Chapter 24 -Avianna-
\-Avianna-
TW Violence & Death
The world shifts again.
Rain pours from a black sky, cold and relentless against my skin. The training yard is chaos around me, steel clashing, men shouting, mud turned red with blood. Terror is already consuming me because somewhere deep inside me, I know exactly what this dream will be.
Caylix is fighting in the center of it. He is beautiful, brutal, and completely untouchable. His sword moves like an extension of him, fast and lethal and controlled in a way that should make this feel survivable. I can feel the tether straining violently between us, alive with danger, and panic explodes through me so hard I stop thinking entirely.
“Caylix!”
The moment he turns toward my voice, I know I killed him. A blade drives deep through his side. His body jerks from the force of it.
“No!”
I’m running before the word is even out. I hit the ground beside him so hard pain explodes through my knees, grabbing him as he collapses against me.
“No no no no…Caylix, I can’t….please…”
Blood pours through my fingers faster than I can hold it in. I can feel him slipping away from me. His hand brushes weakly against my face and that destroys whatever is left inside me.
Then his eyes go empty. Something inside me snaps. I scream and grab the sword from beside us without even realizing what I’m doing and spin toward the attackers with blood running down my arms and Caylix’s death still warm against my hands. Rage consumes everything. I swing wildly again and again. I can barely see through my tears. I only know they took him from me and they need to pay.
Someone grabs me and I slash at them screaming. The training yard twists around me, warping and breaking apart while blood splashes across my skin and the rain keeps pouring…Then suddenly, I’m sitting upright in bed.
A scream rips out of me as I gasp for air. My entire body shakes and my breathing comes in broken, panicked sobs while my heart beats so hard it hurts. Then I feel something in my hand. I look down. A knife. Blood coats my fingers. For one frozen second, my mind cannot understand what I’m seeing.
Then I see the blood across the sheets, the floor, the walls, and Caylix lying motionless beside my bed. My scream shatters the room.
“No…”
He’s covered in blood. Knife wounds tear across his chest and stomach, crimson soaking through black fabric while his body lies horrifyingly still against the stone floor. The knife falls from my hand.
“No no no no…”
My voice barely sounds human anymore. I fall off the bed hard enough to bruise, crawling toward him with shaking hands, already breaking apart before I even touch him. There is nothing left inside me now. Only grief so catastrophic it feels like my body is collapsing under the weight of it.
“I’m sorry,” I sob, reaching for him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Avi.”
The voice cuts through everything. I freeze.
“Avi.”
Warm hands grab my shoulders. The world rips apart again. I wake with a gasp. Caylix is kneeling beside my bed, both hands gripping my arms hard enough to ground me while panic burns openly across his face.
“Avi. Look at me.”
I stare at him but I don’t answer. I can’t. Because this is another dream, it has to be. That is what the dreams do now, they give him back just long enough for me to watch him die again. My body feels empty. My thoughts are slow and distant, like they belong to someone else. I can still feel blood on my hands and the emptiness of the tether dying.
“Avi,” he says again, sharper this time, terrified now. “You’re awake.”
No. No, I’m not. I start shaking harder.
“I need the real Caylix,” I whisper.
The words barely make it out of me. A pained expression fills his face.
“Avi,” he says hoarsely. “It’s me.”
I shake my head immediately.
“No,” I whisper again.
My voice is empty. There is nothing left inside me capable of feeling hope anymore.
“You’re not real.”
The words visibly wreck him.
“I am,” he says desperately. “Avi, I’m right here.”
No, this is the part before it happens again. The part where he dies. I know how this ends now. My breathing starts breaking apart into uneven little gasps while I stare at him waiting for blood to appear, waiting for the knife, waiting for his body to collapse.
Caylix realizes it.
I see the exact moment he understands that I am waiting for him to die. Something inside his expression shatters. Slowly, carefully, like I might completely come apart if he moves too fast, he takes my hand and presses it flat against his chest. His heart beats hard beneath my palm. But I only stare at him in horror. Because dreams lie. My head shakes once more.
“It’s not real,” I whisper.
“Avi…”
“It’s not real.”
My voice cracks this time. That seems to scare him more than the screaming did. He looks completely helpless. Then suddenly, he grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head. I just watch. There’s no blood, no knife wounds, no torn flesh. Nothing. Just warm skin and breath and life. My eyes move over his chest, his arms, his back. And stop. Runes. Dark markings down the line of his spine, curling over his skin in patterns I have never seen before. For a second, I forget how to breathe. Caylix goes still beneath my stare but I barely notice. My hand lifts before I consciously mean to move it. My fingertips touch the first rune carefully, like I am afraid it will break if I push too hard. The marking flares gold beneath my touch. Caylix stiffens but allows me to touch him. Another rune lights beneath my fingers. Then another. Gold spreads slowly through the markings across his back like fire waking beneath his skin. I seem to be lost in it. Then, the realization that I am actually awake this time finally breaks me.
A sound leaves my throat that barely sounds human before sobs rip out of me so violently I double over. Everything caves in at once. The terror, the grief, the emptiness, the horrifying feeling of losing him over and over and over again. I throw myself against him like I am drowning. Caylix catches me instantly. Strong arms wrap around me so tightly as he climbs onto the bed with me half in his lap, pulling me against his bare chest while my body shakes uncontrollably.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, voice rough with panic. “I’ve got you, Avi. I’m here.”
Tears stream silently down my face while I keep one hand pressed against his heart and the other lifts shakily to trace the scar above his eye, needing to feel every part of him still alive beneath my hands.
My gaze drops to his mouth.
And heat floods the tether so fast it nearly steals the breath from my lungs.