*Isaac*
Whatever dreamlike state I’ve been suspended in lifts, replaced by soft, golden light. I open sore eyes and blink away the blurriness, that dreamscape replaced by the rippling, swirling mural of florals painted on the ceiling in my bedroom.
My bedroom back home at the castle.
I don’t move. I’m not sure if I’m actually here, or if this is another trick of my mind. The last several weeks don’t seem real at all. Not the war, not the battles, not the unrelenting darkness that swallowed my lands whole.
But there is sunlight here. It warms the sheets around me and my skin. My chest is bare, and I glance down and see a ray of golden light full of dust that shimmers like silver stars. I raise a hand and turn it back and forth in the light, watching the dust swirl around my fingers in a dizzying dance.
She turns in her chair by the window, her wine-red hair cascading loose down her back. She stands, those stormy, dark blue eyes wide. Her cream-colored silk robe catches the light, illuminating her naked figure underneath, and the soft, barely there swell of an early pregnancy.
My wife. My mate. What a gift it is to see her again.
“Am I dead?” I ask, and the words are hoarse, like I haven’t used my voice in ages. “Is this still a dream?”
Maddy says nothing. She just stands there, the sunlight casting a halo around her body.
“Maddy–”
“Oh, Goddess,” she cries, her hand shaking as she lays it over my cheek, and then quickly pulls it away before running to the door and throwing it open. “Send for the healer, please. And bring some tea, some soup, something for him to eat. He’s awake. Oh, Goddess, he’s awake!”
My head pounds from the bright sunlight. I haven’t seen the sun in so long. My eyes aren’t used to it, so I close them, and take a deep breath.
That’s when it hits me that this isn’t another dream. Pain echoes through my body–sharp and radiant–causing me to want to curl into myself to make it stop. Everything is suddenly too bright. Every scent is too heavy, too much.
But her fragrance hits me as she comes near, that fresh, green scent that reminds me of spring, and that warm undertone that makes me feel like I’ve found my home again.
But there’s something new about the way she smells. Something that wasn’t there before. It’s the baby, I realize.
“You're pregnant,” I whisper, unsure if the words even left my tongue. “I remember. You told me.”
“I did tell you that,” she whispers back, laying a soft hand on my cheek. “And I am. It’s a boy. A son, our son.”
“You’re far enough along to know the sex? How?” My eyes fall closed. I’m still so very weary.
A stabbing pain seers through my side as I open my eyes and find her sitting on the edge of my bed. She lays a hand on my thigh, tears rolling down her cheeks as she leans down and brushes a kiss on my forehead.
“Maddy,” I say, fully coming to, “What happened? How are we here? The war–”
“It’s over,” she whispers. “Kane defeated the rest of his father’s forces and forced them back over the mountains. It’s been quiet for months.”
“Months–” I meet her eyes, which are heavy with tears.
“You’ve been asleep for a very long time,” she whimpers, her brow furrowing.
“How long?” I ask sharply, and a sinking feeling settles in my stomach.
“Three and half months–”
I shoot up off the pillows and cry out as my body stretches and bends despite the lack of use. Three months? Three months!?
“Isaac, lay down!” she commands, but I’m up and out of bed, staggering across the room. I rip my robe from the hook by the door and slip it on, my muscles refusing to cooperate. I feel myself pitching forward as my vision begins to blur around the edges, but Maddy is there beside me, wrapping her arms around my waist as I begin to fall forward. “He’s going over!”
More hands grab me, moving me back to the bed. I look up at the blurry faces of maids and… my parents. Yes, my parents come into view, looking more than concerned.
Cassian is also here. He gives me a smug smile. “Good morning, Your Highness,” he drawls. “‘Bout time you decided to wake from your beauty sleep.”
I send a fist flying, my knuckles meeting with his jaw. I’m in no mood for his teasing right now.
“Shit!” Cassian exclaims, stepping back. “Can’t handle a joke?”
“All right, that’s enough,” Dad says, and I’m pinned down just as Cassian staggers backward and out of sight. Instantly, I feel bad, but I’ve barely come back to life, and he’s already taunting me.
I hear my mom’s soft whispers of encouragement, but they’re not directed to me. I glance over at Maddy, still struggling against the hands holding me down, and see my mom whispering in her ear as Maddy covers her face with her hands, her body racked by silent sobs.
“Oh, Maddy, come here,” I breathe, relaxing. “I’m sorry–I–”
She peeks at me through her fingers, and the people surrounding me step away from the bed to allow her the space she needs to come forward.
Her robe dusts over the swell of her belly, and I reach a trembling hand to her, laying it flat over the bump where our son rests. I meet her eyes. “Tell me everything.”
“There’s plenty of time for that later, Isaac,” Mom says behind her, and motions to a maid who brings a tray of food forward. The tray also contains a box of medicine and several vials of my moms tears. They glint in the sunshine.
“I need to know what happened,” I say firmly. “I am still the king, am I not?”
“Of course you are,” Mom says. She looks around, her gaze settling on my dad, and nods. She waves her hand, silently motioning for everyone to leave the room. “We’ll come back later.”
Maddy sits on the edge of the bed. I sit up, ignoring the tray of food. “You have to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care,” she says with an edge to her voice. Her eyes are still cloudy with tears as she looks into my eyes. “Eat, please, and I’ll tell you everything that happened during and after that last battle.”
I reluctantly lift the mug of hot, milky tea. I wince as a torrent of sugar coats my tongue, but under her watchful eye, I drink it down until the mug is empty. She exhales, relieved.
“Kane stabbed you in the heart,” she says after a long moment of silence. “You died in my arms. At least for a little while, I guess. It was chaos out there. You and Kane were fighting but had shields around you, magic, Isaac. None of us could stop you. You couldn’t hear me. Ella was the one who finally separated the two of you.”
“Ella? I don’t remember her being there.”
“She was,” Maddy breathes, her fingers pinching little peaks in the comforter. “She is very powerful, Isaac. Something is different about her, compared to the rest of your family members who have powers. I don’t know what she did, exactly, in the days following that last battle, the scouts we sent from the royal army found mountains of ash and those collars through the plains. She wiped them all out. Every last one of our enemies who lingered in the shadows. After that, as they approached Kane’s father’s territory, Kane took care of them.”
“What do you mean Kane–”
She heaved a breath and motioned to the tray. “Eat–”
“Maddy, what are you not saying?”
Her eyes glisten with fresh tears. “You’d left for war already when I found out the truth. The prophecy about this war. You were never meant to end it. The prophecy was never about you. You were born with the powers of the Goddess’s beast, yes. But so was Ella, and she was the one who was meant to defeat the Alpha King of Eastonia, not you.”
Maddy goes on to explain the myth of the beasts during the war of the gods. How the second beast, the twin companion of the first, left the Goddess’s side to save its mate, who was on the wrong side of the war. That act of true love and sacrifice on the part of the beast damned it to a land of shadows for eternity but saved the Goddess’s kingdom.
“Kane’s first name is Ryatt,” Maddy says after a moment. “He is the son of the Alpha King of Eastonia. A rogue, with a small army that was fighting here against his own father. He was on your side the entire time. He was here trying to find Ella, to protect her, we believe, from his father in the event the dark armies were successful in invading and defeating our kingdom.”
I sit up a little straighter. How could that be?
She continues, “Ryatt Kane is Ella’s mate. They’re fated.”
“No, you’re wrong.” I grit my teeth, wanting to close my ears.
“I’m not wrong,” she whispers. A silence settles over the room for several minutes before she reaches over and slides the bowl of soup in my direction. “Please, Isaac. There’s so much we need to do right now, but you need your strength.”
My mind is going a hundred miles an hour. I barely taste the soup as I bring the bowl to my lips, ignoring the spoon. “He stabbed me.”
“Yes, he did. I don’t know why, trust me.” She bristles a bit. “Maybe it was self-defense. You were trying to kill him, after all. We haven’t seen or heard from him, but we have warriors posted all along the base of the mountains. It’s been quiet. No more threats. No more battles.” She sucks in a breath and exhales, running a hand over her face. I see her exhaustion for the first time, those dark circles under her eyes. “Ella is here with us, but she’s… she’s different now, Isaac. Withdrawn. She no longer paints. She locked up her studio and put some kind of charm on the door so none of us can open it.”
I set the bowl down and reach for the box of medicine, thumbing through it.
Maddy licks her lips and continues with an exhausted sigh, “Your people don’t know that you’ve been in essentially a coma since that last battle. I’ve been meeting with Alphas in your stead, and your parents have been helping with the aftermath of the war effort. People have returned to their pack territories. The villages that were decimated before and during the war are being rebuilt. We didn’t lose nearly as many people as we initially thought. Isla’s magic saved almost every injured warrior. We’ve told anyone who asks that you’re busy… busy negotiating a peace treaty with Eastonia, and that’s why you’re away.”
I chew my lip for a moment. “You’ve been doing this all by yourself?”
“Your parents have helped.” She gives me a little smile. “But mostly yes, I have been meeting with the Alphas and their packs. We are in peace times again. You’re being hailed as a hero.”
“You’re the hero, Maddy.”
“Don’t,” she whispers, her eyes going glassy again. “I’m just doing what we agreed I’d do if anything–if anything ever happened to you.” Her calm, collected expression cracks. I shove the tray away and gather her to my chest just as she begins to sob. “Everyday I sat here and watched you breathe, wondering if it would be your last breath. Everyday, I sat in the throne room, in endless meetings, and waited for a maid to come whisper in my ear that you were dead. I was losing hope that you’d ever wake up. We tried everything. Sent for every healer, and every priestess. Ella wouldn’t come see you. She hasn’t been here since–since we came home with you.”
“Where is she now?”
Maddy pulls away, wiping at her tears. “She just roams the gardens all day.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“She won’t talk to anyone, Isaac. We’ve tried.”
“Do you have any idea why it took so long for me to wake up?”
She shakes her head. “We couldn’t figure it out.”
I’m still trying to process what’s happened. It doesn’t feel like this is over, not in the slightest. Something is wrong, and the thought makes my side ache again where the knife had lodge deep in my ribs, through my heart.
I push every thought out of my mind. My mom was right when she said this could wait.
“Come here,” I say to Maddy. “Come lay with me for a moment.”
She lays down, nestling her head in the crook of my shoulder. I lay a hand over the curve of her belly and close my eyes.
How am I still here? How am I alive?
And why do I have the feeling it wasn’t Kane who stabbed me in the heart, but someone else?
“I love you,” I say, brushing the words over her forehead. “I love you, Maddy.”
I feel her tears on my skin as she presses her face against my neck. “I love you, Isaac.”
“You’ve done an amazing job as Luna of our kingdom,” I whisper, fatigue starting to creep through my body. “I don’t deserve you. I never will.”
Her hand snakes beneath my robe, laying over the place where the knife had been embedded, a place that even after months has still not fully healed. “We can move on now,” she whispers, and then promptly falls asleep.
But my eyes are open and fixed on the far wall. The sunlight shifts, drawing long shadows over the room as the light begins to fade.
This isn’t over. I feel it in my bones.
And it’s because of Ella–my sister.
I need the truth from her, and her alone.