Page 30 of Somnium

“You aren’t the only one who learned that the hard way,” he said, softly. “Most people who flock to the Order aren’t bad, they just want to belong to something, and that’s what Oneirios preys on. There are some though, like Damon, who sour everything with their sense of entitlement. They’re drawn in by the promise of more and will do anything to get what they think they deserve. But everything Oneirios gives has a price.”

The gentleness in his features vanished, shadowed by the weight of something old and lingering. The questions and curiosities that had been building in Cadi’s mind since the moment she learned who Elias was began bubbling to the surface, begging for release.

She hadn’t been able to ask Sera, and frankly it hadn’t felt right putting her in that position. But now she was sitting in front of him, talking with him.

“Is that why you left?”

He folded and unfolded an empty bandage wrapper between his fingers, shoulders shaking slightly with the effort to steady his breathing as he nodded. Cadi squeezed her fingers tighter, fighting the growing urge to reach for him.

“I was drawn in like everyone else. The promises he made me were nothing short of intoxicating, but in the end, he took a lot more than he gave. I lost everything, everyone, who ever mattered to me. I knew something had to change.”

The grief in his voice cut so deeply that Cadi nearly felt it as her own. It was the kind of ache that only comes from losing someone so intricately woven into the fabric of your life that no amount of time or healing could ever fill the space they left behind. It was an ache she knew all too well.

“Who?” she asked.

He stayed quiet for a long moment, and when at last he spoke, his voice was tight and low.

“You know him as the high priest, but before the mask, before Oneirios twisted him into someone I don’t recognize, we were close. Like brothers. Now he’s little more than Oneirios’s puppet, trapped in a beautiful prison.”

Cadi froze, her mind reeling with the effort to make sense of his confession. It wasn’t the implication that the Order had lied, that the story about Oneirios swooping in to save the high priest was nothing more than strategic marketing—that sort of calculated deception made sense. But Elias had known him. He had watched someone he loved be distorted into something unrecognizable. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what that felt like, and knowing that he had endured it—was still enduring it—gutted her.

“What do you mean? Trapped?” she asked.

He pulled in a long breath.

“He was bound differently than other members,” Elias explained. “There are certain … conditions. He has to play his role at every Somnium and every Dedication. If he misses or refuses, the pain from his binding would be excruciating. Even if he left, he would never be free.”

Elias stared down at his hands as a heavy silence settled over the apartment, and Cadi sensed that he had shared all he could about that for now.

She needed to find something else to talk about; the quiet was leaving too much space for unwelcome thoughts, for images in her mind of Damon standing over her, his body stealing her breath as he did everything he could to keep her powerless.

“How did it feel?” she asked, looking up to find Elias now staring at her in question. “Punching Damon.”

Elias gave her a small smirk. “It felt pretty damn good,” he replied, his light amusement quickly fading. “He’s lucky that’s all I did.”

“Would you really hurt him?”

Elias held her gaze, the fierce resolve in his eyes enough to make her breath tremble. “He should pray he never sees me again.”

He stood from the coffee table to gather the rest of his supplies before walking quietly back into the kitchen. Cadi shivered, somehow knowing that he meant every word of his threat. She flexed her fingers against the couch cushion before leaning to the side to rest her aching head against the soft fabric of the armrest.

“Can I get you anything?” Elias asked, a lighter tone working into his voice from where it drifted to her from the next room. “Tea, cocoa … blended mushroom coff—what the fuck is this?”

She turned to find him peeking around the corner, holding her unopened tin of mushroom coffee that she’d purchased on a whim, but still hadn’t found the courage to try. A laugh burst from her at the look of horror etched across his face, the sudden sound of amusement surprising her along with the sharp pain that bloomed in her skull.

“It’s a reminder that I can’t be trusted with a credit card.”

He crooked a brow, then gave the tin a wary once-over before he slipped out of sight again.

A few minutes later, a steaming mug of hot cocoa appeared on the table in front of her, as did a glass of water and two small pills. Cadi tossed back the medicine, eager to relieve the throbbing in her skull as Elias awkwardly moved her unfolded laundry to the table so he could tuck himself into the corner of the couch.

Cadi lifted the mug to take a sip, immediately spitting the scalding liquid back into the cup and fanning her mouth in a frantic attempt to soothe her burned tongue. A muted snort from the far end of the couch confirmed that Elias had witnessed the entire thing.

Keeping her eyes locked on her cocoa, she blew softly at the billows of steam and threw him an obscene hand gesture that only made him laugh harder.

“You’d think that by thirty-three I’d be better at swallowing,” she said, then froze as she heard the slip the second the words left her mouth. A glance to where Elias sat watching her with a single eyebrow raised in a look that suggested he was giving her the chance to try again told her he had too.

“I meant liquids—drinks! Holy gods…” she pressed her fingers against her mouth in the hope that maybe that would help her to just stop talking. What the actual fuck was wrong with her?