Chapter Twelve WITCHING MOON

Chapter Twelve

WITCHING MOON

Week Two, Day Three

Year 3000

Sachi lay between her lovers, wide awake and thinking. Ash's arm was slung across her midsection, and Zanya's leg over both of hers, as if they could protect her even in sleep. Even in dreams.

Her throat ached. So did her eyes, though they were red and sore from the smoke and from crying, not from screaming. Everything still smelled and tasted of charred wood and thatch, and she hated it. That destructive fire had made a mockery of the warmth of Ash's nurturing, protective flame, and no amount of wine had been able to wash it all away.

The drink had also done little to calm her racing thoughts. Why did she feel responsible for the brutality visited on that village? Everyone knew she wasn't really Princess Sachielle of House Roquebarre; she was an orphan, a nameless nobody. An impostor. This wasn't her family. These weren't her atrocities.

But a tiny, persistent voice in the back of her head called her a liar. Dalvish had not been her family, and neither had his wife or siblings. But they couldn't very well maintain that Sachielle was their daughter and heir without having her live with them as a member of their household. So Sachi had spent years playing older sister to tiny little Anikke.

In that way, sometimes lies could become real. Anikke was born after Sachi had already been installed at court, and no one who had known the truth had been foolish enough to share it with the child. So she had believed, with all her young heart, that Sachi was her beloved sister.

Did that not make it so? What was a family if you could not build one out of love as surely as you could out of blood? If Anikke was not truly her sister, then she was, at the very least, the closest thing Sachi had ever known.

Which made discovering the depth of her involvement in these military actions more than a matter of practicality. It made it a matter of Sachi's heart. It would shatter into a million pieces if she learned that Anikke had ordered the troops to march on Emmonsdale. To murder its citizens.

But it would also shatter if she were to find out that she'd left a helpless, defenseless, innocent girl alone to fend for herself in that pit of vipers.

So Sachi had to try, but how? Should she attempt to reach Anikke through her dreams? On the one hand, it could yield the information she sought. On the other, it could alert Anikke that not everything was as it truly seemed with her wayward supposed older sister.

No, the risk was worth it. It had to be. It was Sachi's best chance not only to assess the situation—and Anikke's role in it—but to gather intelligence beyond what the Phoenix might know. Sachi could materially contribute to the war effort for once.

After all, people said things in dreams that they would never say aloud to another soul.

And if she planned to seek out Anikke in her dreams, now was the time. The queen might not even be suspicious of such a thing if followed closely by Sachi's arrival in the capital. The Mortal Lords were said to possess magic. That was the very thing that demonstrated their divine right to rule, wasn't it? Any proper royal might expect to have prophetic dreams.

Her course decided, Sachi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Ash stirred beside her, and she stroked the back of his arm until he fell still once more. Then she slipped away, into the Dream.

This time, her journey began in darkness instead of the open white expanse she'd come to expect. She took tentative steps forward until plastered walls with gray stone peeking through materialized in front of her.

Castle Roquebarre.

She knew this hallway. It was near the kitchens and the back stairs, the ones where she had often lingered when she hoped to catch a glimpse of Zanya. Sachi dragged her fingers over the stone, skipping over the heavy tapestries that decorated the walls, approximating windows where none existed.

She had to get to Anikke. So she hurried to the stairs, a stone set carved in a spiral, and began to climb.

What would she say? Sachi considered it as she mounted step after step in a dizzying circle. The truth was too harsh for a setting like this, as likely to drive the girl from sleep in startled fear as to convince her.

Sachi passed a landing and nearly stumbled. This floor did not house family or servants, but ...

Nikkon. She stared at the hall, with its deep-black carpet and golden wallpaper. This entire wing had been his, and he'd relished its privacy and convenience. It placed him close to Sachi's chamber, and he could come and go as he pleased, with only the servants the wiser, and everyone knew they didn't matter—

It had served him well, this little pocket of the castle.

She kept climbing, but her traitorous feet refused to carry her away from the black carpet. It began to spread, oozing onto the pale gray of the stone, and Sachi jerked away—

She turned, and found herself in a cavernous hall filled with golden light and glass everywhere . There weren't just windows, but entire curving walls comprised of clear and colored glass, floor to ceiling. The effect was as striking as it was disarming, and Sachi spun in a dizzy circle, trying to take it all in.

Then she saw him . The Betrayer.

She almost didn't recognize him as the same man from her vision. He was dressed in court clothes, velvet and linen and leather, all in the finest and most vivid shades of green. His head lolled against the wood as he drowsed on his gilded throne, and he looked ... young . Completely different with his skin not slicked with blood and swollen from Ash's fists.

This was the lurking enemy, the monster of all their nightmares? He looked so normal that Sachi had taken several steps toward him before she caught herself and froze.

Everyone at Dalvish's court had looked normal, too. Beautiful, even when their hearts were harder and blacker than coal.

What do I do? Make contact? She'd never seen anyone sleeping within a dream before, and she had no idea what would happen if she tried to shake him awake. Would he become aware but remain within his dream state, or would the interruption thrust him, entirely and unceremoniously, from sleep?

In the end, she crept forward, because she couldn't bear to squander the chance to ask him why .

Between one step and the next, his eyes flew open. Even at a distance, their hazel depths sparked with color—golden honey one moment, then the sharpest green.

Sachi stopped again, her chest heaving. Even when she walked in Zanya's dreams, there was a slightly unfocused quality to her lover's gaze that spoke of fleeting images and the blurry, changeable nature of sleep. The Betrayer, on the other hand, looked directly at her. No, through her, as if he could perceive her on a level deeper than sight alone.

Something was not right.

She blinked, and the Betrayer was there , standing in front of her, his strong hands closing tight around her arms. His beautiful mouth curled into the smile of a true believer faced with their destiny.

"I knew you'd come to me."

For a moment, everything went white, and all that existed was the punishing hold on her upper arms. Sachi struggled until that, too, disappeared in a whirling rush that stole the scream from her throat.

She dropped through nothingness and emerged in a huge bed, tangled in the covers ... with the Betrayer, now dressed in his nightclothes, still gripping her arms.

And she was wide, wide awake.

"No," she gasped.

The Betrayer rolled from the bed. Sachi was still struggling her way free of the blankets when he returned with a small silver cylinder in one hand. He gripped her chin with the other and stared down at her, determination warring with false regret in his cool gaze.

"I'm sorry we have to start this way," he murmured. She slapped at his hands as he pressed the cylinder against her neck, but he was far too strong to fight. "You'll understand in time."

Sachi felt a sharp sting. Moments later, her vision began to blur, and everything got heavy, so heavy ...

She fell back against the pillows. "Where ...?"

"You're in my home, of course."

Panic surged through Sachi, but her body refused to react to it. Her mind screamed to fight, to run, but the darkness was upon her. And Sachi knew there was no fighting it.

A thumb stroked her cheek. "My Empress."

Sachi tried to turn her head, but the darkness won. It always did.