Who hurt you, Clem?” Phelan asked.
“It wasn’t the nightmare,” I replied. “Someone struck me.”
I didn’t tell him that I had been ascending to take the throne. Or that I had stepped over his mother’s prone form to do it.
I remembered the blur of wood and steel, just before impact. I hadn’t been struck by a spell, but by a shield. Something of the physical world. Had it been the duke? Or had it been someone like Mr. Wolfe?
My suspicions stirred. Whoever had rendered me unconscious didn’t want the curse to end; if they had, they would have taken the throne, instead of leaving it empty until the sun rose and the chair vanished along with Emrys, waiting for evening to reappear.
Phelan was quiet. His silence drew my eyes to him, and he studied me with a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re changing, Clem.”
“How do you mean?” My heart gave a nervous twitch, as if he sensed the shadows gathering within me. But he only sat on the edge of the bed and caressed my hair.
“There’s more auburn in your hair now. And your neck . . .” His fingers traced my throat. “The gill scars have returned.”
I swallowed and touched the sleek scars. “I saw my phantom strike you and my father down, and I thought you both were dead.”
Phelan’s hand drifted from me. “Not dead, but in a painful sleep. I don’t think I care to encounter your dream form again anytime soon.”
He was teasing me, but my face felt too stiff for a smile.
“Did you know that your mother wants to kill me, Phelan?”
“No, Clem. I swear that I didn’t know she wanted to see you dead. And even if I had known, if she had told me the full extent of her plans, I would have never revealed you to her.”
My thoughts hung on his words. Revealed you to her.
I looked at him, saw the crushed hope and anguish within his eyes. “But you told me to hold my act. You have held my secret as your own, playing this charade alongside me. So you must have come to realize that she planned me harm, or else it wouldn’t have mattered if I was Anna.”
He briefly covered his mouth with his hand as if deep in thought, but when he met my gaze once more, I saw that I had spoken truth.
“Clem . . .”
“Tell me the truth, Phelan,” I said. “I’m sick of people lying to me. And if you can’t be honest . . . you and I are done being partners.”
He drew a sharp breath. “Then let there be no more lies between us, Clem. I knew she wanted to keep tabs on you and your father after you left Hereswith. She told me to find you. I didn’t know why and I didn’t question her. But I should have. I didn’t know she wanted to harm you, not until she told me the entirety of her plans.”
“When you came home and trashed the library.”
“You’ll never let me forget it, will you?” he countered with a slight smile. But the mirth faded as he continued, “I couldn’t bear to see anything happen to you. Yes, I told you to hold the act, and I’ve been carrying it alongside you, because I don’t care for my mother’s plans.”
His voice held a tremor, one that made me think his heart was beating in his throat. He slid off the bed and sank to his knees.
“You told me to get on my knees before you and apologize,” he said. “This is me saying I’m sorry, for all that I have done to you, for all the heartache I have caused, for giving you no choice but to resort to the wildest of plans to ease the pain I wrought. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but this one thing I seek, so that I may remain near you.”
I must have stared at him for a long, excruciating moment, because he whispered my name. I shifted across the mattress, sitting on the edge of the bed before him, my feet touching the floor. I still was afraid to speak—even his name might break me—and I took his face in my hands.
Phelan’s arms came around me. “Tell me what you want me to do,” he said. “Tell me to leave, and I will.”
My fingers slid into his hair. “Stay,” I whispered.
He kissed the shine of scars on my neck. His fingers traced the curve of my back as he kissed my collarbones, down to where my heart pounded a stilted dance of flesh trying to break away from stone, and stone determined to hold fast.
Whatever came tonight, I hoped it ushered the end. For I didn’t know how much longer I could withstand this veneer.
“Why does your mother want to kill me?” I asked, to dampen the embers flaring between us.
Phelan leaned back so he could look up at me. His hands drifted to my hips, a warm, possessive touch. “You’re a threat to her.”