Chapter 34

ORINA

T he sea churned with the warning of a storm, the sky ominously dark and low above it. I gripped the railing and stared at it unflinching, my pulse a rabid beat in my veins because if I was back in my dream vista, then?—

“You’re safe,” Ezekiel said from behind me.

Relief washed over me like a sun-kissed wave. “You’re here.”

“Of course.” He held out his hands, and I take them, allowing him to draw me into the chamber we’d built together all those weeks ago. Purple and cream against dark wood created a cozy yet chic vibe. I loved this room. But… “Ezekiel, what happened to me? Why am I here? I’m hurt, aren’t I? Healing?”

“No, Orina. You’re not hurt, merely unconscious. You’ll wake any second, so we don’t have much time.”

“Much time? For what?”

He cupped my shoulders. “You lost your blessing. Do you recall?”

My cheeks warmed. “Yes I…I had to save Ordell…but how do you?—”

“Hemlock explained it. We understand what’s happened to you. You lost your blessing, which we think was helping you to control the darkness that Loviator placed inside you.”

The memory of entering the safe room came rushing back, along with the recollection of the rush of pure hatred that had gripped me when I’d clapped eyes on him. In that moment, I’d wanted him dead.

I covered my mouth with my hand, shaking my head, horror spawning dread in my belly.

“It’s all right,” Ezekiel said. “It will be all right.”

“How?” I stared up at him, panic a yawning chasm filling the deepest parts of me. “How can we break the curse if I can’t be with you without wanting to kill you? How can I feel love when all I’ll feel is hatred?” The curse…the bitch Loviator…she’d known exactly what she was doing when she’d added her sprinkling to my reborn soul all those centuries ago.

“We don’t have to be physically together to be together,” Ezekiel said. “We’re together now. We have something that we’ve never had before in any of your incarnations. This ability to create our own vista.”

“I thought…I thought you could dream walk into anyone’s mind.”

“Dream walking is different from a vista. This is a place we created from our collective consciousness. I’ve never been able to do it with anyone before.” He was alight with excitement and hope, and it was infectious. “Loviator can’t come between us this time. And out there, in the real world, any people working against us will think that we’ve failed. But we haven’t. We won’t.”

“You’re saying we can meet here? Be together here?”

He stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Every night when you sleep, you can follow the path to our vista, and I’ll find you here. We can build on this place, and I will court you.” He leaned in, his mouth inches from mine. “I’ve missed you, little silver.”

He kissed my bottom lip, then my top one before claiming my mouth as if it was a succulent peach, and oh God, he tasted like honeycomb. His thumb grazed my jaw as his fingers sank into my hair, and I was lost in him. In the rasp of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth as he breathed for me and I for him and?—

My eyes popped open on an inhalation to find Hemlock hovering over me in the gloom. The clatter of wheels, the sway of the carriage?—

“No!” I sat up. “Ezekiel…”

“Is fine,” Hemlock said. “He spoke with you?”

“Yes but…” I shoved the carriage drapes aside to peer out at the road. The road to New Town. Tears clouded my vision. “I didn’t get to say goodbye…”

“You can find him when you sleep,” Hemlock said. “You’ll stay with Kaster, out of Old Town for now.”

As far away from Ezekiel as they could get me. I hated it. “I understand.”

He sat back in his seat with a heavy sigh. “Think of it as a long-distance relationship. People fall in love like that all the time.” His gaze was probing, and the question in his eyes was clear.

He wanted to know how long it would take for me to fall in love. How long to break the curse. “It creeps up on you, I think. From what I know…from what I’ve heard.”

“You’ve never?—”

“No. No, I haven’t. It wasn’t really an option so…But I want to. Now that I can.” I touched my arm. “Love can be a blessing too, right?”

“Yes, I suppose it can.”

“Then I’ll allow it to have me. To creep up on me and claim me.”

And that was all we could do.