just know.”
That wasn’t a good enough answer.
“It might be an illusion caused by this realm. It is a strange place and tends to play tricks on people. I have been here a long time by your account, but even I am not immune to these illusions and lies it casts.” She finished brushing her hair and tossed the cone away. “I am haunted by some of them.”
“Haunted? Is that what you saw in your nightmare?” Thanatos closed ranks with her, drawing so near to her that his black wings were in danger of brushing her skin. His grim expression amused her as he glared at everything around them, as if he wanted to protect her from the illusions that tormented her, even when it was impossible.
“No. They haunt my waking hours.” The things she saw in her sleep were always the same—a horrifying replay of watching her brother suffer and die, and her family abandon her.
“Tell me an illusion you have seen that haunts you.” He sounded as grim as he looked, and she wanted to tell him he couldn’t fight an illusion or stop it from haunting her.
She settled for picking a lie the realm had shown her recently instead, sure that talking about it would make him see he couldn’t protect her from everything.
“I swore I saw my eldest brother looking at me from the bluff above my cage… but then he disappeared and one of the guards attacked me.” She couldn’t shake that, had been convinced for weeks that it had been Keras come to save her, only to abandon her again.
It had reopened old wounds and still grated on her now, filling her with a need to seek her family and make them pay for what they had done.
“Keras,” Thanatos started and then drew down a deep breath, one that stretched his wings and made them brush her arm.
He was quick to distance himself.
Slid her a black look as if she had been the one to touch him.
Why did he do that? For the same reason he had looked afraid when she had touched his face? The same reason he had been swift to break contact with her before that, when she had touched his hand after she had discovered her power didn’t hurt him?
“I am here because Keras saw you in another’s memories. He told me of the vision he witnessed, of how you were in a cage suspended from the ceiling of a great cavern, and how a male had come to you with a black spear… and how you had screamed.” His tone lost all warmth and light, was blacker than the Styx.
She shook her head. “No. That doesn’t make sense. I had been in that cage for a long time, but I never saw anyone else watching me from that vantage point. I only saw Keras.”
Thanatos frowned at her, clearly not believing her. “You must have seen someone there, because Keras said you looked right at him.”
“I did. I saw Keras. I saw him as clearly as I see you before me now. The guard did come to me and he hurt me, made me scream.” Calindria flexed her fingers around the waterskin and couldn’t resist the urge to take a sip of it, lifted it and uncapped it. She swigged it, wanted to sigh as the liquid flowing down her throat calmed her, setting her at ease. Her gaze slid to Thanatos as she capped it again. “I thought Keras a vision… a twisted version of a memory. The realm does that sort of thing. It warps the mind, turning memories into illusions that seem real.”
“How long ago was this?”
She immediately shrugged. “I cannot say. Not long ago. I… I do not know for certain. Time when you are…”
Thanatos nodded, understanding dawning in his silver eyes to chase the hardness away.
“I am familiar with how easy it is to lose your awareness of time. A minute can feel like an hour, and an hour can feel like a day.” He looked around them at the dead forest, giving her the impression he didn’t want her to ask about this either, regretted that he had told her such a thing.
She didn’t. It made her feel closer to him. Made her feel that if anyone could understand her, it was Thanatos. They shared more than a power born of death.
“Would you say perhaps it might have been four years ago?” He glanced at her.
“Perhaps.” She shrugged again. “It is hard to say. It