Chapter Fifteen WITCHING MOON

Chapter Fifteen

WITCHING MOON

Week Two, Day Four

Year 3000

Zanya floated in darkness.

"Where are you?" she whispered, extending her hands to her sides. There was no sense of movement, no way to walk through nothingness , but she still searched. She hunted the presence she'd felt once before, on the night she'd first manifested.

Herself. But . . . more.

Instead, she found darkness, then more darkness. Shadows caressed her as she reached out. Pleading. Calling. Demanding.

Screaming.

That other Zanya had helped her before. She'd told her how to break a curse, how to travel, how to unmake death itself. Surely the Void had the power to bring her to Sachi, no matter what lay in her path.

"Tell me!" Zanya was already growing hoarse. "Face me and tell me how to save her !"

"I told you last time," an irritated voice snapped behind her. Zanya whirled and saw the shadow version of herself standing there, arms crossed as if utterly exasperated. "I am you. I was always you."

"But you're the Void," Zanya protested.

"Yes," came the terse response. "And so are you."

"But you know things!" Zanya threw up her hands. "You taught me! I need you to keep teaching me!"

"You don't want me to," her shadow retorted. "Because I can only tell you what your instincts already know. And right now? You're shouting at me so you won't have to hear them."

It made no sense. If Zanya had any idea how to reach Sachi, she'd already have done it. "Is it something with the shadows? Or with Terrors? Could a Terror cut through whatever is stopping me?"

A sigh. "I don't know. I doubt it. You already know what you ran into."

Zanya looked down at her arms, and suddenly the glowing lines appeared, crisscrossing her body as if someone had laid a glittering web across her. But the web burned, its essence eating into her. Because it was the opposite of shadows. It was—"The Dream?"

"Pieces of it, yes." Her double's face twisted. "A perversion of how it should be used. But as long as it's woven into a barrier and a weapon, you can't pass from the Void there. It drapes across the place where the Dream and the Void touch the world like a trap."

"Then what am I supposed to know? What are my instincts telling me?"

The shadow version of Zanya reached up with strong fingers tipped with sharp black nails and cupped her face. "That the only person who could have stolen Sachi away is the Betrayer. And that you aren't meant to rescue her at all."

"No!" Zanya knocked the hands from her face and spun, rage and fear colliding with a force that made her glad she had no physical body here. Surely you couldn't be this angry and this scared and still survive .

"I told you I had nothing to say that you would want to hear," her alter ego said, already backing away. "But you know, Zanya. The two of you were born with the power to stop a god for a reason. You were simply sent to kill the wrong one."

Oh gods, no. No. They were meant to slay a god together . And no matter what Sachi might have planned, Zanya had always known the killing blow must fall on her shoulders. Sachi's heart was too soft for murder.

"Could you get close enough to kill him?" her own voice taunted from the shadows, hateful as it cut her rationalizations out from under her. "Could you fool him? Navigate his court? Sit at his table and smile while you plotted his downfall?"

No. No, she couldn't do any of those things.

An improbably light breeze whispered through the Void, carrying the scent of soft rain and Witchwood roses and sunlight.

Zanya's shadow-wreathed double stared at her, dark challenge in those achingly familiar eyes. "Can you trust Sachi to be everything that she is?"

If she didn't, was she any better than those soldiers who had tried to diminish her? Who had beaten her and hurt her and tried to drive her to her knees? The weapons Zanya wielded against Sachi had been different, of course—obsessive protectiveness. Love. Using her own heart as a hostage against Sachi's tendency toward self-sacrifice. But did it even matter if her intentions had been good?

Had she been so fixated on making Sachi safe that she'd also made her small ?

The breeze wrapped around her, soft and caressing, whispering her name in Sachi's voice. Zanya's double smiled. "She's calling you."

The Void shattered.

Soft fingers touched her cheek, and Zanya leaned into them as the shards of darkness melted away, revealing their cozy little seaside cave with colorful blankets and bright candles—and Sachi, watching her anxiously.

"Wait for me," Sachi whispered. "I'm going to find Ash, as well."

Sachi drifted away, a sense of loss more than distance, before returning with a disoriented Ash in tow. He stumbled to his knees in the darkness of their little cave, his gaze flying around. "Where are we? Is this your hideout by the capital? Did Zanya find you?"

"It's a dream, my love." Sachi's nightdress drifted up around her as if submerged in water as she grasped both of Ash's hands. "Just a dream for now."

The sand beneath Zanya's feet felt as insubstantial as mist. She tried to step closer, but she couldn't move. This was nothing like the secret dream worlds Sachi used to build for them, and the implications terrified her. "What happened? Where are you?" Please don't say—

"In the heart of the Empire."

Zanya's stomach dropped, but it was Ash's snarl that almost shattered the dream. "I knew it. I knew it was him."

"Ash." Zanya reached for him, and at least he was solid. Her fingers found hot flesh, and she gripped his arm in warning. "Let her finish."

Sachi bit her lip. "I was walking the Dream, trying to reach Anikke ... but I found the Betrayer instead." Her hair floated around her face as she shook her head. "I don't know yet how he did it, but he physically pulled me from the Dream."

"Sachi." Ash's expression was stricken. "Has he hurt you?"

She soothed him with a soft smile. "I'm fine, Ash."

There was something about her voice. The way she wasn't meeting Zanya's eyes, or even looking at her. Because Ash could be distracted with smiles and petting, but Zanya ...

Zanya knew her. "Come back. If you felt him pull you through, then you can do it. It sounds like the same thing I do when I travel through the Void. You just need to concentrate."

"You're probably right. My expert in unorthodox travel." Sachi looked away, then finally met Zanya's gaze squarely. "But I can't stay here."

"Because you're staying with him," Zanya challenged, begging Sachi to disagree. To laugh or look shocked, the way Ash did.

But she didn't. "I gave my word. I swore I wouldn't try to escape."

"Your word ?" Ash's roar blew Sachi's hair back. "He's the fucking Betrayer . No word is sacred to him."

"But it is to me ." A sudden warm breeze blew through the cave, and Sachi was standing only inches from Zanya. "He wants me to be his Empress. Think of what I could do with this, Zan. I have to make the most of it. Anything else would be criminal."

Odd. That breeze had turned the blood in Zanya's veins to ice. She stared into the familiar blue eyes she loved so much, and she knew there was no point in fighting. Sachi had found a wrong she was determined to right, and she would willingly and eagerly smash her own body and bones to dust if that was what the mission took.

She'd be smashing Zanya's and Ash's hearts into nothing at the same time, but she'd never see it that way. She had always underestimated her value to others. She'd plunged a knife into her own heart, under the delusional belief that Zanya's life could simply ... go on without her.

Then again, if Zanya hadn't fought her every step of the way, maybe the curse wouldn't have come down to knives in the heart and battles to the death. Zanya's inability to trust had nearly brought them all to ruin. Maybe, this time, she had to trust Sachi to fight on the battleground for which she'd been trained.

Maybe she had to stop making Sachi small.

"Look at Zanya," Ash growled from behind them. "Do you know what this will do to her? To me ?"

"Yes," Sachi whispered, the word seeming to echo even in the scant space between them. "I know."

Ash loomed beside them, fire and rage and the ghostly echo of dragon's wings flaring out behind him as if in dreamlike memory. "You can't, or you wouldn't be asking this of us."

Zanya lifted a hand to cup Sachi's cheek. "She knows."

Sachi grasped Zanya's hand and held it as she turned toward Ash. "I've watched the two of you ride off to battle. I've watched, and I've stayed behind, even though I wanted—no, needed —to come with you. No matter how much it hurt, I stayed behind because those weren't my fights. This one is ."

"No." Ash's expression was pure denial. "Come back to me, Sachi. We'll fight him together, but I cannot lose you."

If the pain in his voice was shredding Zanya's heart, Sachi must be bleeding inside. But her expression was resolute.

"I have to do this, Ash." Her tone was equally decided. "He thinks that he knows me, that he can woo me, but he has no idea. You do. At least ..." She swallowed hard. "I hope you do."

She'd rendered the Dragon speechless. Very well, Zanya would finish this dance. "Do what you must, Sachi." She used their hands on Sachi's cheek to pull her close. "But as soon as the Phoenix says the word, we will come for you."

"I'm counting on it." She closed the last of the distance between them and kissed Zanya, hard . "And when you do, we'll tear down his precious Empire."

"To the bedrock," Zanya promised.

That shattered Ash's silence. "You're going to let her do this, Zanya?"

Let. She almost pitied Ash, though the look she fixed on Sachi was chiding. "You really do have him fooled. I hope you're just a little ashamed of yourself."

"I am, but not for the reasons you imagine." Sachi finally went to Ash then, cupped his face between her hands and made him look at her. "You said I was the one from the prophecy, the one who can break the Builder's chains. Do you believe that?"

The what ?

Ash covered Sachi's hands with his. His chest heaved. "He can chain the whole fucking world for all I care. I just want you safe."

"Liar." She kissed him gently, her lips lingering on his. "You have to believe in me, Ash. Give me just a handful of days. If I'm meant to break those chains, this might be exactly where I'm supposed to be."

"Sachi ..." His arms wrapped around her as if he could hold her to him. "Be careful. I love you."

"I love you, too. You and Zanya both." She slipped out of his arms, through them, as if she'd become no more substantial than the mist shrouding the confines of the cave. "Take care of each other. Promise me."

Zanya opened her mouth to whisper the words, but Sachi vanished and the dream space fractured. She couldn't see Ash anymore. The sand beneath her feet was wet and gritty. Waves crashed outside of the cave.

A dragon roared overhead, loud enough to shatter the world.

The ground disappeared. Zanya fell, tumbling through shards of her own nightmares. Only that roar was constant, growing louder and angrier until even the slender fragments of shattered dreams trembled around her like leaves in a storm.

Zanya crashed into a shadow-strewn bed, so disoriented that an attempt to scramble to her knees sent her careening over the edge. Her back hit thick carpet over harsh stone, and that furious roar was in the real world, too. A dragon's keening cry of rage and denial, loud enough to shake the mountains.

With panic pounding through her and the only light coming from a bedside candle, it took Zanya a moment to recognize the consort's suite. Someone must have tucked her in to rest here after her thwarted attempt to rescue Sachi. They'd also dressed her in one of the thin, delicate shifts Camlia had ordered made for her. They mimicked the designs of Sachi's, but in midnight blues and glossy blacks, with barely there straps on the shoulders and lace fluttering at the hem where it brushed midthigh.

Zanya disliked how exposed she felt in them, so she rarely wore them. Now, staring at the thin white scars crisscrossing every inch of bared skin, she imagined it had been easier to care for her injuries in something like this.

Whatever had been done, the wounds had all but healed. She flexed her arms as she rose and felt nothing but strength. Only the ghostly memory of hitting something as flimsy as spiderwebs but strong as steel lingered—some protection woven around Sachi's prison. A protection that had to be rooted in the power of the Dream, twisted as it was, since Sachi had just walked blithely through it.

But not to return to them. No, not that. Sachi had walked straight back into her prison. And now Zanya would have to deal with the Dragon.

His betrayed shock still rattled the castle. Zanya could sense him coming closer, a wave of furious power that instinct demanded she meet on her feet. There was plenty of room to maneuver at the foot of Sachi's bed, and if she faced the door that opened onto the bridge to Ash's tower, it put easy escape routes at her back and side.

Even unarmed, clad in this ridiculous scrap of silk, she wasn't afraid. She was on solid ground, facing Sachi's latest stunt in a string of them going back to their shared childhood. Ash was the one out of his element now, a beast roaring at the surprised realization that being the biggest predator or a scary dragon or even a god didn't mean you could keep your precious mate safe.

Not when you loved someone with Sachi's impossible courage.

The doors to the consort's bedroom slammed open with a force that shattered their delicate glass windows. The Dragon swept in, clad in nothing but pants he'd clearly just shoved his legs into. The pulse of his rage was enough to cow any reasonable person. His hands formed fists at his sides as he stopped a dozen paces in front of Zanya, hurt and betrayal naked in his eyes.

"You didn't even fight her!" he roared.

"There wasn't any point," Zanya told him. "She'd made up her mind."

"She'd made up her—" His chest heaved. A curse escaped his lips as his gaze darted around the room, as if looking for something he could smash to vent his anger. "You were supposed to convince her."

"Was I?" Zanya took one step forward, letting her own anger slip free. "Then tell me something. What prophecy was she talking about?"

Ash froze.

Another step. Zanya hadn't realized how angry she was until she saw the tiny hints of guilt—his tightened jaw, the lines bracketing his eyes. He knew , gods damn him. "Is there a prophecy about her?" She bit off each word, as if faking calm might force its reality. "One you never bothered to mention to me in all this time?"

"Zanya—"

"Tell me."

He took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes as he recited, "The Dragon's consort will break the Builder's chains, and the people will dream again."

It was Zanya's turn to close her eyes. She covered her face with her hands as she let the words sink in and tasted a terror she hadn't known possible. Because until a few weeks ago, Zanya had never really believed there was a future for her, just a mission she'd die to finish. Her happy ending would have been knowing that Sachi would live on.

Now, she had tasted hope. She'd taken that first terrifying step into trying to imagine a life where she and Sachi thrived. And this fool had told Sachi that it was her destiny to single-handedly save the entire world from the Betrayer.

Zanya flung her hands down and let out a frustrated scream. Ash stumbled back a step, and she struggled not to close that distance and lash out. But she couldn't stop the words. "What is wrong with you? You've lived with her. You've talked to her. You had her every emotion in your head for as long as that bond lasted. Do you not know her at all ?"

Ash's hands formed fists. "I didn't think she'd do something like this. Who would walk out of their greatest enemy's cage and then just ... walk back into it?"

"If she thinks she can save all of his victims? Save us? Sachi. " Zanya had never wanted so desperately to break something. A glass. A chair. A wall. Ash's stone-thick skull.

But kicking him now felt like kicking a puppy. He might be an ancient god with millennia of experience, but she felt an improbable prick of pity. For the first time in her life, perhaps, she wanted to shake Sachi for the selfishness wrapped inside her selflessness. She was always so quick to sacrifice herself, to step into the path of danger ... and she gave so little thought to the hearts she left broken in her wake.

Zanya caught her temper in a tight grip. "This is who she is, Ash. She's the girl who steps in front of another child to take their beating. She's the woman who stabs a knife into her own heart to stop the people she loves from fighting."

Ash looked like a shattered man. Zanya sighed and tried to gentle her voice. "Maybe you couldn't have known. At first, she showed you the parts of herself that were safe and useful for the mission. Her sweetness. Her joy. Her love. Even her surrender. Those are all real, and they're all true."

Zanya stepped closer and stroked her thumb over his lips, the same way she'd seen Ash do to Sachi a thousand times. And Sachi would dimple, and smile, and part her lips and invite him to push that thumb deeper. She'd lick and she'd taste and she'd conjure the vision of her on her knees, lips parted in sweet submission, already eager for the masterful thrust of his cock.

Had he not realized yet where she'd learned those skills? Why she was so good at it?

"She seduced you," Zanya whispered. "And she enjoyed it. She loves the way you fuck her, there's no deception in that. But you see her on her knees, all sweet and yielding, and you don't realize that is her battleground. Seduction is her war. And she was trained every bit as thoroughly for hers as I was for mine."

Oh, she thought he'd been angry before. But the rage in his eyes now burned their soft-brown depths into embers. "I knew they had hurt her," he rasped, the words barely human. "That they hurt both of you."

Hurt was too small a word for what had been done to the pair of them. Snatched away as orphans, forced into brutal training as small children. The pain had been simple and straightforward for Zanya—beatings meant to toughen her, training meant to hone her ability to commit violence. But Sachi ...

"They made us into weapons," Zanya corrected. Then she gripped Ash's face and forced him to meet her eyes. "And whatever you're thinking? It was probably worse. The High Priest would drug her, you know. Aphrodisiacs. Sedatives. Potions of war, meant to confuse the senses. To provoke hallucinations. To elicit truth. He tortured her mind so she would build the defenses necessary to lie to you even after you bonded her. Everything they did to my body, Nikkon did to her heart and soul."

"I'll kill them," Ash snarled, missing the point entirely. And as sweet as that protective rage was—as much as Zanya thrilled not to be alone in it anymore—it wouldn't do them any good now.

And he'd forgotten who he was dealing with.

The soft hand at his cheek became a vise as she gripped his chin in warning. He wasn't that much taller than she was, but she still dragged his face down so they were on eye level. "You still don't understand," she hissed. "She is not a helpless damsel."

He went rock still, the only movement the rise of his chest with his unsteady breaths, and the fire that danced in his wild eyes. Zanya held him there, not easing her grip. "They made us into weapons," she whispered. "The Betrayer thinks he kidnapped your consort, but he has no idea what he's brought into his home. She might get on her knees for you, but he'll be lucky if she doesn't bring his entire Empire to its knees before she's done with him."

Ash broke free of her grip with a snarl, only to snatch her wrist. The pointless little strap of the ridiculous chemise left her arm bare—and her newly won scars on display. "Don't pretend you're fine with this," he rumbled, rubbing his thumb over one of them. "You almost killed yourself trying to get to her. You almost killed me making me watch it."

Zanya shuddered, not wanting to remember that first moment when she'd awoken to sudden nothingness where there had been light, with the taste of Sachi's fear somehow bright and hot on her tongue. She'd flung herself into the Void on instinct, struggling to reach for that familiar presence. And she'd been there—just out of reach—

And terrified .

"That was different," Zanya muttered, jerking her arm from his grip. "I didn't know where she was. I didn't know if she was hurt or dying."

"And your instinct was to fight to get to her." Ash caught her wrist again. The thumb that touched the scar was gentler this time. "I understand the urge."

"Well, maybe it's the wrong urge." Zanya swallowed guilt and stared up at him. "We told her that we believe she's the Everlasting Dream, an elemental force of nature. And then we made her hide in a castle, because we're selfish and possessive and terrified of losing her."

"Zanya—"

She shook her head. "She doubted herself, and we made it worse. Whether we meant to or not, we made it worse. Think about it, Ash. Isn't that the basis of our whole world? That believing something can make it real, especially if you have the power of the Everlasting Dream behind you?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But—"

"She is the Dream," Zanya interrupted. "How powerful must her doubts be? Is it any wonder she feels driven to prove herself?"

"Alone."

"For now." Zanya covered his hand with hers. "I didn't fight her, because I know that look, Ash. I know when she's made up her mind. Nothing we could have said would have swayed her. And it's not because she made a promise to the Betrayer. It's because she's sure she's doing the right thing."

His voice dropped to a rough whisper. "Is she?"

The impossible question. Zanya had never been able to look past the panic that filled her when she thought of losing Sachi before. But perhaps that had been a disservice. "Maybe. You don't understand. This is what she trained for—to infiltrate the court of a god and bring him down from the inside."

She had hoped to alleviate his fears. If anything, he looked more haunted. "But I was never going to hurt her."

"We didn't know that," Zanya reminded him in a whisper. "And believe me, she's been trained to compensate."

He shuddered, and she almost regretted telling him. "How did you survive it?" he growled. "Thinking that I might hurt her? Watching me take her to bed?"

Zanya's heart beat faster. With a gentle tug, she freed her hand and rubbed at her wrist. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Mostly, I imagined killing you."

His huff sounded almost like laughter. "That was no secret. It was in your eyes."

"You don't understand." Zanya turned her back on him, unable to stare into those gentle brown eyes while she conjured her darkest memories—not that the view of the consort's empty bed helped. She swallowed around shards of glass. "I was probably ten years old the first time High Priest Nikkon came to me and told me that one day, the Dragon would take Sachi away from me. That you were a monster who liked to hurt princesses, and that you would carry her off to your tower and torture her for days before you burned the flesh from her bones and devoured them."

His voice came from behind her, painfully gentle. "He trained you to fear me."

"He trained me to hate you." The sight of their bed sitting there without Sachi in it hurt too much, so she closed her eyes. "I was hardly sheltered at ten, but he kept the details sparse. By the time I was sixteen, though, his bedtime stories had become quite graphic. He put nightmares in my head that I still can't escape."

"And you called yourself a coward for not wanting to be vulnerable with me?"

The words were so close to her ear, she flinched. And she did feel vulnerable—off-balance, caught between grief and rage, between the present and the past. And alone. So terribly alone. All of her life, even when they'd kept Sachi from her, Zanya had known where she was .

There was no Sachi to run to now. No other half of her heart.

No home.

She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she could hold the weakness in. "Sachi went through worse," she said hoarsely. "And she didn't fear you."

"Sachi—"

"Worse," she repeated, putting force behind the words as she spun to face him. "They trained me to hate you, but they trained her to seduce you. And that's a weapon she might have to use, Ash. Do you understand?"

His chest heaved, and she saw the horror in his eyes. The rejection. "No. She can't."

"She may not have a choice," Zanya said roughly. "And if you judge her for it—"

The shock that flared in his eyes eased that fear, at least. "How can you think that I would do that?"

"You'd be surprised." She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. "The people who made us never let us forget how deeply they judged us for being what we are. A murderer and a whore."

For long heartbeats, he simply breathed. But the floor trembled beneath them, and the candles flared higher, as if he struggled against impossible rage. "More and more," he ground out finally, "I see little reason not to fly to the capital and raze that palace to dirt."

From the god who had calmly lectured her against using disproportionate force against mortals, it was a profound statement. Ash would never allow himself to actually do it, but the desire on his face was real. And the protectiveness surging beneath it sparked a tiny bit of warmth that fought the chill of loneliness.

"You should leave the castle standing," she said, forcing a light tone, "because more servants live there than nobles anyway. And they did nothing wrong. But if you expect me to discourage you from murdering the rest of them ..."

He flexed his fingers, and she thought she saw claws shimmer at the tips of his fingers. But then they were gone, and he sighed. "I trust in Sachi's mind and heart, but if I knew where she was, I'd already be on my way to reclaim her."

He spoke the words like a confession. Like they were his vulnerability, one he was offering to her in this quiet moment of shared loss and painful intimacy. So she whispered her own confession back.

"So would I."

Ash reached out, but he didn't touch her face. His fingers found a lock of disheveled hair and freed it from the strap on her chemise. "The Phoenix will find a path to her. I believe in them."

Zanya was glad one of them did. "Soon?"

"I have to believe so."

Delusion or faith? There was such a fine line between the two, and Zanya had never been able to tell the difference. Sachi had a kind of faith that humbled even gods, but Zanya believed in only one thing.

One person .

Or maybe ... maybe two people. Because she might not trust in the Phoenix, but she had no doubt that Ash would burn the world if necessary to reclaim his consort. "Okay. I'll try to believe, too."

He smiled, as if he understood how much that took. But his gaze drifted over her shoulder, to the rumpled, empty bed, and that smile faded. "I've never been this helpless before."

"It's not something you grow used to." The glass was back in her throat. She couldn't stand the idea of facing that empty bed. How many nights could a god go without sleep? But if she didn't sleep, Sachi wouldn't be able to find her in dreams if she needed her ... "All we can do is keep busy."

"Doing what?"

Zanya flexed her fingers and choked back tears. Swallowing them hurt, but she'd had practice. A lifetime of it.

She'd also had a lifetime of keeping busy while Sachi faced peril she couldn't stop. "You can do whatever you want. I'm going to train with Ulric and Elevia. When the time comes to go to the Empire, I have to be ready."

Because Sachi might have been trained to infiltrate a god's court, but Zanya had always been meant to strike the killing blow.

Zanya would destroy the Betrayer. And if it broke the world ...

So be it.