Blake
Marianna and I doze in the quiet darkness of my bedroom for nearly an hour before convincing each other to get up long enough to put on clothes and brush our teeth, at least. Within minutes, we’re back in bed. Marianna snuggles close while I stare at the ceiling, listening to the… silence, as she drifts back to sleep.
The world is a shockingly loud place, even in the dead of night. Normally, this is when the stars–the voices in my head–are the most annoying. Loud. Chaotic. Constantly chattering back and forth about everything and nothing all at once. But now?
I can hear the breeze coming through the windows. The curtains tremble, fabric brushing against the wall. The palace creaks, settling, pipes groaning and rumbling all around but hushed by the thick walls.
I don’t remember closing my eyes. I don’t remember a blank, empty kind of sleep washing over me–dreamless. But I wake several hours later to the moonlight shifting across the ground and the bedroom door silently opening, a small shadow stretching over the rays of silver on the carpet.
I open my eyes to slits as my powers awaken, telling me far too late that someone has stepped past the shields I’ve started using around my suite to give Marianna some privacy. Even the shields I used around the guest room across the palace didn’t catch Skye slipping out of bed and tiptoeing across the castle.
I sit up ever so slightly as she shuffles past the door, staring right at me, clutching a worn out teddy bear. Her eyes slowly scan my face before slipping to the side, where Marianna is fast asleep, facing the wall, her body curled around a pillow.
Oh, shit.
“Skye, are you all right?” I whisper just loud enough for her to hear. I dig deep into my memories, sifting through things my mother told me recently about myself at Skye’s age. Sleepwalking and night terrors plagued my parents when I was school aged. I was constantly moving around in the middle of night to the point Cosette, recently retired and blissfully married to one of Ryatt’s retired commanders, moved back to the manor in Shadowcrest for a few weeks and positioned an armchair in front of my bedroom door, where she sat guard while my parents slept. She never woke me up, but according to my mom, she lured me safely back into bed.
I inspect the look on Skye’s face, looking for signs that she might be sleepwalking as she works her way through another dream, another vision, but she turns back to me, blinking, her lower lip trembling just a touch.
Wide awake.
She takes several steps toward the bed before stopping again with a soft, breathy sigh, her eyes on Marianna again.
“Come here,” I whisper, motioning to the bed–to the gaping space between me and her mother. Skye doesn’t hesitate. She moves like the wind, damn near floating across the carpet, and climbs into the bed to settle next to Marianna. Her mom sighs in her sleep and rolls, clasping an arm around Skye’s waist, and curls her body around the little girl without even waking up, like it’s a reflex.
Skye, however, is lying on her side… staring at me.
I lay my head back on my pillow and stare back.
Several long, achingly silent seconds pass before I ask, “Did you have another dream?”
“No. I stayed awake.”
Because she’s terrified of what she’ll see next, isn’t she?
I roll onto my side. She’s an arm’s length away, but seeing her and Marianna like this? My stomach tightens as the vision of my mate and daughter, snuggled in bed, washes over me like a tidal wave. I can’t fight the current of emotion that comes next. Years wasted. Precious years. Especially precious for Skye.
“I still get nightmares,” I admit with heartbreaking quiet. “Some worse than others.”
“What are they about?”
“Most I don’t remember by the time they wake me up,” I tell her before tugging on the sheets currently clamped between Marianna’s knees. I cover Skye to the chin, adding, “But mostly bad things happening to the people and places I love, and I can’t figure out how to stop it.”
Skye exhales deeply through her nose. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell that whatever was wrong is now much, much better, and the antidote she needed, Marianna, is currently tugging her closer, flooding her with warmth.
But Marianna’s proximity does nothing for the ache in Skye’s voice when she whispers, “I killed someone.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to do it.”
“I know you did.”
“Am I–are bad things going to happen now? The stars say so. It’s my fault–”
“That was not your fault,” I rush out, shaking my head. “You were protecting your mom. I didn’t get there in time. I should have been there.”
Her eyes glisten with tears that don’t fall down her cheeks. She holds them in the same way I do, refusing to give up, to give in, to feel. Feeling makes everything we see and sense more vivid, but I hate this for her.
“Does Mom dream about you all the time because… because of me? Because you’re the only one like me?”
“Why do you think that is?” My chest tightens as she scans my face. Marianna stirs but doesn’t fully wake before slumping back into sleep.
“You’re my dad.”
“I–I am.” The weight of the world–her world–falls on my shoulders in an instant. I wait for her tears, for her anger, but she just stares at me, inspecting me, likely deciding whether or not she thinks that’s a good or a bad thing.
“Soren said so.”
I blink, then narrow my eyes at her. “He did?”
“He said my dad wouldn’t like me getting fingerprints on his crystals and then let me play with all the spheres in your office.”
That fucking bastard. “Oh–”
“And then he felt bad, I think.”
“I would hope so.”
“Does Mom know?”
“Know what?”
“That you’re my dad?”
“Oh, um–”
“Because Grammy said that the Moon Goddess plants a little seed in a mommy and that’s where babies grow and sometimes–” she sits up a bit, Marianna’s hand sliding down her waist, “sometimes someone says they’ll take care of the baby, too, and there’s where dads come from–”
“I–”
“But Mommy didn’t know that you wanted to be my dad–”
“Skye,” I whisper, reaching across the space between us to rest my hand against her cheek. “Your Mommy and I have known each other for a very long time, and you’re right, the Moon Goddess gave us a seed because we were very much in love, and–” my voice breaks. “And… I helped it grow but…”
Skye yawns, blinking blearily as fatigue washes through her. I grapple with how to explain this to a seven-year-old girl whose life has just been turned on its head in so many ways.
“But I was very young, and so was Mommy, and we didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to be a dad, and… I scared Mommy. It was my fault.”
“Because you can see the stars like me?”
“Because I can see the stars like you can.”
She blinks several times, locked in Marianna’s warmth, but whispers, “Can you give me a good dream?”
“I’ve never–” I stop myself, closing my eyes for a moment while absently stroking her cheek. My mother has the ability–displacing memories and adding new ones–fictional ones. She spun countless dreams for me as a boy trying to erase the nightmares, but they were all of… trucks, and… jumping off of high places–boy things.
I let my powers untangle the grief and guilt currently sending me into a tailspin and let them flow into my daughter, painting her a vision of… Maauta. Yeah, that’ll work. Of the rocky beach a few miles north of where my grandparents live, where smooth stones and seashells are abundant, and the water is warm and inviting. I place Skye on that beach with a basket and a hammer and turn every stone into an agate.
She falls asleep with the softest sigh, and nothing will be the same again from this moment forward.
***
“Blake?”
Marianna’s whisper pulls me out of a dream about… well, the same dream I made for Skye, actually. I blink into early morning sunlight before turning my head. Marianna is caught in the glare of the sun while Skye continues to sleep between us, softly snoring.
Marianna gives me the gentlest smile before shrugging and looking a bit guilty as she motions to Skye. “When did this happen?”
“A few hours ago, I think,” I whisper back, then glance at the watch I failed to take off before falling asleep. “It’s only six. You should go back to sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s fine. I need to… do something.” I slide out of bed with newfound purpose while Marianna lies back down, absently stroking Skye’s back.
I’m dressed and walking through the castle a few minutes later, following the scent of coffee spicing the air to the yellow room on the fourth floor where the beginnings of a large breakfast are being laid out, but two people are already gathered by a side table, pouring coffee that must have been just delivered.
“Good morning,” Mom says brightly, turning from Leona, who gives me the same kind of cheery smile only morning people who wake up at the crack of the Goddess can muster.
“Good morning,” I rasp, eyeing them skeptically as I reach for the carafe and pour myself a cup. The women continue staring at me until I sigh heavily and ask, “What is it?”
“Marianna mentioned through the mind-link that Skye crept into your suite last night,” Leona begins with what I can only describe as a smug, but hopeful, smile. “I’m glad she told me because when I woke up and Skye was gone, I thought the worst.”
“You should really consider a new suite, perhaps, something bigger for everyone,” Mom suggests, and the second Soren, Fallon tucked in the crook of his arm, arrives, I realize I’m in for it now. The whole family is now banking on me to make a decision–to publicly say I’m not the monster they believe I am. That I have a family, something I’m capable of being responsible for. That I’m not the demon that’s been haunting this golden palace for over a year now.
Instead of telling my mother and the mother of my mate what they’re desperate to hear… I turn to Soren, following his process toward the coffee table, giving him an icy look even though inside I’m feeling surprisingly warm about the fact he slipped up and told Skye a snippet of the truth. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing after all. I can barely even continue glaring at the man–my friend, I guess–and when he meets my eyes with a sleepy, slightly battered flat smile, I cave.
I turn back to my mother and my mate’s mother, and rip off the bandaid they’ve been fussing about for days now.
“Skye is aware that I’m her father now–”
“Oh, finally,” Leona breathes, beaming at Mom, who matches her smile with radiance that lights up the room.
Soren smirks, murmuring an apology as he squeezes between the women to fetch a coffee mug off the table. Mom plucks Fallon off his arm and cradles her, still smiling, but the second she opens her mouth to start making plans, I cut her off with a wave of my hand.
“We will all sit down and discuss the future at a later date. Today, when Marianna and Skye are awake, and once they’ve had breakfast, I’m taking Skye to the orrery.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Mom murmurs, disappointed. “Are you sure?”
“I need to go and look for something and… yeah, she needs to see it. I want to know if she can use it without training.”
Leona pales but doesn’t say anything. Soren, however, uninvited to the conversation, in my opinion, says, “She can use your fancy crystal bowling balls just fine. I’m not sure what she’s doing with them, but–”
“It’s just a way to syphon an image from the heavens to see it with your own eyes inside your head,” Mom says. “They’re rather fun. Definitely beats using a bowl of water like we used to back in the day.”
Soren looks confused for a moment before deciding to just drink his coffee in peace while someone else holds his baby, but I eye him, and he catches my gaze.
“When we return this afternoon, you and I are going to Veiled Valley.”
He gives me a curt, knowing nod, like he anticipated this already.
There’s an underlying tension in the air that no one wants to acknowledge, but the silence is deafening. Hannibal has been quiet for far too long, and now I’ve seen him again.
Which means I can find him.