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“How?” Maren whispered. “How can such a place hold a gift?”
“Be brave enough to step further into this dream,” Ceres said, “and I will show you.”
Chapter Two
“This is no dream,” Maren whispered.
This place made the horrors she’d witnessed in her vision almost pale in comparison. She would have run from it as far and as fast as possible, but her feet had somehow sunk into the ash covering the ground, and the vines forming the goddess’s dress had reached out, wrapping around her legs—holding her in place. “This is a nightmare.”
“Yet every nightmare holds a place for hope.” Ceres pointed toward the battle. “Look.”
The ground rippled, and then the ash-filled wind was propelling Maren through the charred city toward a distant set of figures. She flew along the remains of a road, propelled past burning buildings, broken carts, and sets of shadows locked in a deadly battle until she reached one figure.
A knight.
He stood alone in the middle of the street, planted between the ranks of soldiers and a group of surviving villagers. The soldiers bristled with weapons. The villagers held nothing but farming scythes and sticks, bleeding from wounds and trying to shelter their children. There were too many soldiers; the villagers would not stand a chance.
Yet the soldiers hesitated, stopped by a single man.
A helm obscured the knight’s face, yet his stance was strong and certain. Blood and dirt marred his armor, and yet he stood as steady as a mountain. His hands clasped the hilt of a sword, the tip resting on the road.
His mouth was firm and strangely familiar…
Her heart lurched.
Dear gods, it was him. The valiant knight she’d longed for after the Chastry had taken her to the tower. The one she’d dreamed of every time the pain became too much to bear—the one she’d given up wishing for in the dark of the night.
Her dream knight was a real man.
And oh, but he was brave.
He faced down the rows of soldiers with the powerful calm of a mountain that knew it couldn’t be moved. The ranks shifted and swords clicked, yet none of the men moved to attack.
A robed figure shoved its way through the ranks.
A priest of war, she realized—a vessel chosen by the archbishop to guide the forces of the Chastry against the spreading darkness. Yet in this place, it seemed those forces were bringing darkness. White and gold fabric rustled as the priest stomped toward the knight. “What is the meaning of this delay?”
“This was wrong.” The knight’s voice was a low roll of thunder. “This is murder.”
“This is necessary,” the priest said. “They harbor monsters. They are monsters.”
“They are children,” the knight spat. “Killing them does not—”
Behind him, one of the children screamed. The villager cowering beside it reared upward, head tilted toward the sky. No. No! Maren had seen such things in her visions. She tried to cry out in warning, to tell the knight to run, but she couldn’t make a sound as the villager shed their skin, fur and fangs bursting from beneath simple peasant garb.
The creature roared and charged for the priest—the knight was in the way, and yet she knew he was not the target of the charge. That creature hated the priest with an intensity that burned brighter than the buildings.
The knight hated him as well, and yet he stepped in the way.
“Don’t!” Maren yelled. “Let it save them!”
But the knight didn’t move—couldn’t hear her. He lifted his sword into readiness, widened his stance to better meet the beast. Even as he swung, even as steel pieced the creature’s flesh, claws tore off his chest plate. White fangs mixed with red spittle. The beast was dying—Maren knew it was dying—yet it somehow impaled itself further onto the blade. The knight tried to hold it back, but his sword was trapped and his armor torn—and the beast was strong.
It reached him, sinking its teeth into his chest.
Then it died, sliding off his sword to land in the dirt in a crumpled heap. The knight fell to his knees beside it.
“No,” she gasped, all too aware of what such a bite meant.
