When she killed him, she started a war between us; a war I would fight every day until I could mop my floor with buckets of her blood. What a beautiful sight that would be.
“Very well,” I said, rising from the mattress with a pleasant grin. Two could play this game. But only one would win.
“You’re in awfully good spirits,” she remarked, smiling stiffly over her shoulder. “And I was worried you wouldn’t be well rested. It’s almost time for you to awaken. I’m sure you can’t wait until autumn. I hate my winter slumber probably as much as you hate your summer one.”
I would love my slumber if she would leave it and me alone. It was only her incessant visits that made it unbearable. Thanks to a powerful spell I learned several years back, her constant pestering didn’t drain my power like they did in the past, but allowed me to siphon hers instead. Didn’t she feel herself tiring after our little strolls? I wondered.
The bedroom I was in during this dream she gave—an exact replica of my room in her palace—disappeared, everything fading to white, until she replaced the scene. The scent of rain hung in the air, even though no droplets fell from the sky. Soft, green grass sprouted beneath my feet, tickling my soles. Wildflowers bloomed around us and trees shot up from the ground, growing from saplings to towering giants in an instant, green and vibrant. A brook babbled to my right. The room may have disappeared, but she was never able to erase my bed. It lay in the middle of it all, the covers thrown back, reminding both of us that this walk would only be temporary and that it wasn’t real at all.
She waved for me to follow her. There was a time when we enjoyed our sleep walks, but that was ages ago. Before she tore away my life, my home, and him.
I looked at the scene she created. The leaves of the trees were too bright, the wrong color of green. The bark was more yellow than brown or gray, and the moss was the wrong texture. It was too smooth.
The little details she missed spoke volumes. I couldn’t help but smile. Aura had always preferred the palace over the forest, but when she came for a sleep walk, she always painted an outdoor scene. She must miss it more than she knows. She hated my binding spell as much as I hated her sleep walks. And yet, here we were: her stuck inside the palace grounds, unable to enter a real forest but able to enter my mind and shove me into a fake one, and me stuck with her for a short time.
Aura took one look at the contentment on my face and growled, anger simmering beneath the surface. She waved her hand in front of us and suddenly he was there, freezing me in place. Over time, I’d stopped reaching out for him. I hadn’t run to hold him in seasons. Hadn’t begged her to let him stay with me as I slept, watching as he walked away with my sister or faded to nothing at the wave of her hand, while I lunged to grab him and keep him safe from her, failing every single time.
My jaw clenched, and I relaxed it so she wouldn’t see.
She’d committed him to memory. Every detail. She may have forgotten the look of the forest, but she hadn’t forgotten him. Every strand of his chestnut and caramel hair was exactly right. His musculature and proportions, his height, the beauty mark near his right ear, the small scar on his chin, his proud brow.
She studied him and learned every feature that made my heart ache.
Enough of this. He isn’t real.
He’s dead.
“Luna?” he asked. His voice was drenched in wonder and disbelief, as if he was seeing me for the first time after being away for years. It was as if he was alive.
She’d studied his voice, perfected his mannerisms, his facial expressions and his clean, masculine scent.
My teeth ground together. She had no right to know him so intimately.
“Aura,” I said to my sister. She turned from her creation, a pleased smile on her face. “You must be very bored in your palace to wake me with this nonsense. I no longer care about William.”
Her smile dropped, but only slightly.
It was time to ruin her day—which happened to be the favorite part of mine. I smiled and waved my hand.
Aura watched as the summer sky faded to dull gray-white, and in response, waved her hand. Storm clouds built and churned in the sky. It began to rain.
With a smile, I turned the air cold. A sharp wind cut across our skin and flakes of snow flurried from the sky. The leaves on the trees surrounding us withered and quickly dropped to the ground, and a frigid blanket of white coated everything around us. Aura began to shake, rubbing her arms. “What are you doing? This is my vision!” she screeched.
“Not anymore.” Now that I was stealing her energy, I could really take control of the scene…
I looked at William, whose face was blank as he waited for his puppet master to pull his strings. I looked at the stitches that ran down the length of him from his scalp to where they disappeared into his breeches. She added the stitches to his flesh to remind me that she was the one who’d torn him in half.
Snow fell onto my sister’s hair, shoulders, and the ridiculous pink gown she wore. It distracted her just like I planned, as Aura was too cold to worry about him anymore. Her teeth chattered as she tried to growl at me. She hated winter as much as I hated summer and sunshine, and I hoped this left her hating me more as well.
“You can’t do this!” she wailed.
“I can, dear sister, and you should remember that soon, you will be the one sleeping, and I can pull you into your worst nightmare,” I told her. “Maybe you’d like a taste now. Our powers are growing. I know mine are…”
The snow stopped falling.
“You like it warmer?” I taunted. “Allow me to make it warm for you, sister. But I prefer the dark of night. It’s soothing, comforting. Don’t you think?”
The ground thawed because I willed it. Darkness stretched over the sky and crickets began to sing so loudly, she covered her ears. The ground came to life under my will. Centipedes and spiders crawled up her fine skirts.
“Stop this!” she yelled.
I smiled. “I don’t think so.”
The tips of her pretty fae ears turned bright red and the same angry flush spread over her face. In an instant, Aura was gone. I looked around for him, just to be sure she didn’t forget for a moment, but she’d taken William with her.
I walked back through the wood, my bare feet sinking into the soil, back to the bed in my dreams. I lay in it and drew the covers over me once again. A few more weeks of summer, and a few more weeks of slumber before I woke. I would rest so that I could be strong.
Aura would go back to her palace, lick her wounds, and begin planning another battle for when I was lucid. Because when she killed William, she started a war she would not win. In a split second, she took everything from me.
For that reason, I would take my time destroying all she held dear.
CHAPTER TWO
AURA