Chapter 98 AURORA

I didn’t think I would sleep. Even if I could, I knew it would only be for a few minutes. But having Dane so close, touching so much of his skin with mine, it brought me a level of comfort I didn’t even know was possible, and I was so exhausted. I sank into the depths of unconsciousness like a rock and didn’t resurface.

“We have to get it back! That land is ours!”

In the dream, Esther Reed was shouting at her husband. I cowered in front of them. They weren’t yelling at me. Instead, they were yelling about me. I was just there in the same room, like a table or a lamp they were arguing over.

“The girl has a purpose,” Waylon growled at his wife. “We’ll send Selene.”

“No, you damn well won’t!” Esther shouted. “Not my sweet girl. Besides, she’s barely got any meat on her bones. That Montague boy will snap her in half. You know what Connall stole from us, what runs in that family’s blood. Ann can take it.”

In the dream, I wanted to rise and say, yes, I could. I’d do anything to serve the cause. I knew the Reeds were terrible to me, but it was only to make me worthy in the eyes of the one we served. After all, I had tainted, disgusting moon bitch blood in me. That had to be beaten and burned and starved out. That’s what it demanded.

All I’d wanted my entire life was to be purged so I could better serve. Maybe then, my parents would love me. Maybe then, the beatings would stop.

Just then, something dark entered the room. In the dream, I was too afraid to look at it. I just knew the lights dropped and the temperature plummeted. All of a sudden, I could see my breath misting out in front of my face.

Send the Silver One, rumbled a voice that I didn’t hear so much as feel in my mind and in my chest.

I had rarely been in the room with the entity the Reeds called, simply, “the Messenger,” and it made me feel awful, like I was breaking into a fever and about to throw up. But also, emotional things, like I would never see the sun or laugh again.

This is part of her purpose, it continued in its terrible, teeth-grinding way of speaking. This is what you have been forging her for, like weak metal purified by flame. She is our weapon, hidden in plain sight. The blood of the bitch and the blood of the guardian will…

Silver flashed, taking over my vision. I screamed. For a moment, there was a terrible cold heat, like moonfire burning away everything in my veins.

Then it faded, and so did the fear.

I felt…cradled, held, as if in a loving mother’s arms. A feeling I had only ever touched in dreams, like a wisp of a fragment of an ancient memory.

A new voice whispered in my ear. It was so faint, at first it sounded like someone impossibly far away.

Then I heard the whisper again, and realized it wasn’t far. It was close by, right next to my ear, but so quiet that even that close, I could barely make it out.

Aurora…mine…forget…

The silver light faded, but I didn’t return to the dark room from the first part of the dream. Instead, I was suspended in a silver-black sky salted with million upon million diamond stars.

I inhaled a shaking breath, and even though it looked like I was suspended in space, there was air. It smelled sweet as a summer but cleared my mind like a breath of cold air on a crystal winter night.

I stretched out my hands, tried to move. I could twist around, but I couldn’t move up or down.

If I was being honest, I wasn’t even sure which direction up or down was, with nothing around me but a vast and endless ocean of stars.

“What’s happening to me?” I called. “Who are you?”

Aurora…mine…take…back…

The scar on my inner forearm burned.

You dream too close to it, the new voice said, a little clearer, a little stronger. Do not go sweetly into the dark. Do not believe…

Cursed…

Cursed?

Inside me, a war raged: shadows and moonfire. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what to believe.

Words from the conversation I’d overheard echoed back to me: You know what Connall stole from us. What runs in that family’s blood.

And then…

Send the Silver One. This is part of her purpose. This is what you have been forging her for, like weak metal purified by flame. She is our weapon, hidden in plain sight.

What was in Dane’s blood?

What the hell was in mine?

Fear grew around me. The silvery night full of stars faded, and I plummeted suddenly into blackness.

“No!” came the kind voice. And then, so faded I could barely hear, it said, Aurora, until you end the curse, even I cannot save you…

I shot awake with a gasp. “Cursed!” I shouted.

Dane was already up, propped on an elbow, staring at me with horror on my face. He was looking at my chest, where my scar from the shadow monster was.

I looked down.

My scar burned and throbbed, sending a wrenching pain through my chest with every beat of my heart.

It also glowed with a hideous, bruised purple light, a light that was spreading. Not just in my body, but that reached out like smoke.

Like it wanted to infect Dane.