Chapter 25

Drinking was never really something Adeena did to numb her absolute pain that laced its way through every part of her. This time, after seeing how beautiful and alive her grandmother was, how she herself still grieved for the loss of Adeena and Evander, the first place she went to was the closest winery and bought out several bottles of their best vintage Arloerin Starlight. Popping the cork with her teeth, she was already chugging as soon as she walked outside, all eyes on her and flickering with worry.

She needed to get drunk, needed to get so shit-faced so she could black out and completely forget out everything.

Nothing could block out her rage. Or her heartache. Not even the three bottles of Starlight.

Sophea could be rammed through with a sword for all Adeena cared. Or drowned in the glittering Lake Iris. Ooh, or she could use her dark magic just as she did with all those public executions.

That darkness was itching to come out as Adeena practically ran through the streets of Arloerin.

She needed to get away, away, away. To not think about anything at all. To not be present in a world she felt so disconnected from.

And it was Sophea's fault.

She took absolutely everything from her. Everything. Her beautiful grandmother, her grandfather and the way he used to be, the chance to grow up with these people who would defend Arloerin and everyone in it with their lives.

And most importantly, her best friend, her sister. Cleo.

Adeena already knew she would be unsuccessful in her task set forth by the empress. There were no whispers of discontent here in the western-most kingdom and their never would be. Whoever the empress was sending to Arloerin after her wouldn't find any more than she did. When she brought the news back to Sophea, what would happen to her? Would she be imprisoned for life? Would she be executed herself? Doubtful, especially since Adeena had tried it a few times herself. Death never held her too long before bringing her back from the in-between.

Or maybe she could choose to be happy. She deserved that much, right?

Maybe...maybe she could just stay here and never go back. She could send for her grandfather, have all of their things packed up, and bring him there to Arloerin. Adeena wouldn't have to be the assassin she was raised to be. She could come out of the shadows, she could have her grandmother back, and be with Cleo again, no matter how much her sister might hate her for staying away for practically all their lives. She wouldn't care, though. She would have her and their family. They could come home.

All she wanted was to really and truly come home.

Choking back her tears, Adeena's glamour waivered slightly as she bolted into a dark alleyway between a clothing shop and an apothecary before completely dropping. Her magic raged inside her with every beat of her heart, every breath she managed to suck into her lungs as she drowned. It wasn't trying to help her, though, not pull her even more under the rushing waves.

No one would see her, only hear as her sobs finally escaped. She pressed her forehead against the cool exposed stone that peeked out beneath the slightly crumbled stucco wall. No sunlight reached her, but she didn't want it. The darkness was welcoming, and she went into it with open arms just as she always did.

Usually when she went into the in-between, it was because Adeena's magic was so chaotic she needed time to reign it in without anyone being in danger. Now, though, she needed to reign in her mind, her raging thoughts that threatened to consume her, body and soul.

She couldn't find the strength to stand, couldn't manage to pull herself together and dry her tears. Curling her knees to her chest, Adeena leaned her forehead against her knees and wept.

Wept and struggled to breathe, fought to get a hold of herself as she drowned in her sorrow.

Until a hand touched her shoulder.

Adeena's head shot up, her tears still blinding her. But as she blinked them away, the one face she always saw in the in-between was right there in front of her. The devastatingly handsome face of the male she didn't have a name for, the one with a dagger wound right through his heart.

Now, though, it didn't seem to be bleeding.

It was her own heart that was.

"Are you all right?" he whispered to her, russet eyes narrowed with worry.

Her magic flared, but not because she wanted him to get away. It was drawn to him, this male who had been stuck in the in between with her for the last twenty-plus years. The one who was usually yelling at her with such terror, not knowing where he was or how to get out.

"You're...you." You. That's all she could call him for now, especially when he didn't even remember his own name. "What are you doing here?"

"I..." Those eyes dropped from her face as his brows pulled together. "I don't know. I never know anymore. When you came...I was able to focus on you. I just heard you crying in the darkness and I wanted to get to you...and here I am. What's wrong?"

Someone else other than Malik worrying about her...it was foreign.

Adeena choked out another sob and leaned her forehead against her knees.

"Hey," he whispered, hands smoothing along her arms, trying to comfort her. "It's all right. Everything's going to be all right."

"No, it's not," she moaned. "Nothing is ever going to be all right. She took everything from me. Everything. I don't know how to get it back without consequence. I want to be free. I just...I just want my sister."

His hands continued along her skin, brushing along her shoulders, through her hair that tumbled over her shoulders. "You have a sister?"

Somehow, a laugh managed to bubble out from her lips. "Yes. She thinks I died a long, long time ago, though."

"I...I think I had a sister. No, I know I had a sister. She was my twin sister."

He was trying to talk to her, trying to ease what little bit of magic he had in the in-between around her in solace.

Adeena sniffed and shifted to look up at him, wiping away her tears. "You did? My sister...we're identical twins, though we don't really look much alike now. She's got...scars. Scars and tattoos."

"My sister would have killed me if I even thought of getting one," he laughed, sitting down in front of her. The sound wrapped around her, pulling her in closer, even after his hands disappeared from her arms.

"You've never been able to remember anything before, have you?" Adeena asked, straightening up.

"No...but I've never been able to really talk to you before either."

She still didn't understand it either. How he was able to find her in that endless darkness, to come to her, to comfort her.

"Do you...do you remember anything else? Anything at all?"

The male shook his head, russet eyes suddenly shining with tears at the realization that he couldn't. "No. I just remember...my sister's face. We looked so much alike, but she was...so much better than me. So much better."

"I'm sure she misses you something fierce."

He nodded and cast his gaze down to his hands in his lap. Hands Adeena found herself reaching for then and holding onto tightly. He was solid, real. And her magic...oh, her magic flared to life just at the simple touch, jolting through her as soon as her palms smoothed over his, fingers interlacing.

Even though her magic was mostly focused on death...it was also focused on the mind. Altering it, twisting it so others would see what she wanted them to see. So, could she possibly help this male who could barely remember anything from his life before? Could she...could she possibly help him get back to the land of the living, even if it had been well over twenty years since he'd passed from it and got stuck in the in-between?

One look into his mind and all she could see were shadow and death. So much like her own except this wasn't because it was his magic. This...this was something otherworldly holding him there.

But in that darkness, she felt a flicker of light.

"Tell me about her. Your sister. Anything you can remember."

The flicker flared at the word sister, at the command of tell me.

His hands tightened around hers. "I...she was my best friend, my other half. Literally. When we were just born, no one could tell us apart when we were fully clothed. My mother and father said we never wanted to be apart and they had to keep us in the same basinet just to keep us from crying."

Adeena's breath hitched. "So, you were twins."

"We were. Are."

"And you just remembered your parents."

"I...think so."

The flicker of light turned a silvery gold, stretched out and thinned into a thread Adeena could grab onto with her own mind. His sister was the first.

Two others appeared beside it. His parents.

And then...two more.

"Did you have any other siblings?"

As soon as Adeena reached out to coax them forward, recognition lit up in his russet eyes. "I did. Two...two brothers. One younger and one older. How...how are you doing this?"

She couldn't put it into words, though, the way she worked with his mind, with the jumbled mess of his thoughts. The same thing happened with her grandfather, but this wasn't the same.

It took their conversation for her to look at it in a different way, to see it as the strings that made up his life, his existence had been cut short and thrown into the darkness. The five strings that were his family, though...his parents, his brothers, his twin sister...they were what defined him most.

With her magic, Adeena continued working with his mind, with those strings, smoothing out the frayed edges, spinning them together until they were bound as the beginnings of the tapestry that made up the male sitting in front of her. As she worked, she could see him begin to fade in and out, become blurry at the edges as his eyes drooped.

"Do you..." she began, then cleared her throat. "Do you remember any of their names? Any more details about them?"

Breathing in deep through his nose, he closed his eyes. "My parents. They were a king and queen. I was a prince. Second born prince, though. Crown Prince was my brother's title."

"And their names?"

"I...I can't..."

"It's all right. You don't have to..."

"No," he growled through clenched teeth. "I...my sister's name was...was Laurel. Yes. Laurel."

The name tugged at Adeena. Where had she heard it before?

"And my parents...Emmeric and Alexea. My brothers were Eamon and...Jai. Jai was Crown Prince."

Jai. The name echoed through Adeena, having heard it for the last twenty years from Malik. Jai, the Crown Prince of Dalcaine. Her cousin Lyv's mate and husband. Malik had told her everything about them, everything he knew himself. How they'd met, their relationships with their friends and family around them, everything in those few short years between then and what their world called the Dark Wars.

She knew of Lyv and Jai, of their daughters Dessa and Lenora.

King Emmeric and Queen Alexea of Dalcaine.

Princess Laurel, her mate Michel, and their son Archer.

Prince Eamon and his mate Milena.

The same moment Adeena realized who this male was, the very one who'd been haunting her for these last two decades, his wide, tear-filled russet eyes met hers.

She sputtered, trying to form the words with her mouth. "And you...you're..."

But as soon as he started to speak, Adeena could feel herself being pulled back into the living world, out of the in-between, and away from him.

The last whispers she heard before the light brought her back were...

"My name is Destan."

***

Anytime she came back to the physical world, it was always gentle and never with a bang. But this time...this time, the realization of who the male was knocked the very breath from her lungs as soon as she felt the earth beneath her body. Her pulse beat wildly in her ears and she could still feel his heartbreak, hear it in his voice as he whispered his own name for the first time in two decades.

She wanted to go back to him, needed to go back, and yet she knew she couldn't. Not now, not when her magic and her mind had balanced out. The raging sea of light and dark within her had calmed.

And yet her own heart felt like it was breaking at the echoes if emptiness she'd felt in his jumbled mess of a mind.

Because it reminded her of her own.

Swallowing back her sob, Adeena pushed herself up from where she lay. Dirt and leaves covered her, staining her clothes as she pulled her knees up to her chest, crossed her arms, and rested her chin on them.

Finally, she was able to see where she was. No longer in the darkened alleyway, she found herself in the Cagny Forest. No time had passed here, it seemed. Sunlight filtered through the bright green canopy of leaves above her. Just a short distance behind her, the sound of a bubbling spring as it trickled into a larger body of water. Shifting, Adeena turned, seeing the small, sparkling pool of water nestled into the forest around it. If she reached far enough, her fingers could curl into the sand that lined its banks.

Adeena twisted her legs beneath her to stand on shaky feet, brushing off the dirt from her clothes as she looked around.

Wait.

She knew this place. This place with so many happy memories, though they'd dimmed with time. She still had dreams of it, though, with Cleo and her aunt Kalla being the focal point, the bright spot in what she felt like was endless darkness.

Finally, she noticed how quiet, how still the forest had become.

A giant shadow rose from behind her, blocking out her own on the ground before her.

A hot breath blew her unbound hair across her face as soon as she slowly spun around.

A massive body of an onyx beast shimmering with silver, talons that dug into the earth and could rip her to shreds, wings that were tucked in tight to his body...

Until she met the silver eyes of one of the only two dragons in all of Laria. Eyes that widened as soon as he saw her face and felt that flicker of a bloodrite bond spark between them after she'd had it buried within her for so long.

Her Odanth.