32. Dark Whispers

Chapter 32

Dark Whispers

LORI

A soft knocking sound wakes me. My eyes snap open, and I sit up on the unfamiliar bed, my spine straight as an arrow. By the spindle…

Sara creaks open the door. "Good morning, Lori. I've brought you some fresh clothes."

Blood gathers in my ears and cheeks, and I wonder if I look as guilty as I feel. Maybe it's for the best that Elio didn't spend the night in my bed, after all. I might have blurted out senseless apologies for accidentally dream-fucking his brother. A man I've never even met.

"Are you alright?" Sara asks as she lays down the clothes on the dresser.

Fuck no!

"Yes, of course. Morning," I say instead. The haze of the forbidden sex blazes inside my dumpster-fire brain, my pulse running off in spikes. "I had a terribly…sweaty night."

"You have time for a quick shower before I escort you back to Tundra."

"Tundra? I thought we were supposed to visit Glacier's Edge next?" I shoot out of bed, but the bedsheet gets caught around my leg, and I untangle myself from the knot of fabric with a wince.

"That's canceled." Sara doesn't elaborate and glares at me instead. "You're all red. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" I grab the clothes and cower inside the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me.

The hot shower burns off the leftover bite of shame I carried back into my body with me, and I scrub myself down vigorously. Even though I couldn't control or change anything, I still felt it all. The taste of him is still in my mouth, for Morpheus' sake!

I brush my teeth three times and join Sara back inside the bedroom. Since my mask is still safely tucked inside Seth's lockbox, I need a babysitter to travel through the sceawere, but Sara doesn't look in a hurry to leave.

"Mortals and foreigners aren't usually allowed inside the Ice City, so you shouldn't mention your visit," she explains.

My fists curl and uncurl at my sides, adrenaline still sharpening my senses. "Right."

"And the healing springs are a royal secret. Each basin's energy takes years to replenish, so we have to keep them private."

"My lips are sealed," I answer, but inside, I'm eons away, straddling two timelines. Two bodies. Two men.

I can't pretend this isn't happening anymore.

The starkness in Elio's eyes when I asked about Iris last night tied a knot in my belly, and the revelations from my vision only deepened my anguish. Yet, I can't bring myself to believe that Elio killed the woman he loved out of jealousy. There must be another explanation. If his brother Ezra is as wicked as he seems, perhaps he was the one who killed her.

"What is going on with you today?" Sara interrupts my reverie by placing a soft hand on my shoulder. She pauses for a second, perhaps searching for a polite way to describe my erratic behavior. "Did something happen last night?"

"Sara… How did Iris die?" I whisper.

I have to know. I can't go to sleep tonight in fear of reliving every moment of her death—or suffer through another extramarital tryst with her winged fuck boy.

The royal chief of staff tucks her silver hair behind her pointy ears without meeting my gaze. "I can't say. All the facts pertaining to the investigation are confidential?—"

"Was it Elio? Or his brother?"

Her face doesn't only fall at that, but becomes all shades of flustered. "His brother?" she squeaks.

"Ezra, the guy who was fucking Iris behind his back," I snap.

"How did you?—"

"I relived it, Sara. In a multi-sensorial and vivid technicolor vision." I wave my arms at the pile of twisted bedsheets. "So don't give me some bullshit answer about confidentiality or write me off because I'm just a foreigner?—"

She presses her lips together. "Has this kind of thing happened before?"

"Yes and no. I caught glimpses of Iris's past when I first arrived at court, but this was…all wrong." I suck in air. "So I'm done taking none of your business for an answer."

Up until last night, I'd mostly been treating the pageant as a simple exchange of services meant to save Ayaan, but I'm more involved than that now. Way more than I wish I was. No matter how deep I bury my head in the snow, that's not going away. And while I might have conflicting feelings about Elio and our magically engineered connection , it doesn't change the fact that me and his dead wife are most certainly linked somehow.

"I saw you, too. In the vision. You were a grim reaper," I murmur, unsure what Sara's reaction will be.

Blood drains from her features. "I was almost a reaper."

She sits at the foot of the bed, her white knuckles gripping the edge of the mattress. "Before the end of our training—before taking the eternal vows—we all get one soul to collect. At random. One chance to prove we can cut it. Some of us wait years to be called, and since I was the previous Winter King's daughter, Elio had allowed me to stay and live in my old room in the palace until the gods determined that it was my time to be tested." She screws her lids shut. "What else did you see?"

"I saw you talking with Iris. She was throwing a birthday party for her mother—I think. And you were wearing a blue dress with white ribbons."

She nods, like all of this is making sense to her.

"The very next day, my final trial came. I was called by the gods to collect none other than Iris's soul, but she had always despised me, and her opinion didn't change upon her death, so I failed. Spectacularly."

My eyes bulge. "That's…awful."

A small sniffle escapes her, her story coming in long, tortured rushes. "Many, many other awfu l things happened in the wake of her death. Elio was badly wounded—Iris's mother was wailing and Freya wanted to drill me full of arrows. The other guests only contributed to the general confusion. Iris's soul fled, and the Sun Court refused to do its damn job because of Ezra's sudden disappearance?—"

"Ezra disappeared the same day that Iris died?"

A tight grimace overpowers her features. "Yes. Never to be seen again."

Wow. That's a checkmark in the Ezra did it column.

"I've relived that day a thousand times in my head… It was all my fault, really." She nods to herself a few times.

That's odd. Is she saying she killed Iris?

"How is it your fault?" I finally ask.

She traces the golden embroideries at the corner of the wrinkled duvet. "That's not important."

A flash of iridescent wings tickles my memory. "Byron saw Iris and Ezra in the gardens the day before she died, didn't he?"

Her eyes widen. "Are you saying Iris knew I was the one who ratted her out?" she rasps, her voice brittle like I've just punched the air right out of her lungs.

I lick my lips and think about my answer. This is obviously of the utmost importance to Sara and has most likely haunted her for the better part of her life. "I'm not sure. She was otherwise occupied… I don't know if she connected the dots."

Sara wipes her tears and peels herself from the bed. "Anyway… What happened in the past usually stays there for a reason. Our priority should be to discover how you're able to see such things in the first place."

"I've thought about the possibility of reincarnation." I start, watching her face intently. "But reincarnated souls are more of a mortal belief, and even then, they're not supposed to share the same body as the one they had in a previous life. But if Iris's soul was never found?—"

"Let me stop you right there. Of the very few lost souls the Sun Court catchers haven't captured, only one in a million is powerful enough to achieve true immortality and take on a new body. And even those who manage it don't change their vessel's outward appearance. You're in the clear, Lori."

Despite her reassurances, I'm not convinced. Iris fled her reaper, and there must be a reason why her soul was never found.

Sara's brows form a line, her eyes wrinkled at the corners as a newfound determination replaces the sadness on her face. "After you showed up, I made inquiries, too. So far, Beth and I only waded through false leads, but this vision confirms that you have a real connection to Iris. The most logical answer would be that you're related to her."

If my visions made something clear, it's that Iris was able to lie.

"She could lie, so she had to be half-mortal. Do you know who her real father was?" I ask.

"No. Freya denied that she wasn't a full-blooded Fae, and her mother refused to answer any of my questions." She rubs her face down with her whole palm before pinching the bridge of her nose. "Your grandmother was a Spring Fae, was she not? What was her name?"

Names and magic go hand in hand, and sharing a family member's name—even after their death—is frowned upon, so I hesitate. "Yes, she was born in Amaria, on the coast of the Dark Sea. Her name was Riya Anisha Damore."

Sara salutes my confession with a gentle smile. "Thank you. I have just the idea on where to look next."