Chapter 181 A Dreams Warning
(Adelaide)
Adelaide remembered, with a sharp ache, the way Apollo’s roughness had made her sob. Yet, just as vividly, shame and longing mingled as she recalled how some dark, secret part of her had climbed willingly toward each brutal crest. She ached for Cael’s gentle kindness, her heart torn, even as her body still shivered at the memory of Apollo’s teeth at her throat, his growled praise in her ear.
She didn’t know. All she knew was that when she closed her eyes, she felt them both, emotions for Apollo and Cael battling inside her, each demanding her attention.
Apollo, like a sun she’d flown too close to, blistering and inescapable. Cael, like a hidden fire under the earth, slow and deep and patient. One flame devoured. The other waited. And she was caught between them, a matchstick held over oil.
Her flame pulsed between them, confused and restless.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled at her. The ache dulled to a throb. Her thoughts came slower, half-formed. The bed rose and fell under her like a tide.
The sigils under the mattress dimmed from a hard, warning glow to a softer thrum, matching the slowing beat of her heart. Somewhere in the dark of her chest, the Queen’s earlier touch seemed to stir, tugging her gently downward.
She slipped under.
⸸
The Dreamscape greeted her with cold.
Not the cold of winter, but the clean chill of starlight on water. She stood barefoot at the edge of a black lake, its surface so still it looked like obsidian glass. The sky above was an endless dark dome, pricked with unfamiliar constellations.
Flame danced over the water. At first, Adelaide thought it was reflections of the stars. Then the fire moved against the surface tension, not with it—white and gold and blood-red tongues of light curling in graceful arcs across the lake.
The air smelled of rain on hot stone. Each breath she drew tasted new and old at once, like the first moments after a storm when the world hasn’t remembered yet how to breathe. Ripples of heat rolled out from the dancing flames, distorting the starlight and bending the sky in strange, beautiful ways.
“Back again, little spark.” The voice came from behind her. Low, amused, rich with something that felt like sorrow and pride woven together.
Adelaide turned. The Queen stood in the shallows. Water lapped around her ankles and caught the fire that lived beneath her skin. Veins of incandescent light traced her limbs, pulsing with each slow heartbeat. Her hair was a mane of burning red, not metaphorical, not an illusion—living flame shaped into cascading strands that spilled down her back and over her shoulders, each curl licking at the air without consuming it.
Her eyes were molten too, like someone had poured liquid moonlight into them until they overflowed.
“You,” Adelaide breathed.
The Queen smiled, just a fraction. “Me.”
Adelaide’s throat tightened. The last time she’d seen this woman—this echo, this ghost, this remnant of a crown burned out of existence—the world had turned upside down. Flames had answered her like they’d been waiting centuries for the sound of her blood.
She remembered her in violence, in anger. But now, standing here, she appeared gentle. Still, Adelaide felt small and vast at once. It was like standing in front of a storm that had chosen, just for this moment, to be a breeze. The threat of power was still there, coiled behind the Queen’s eyes, but it was leashed—for Adelaide’s sake, not her own.
“Why do you always bring me here?” she asked. “Why can’t you just… speak to me when I’m awake?”
The Queen tilted her head, red fire-hair crackling softly. “Because waking is where you lie to yourself.”
Adelaide flinched. “I don’t—”
“You do,” the Queen said, not unkindly. She stepped closer, the water not soaking her dress so much as steaming against the heat that poured off her. “You tell yourself you hate the chains, and you do. You tell yourself you despise the Devil, and in many ways, you do. You tell yourself you owe nothing to shadows, and yet you apologise through doors.”
Each word settled on Adelaide’s skin like warm ash, light and heavy at the same time. Truth, layered over truth, until it was hard to tell which part of her hurt more—the part that wanted to deny it, or the part that was relieved to hear it said aloud.
Adelaide swallowed. The lake wind tugged at her hair; it smelled faintly of smoke.
“I didn’t want Cael to see,” she said, the words spilling out before she knew she’d chosen them. “What he made me do. What he did to me. I didn’t want anyone to see that.”
“But you were aware of him,” the Queen said softly. “Even when the Devil was inside you, you knew the shadow was at the door.”
Heat flooded Adelaide’s cheeks. “I didn’t choose that.”
“I didn’t say you did.” The Queen’s eyes gleamed. “Flame does not always wait for permission to burn.”
Adelaide pressed a hand to her chest. Her palm came away glowing faintly, the same red-gold as the Queen’s hair. Her heart beat loud against her ribs.
“What’s happening to me?” she whispered.
“You are waking up.”
“That’s not… that’s not an answer.”
The Queen huffed a quiet laugh, a sound like kindling catching. “It’s the only one you’re ready to hear,” she said. “The rest would break you before he ever had the chance.”
The Queen’s gaze drifted over Adelaide’s shoulder, toward the distant horizon, where three points of light had begun to rise. One was molten gold. One was a darker, reddish-coloured glow. The third was stark white, bright enough to hurt.
“You are split between fire and shadow,” the Queen said. The words rolled like a tide against Adelaide’s skin. “Two flames rise toward you.”
The darker glow pulsed—deep flames edged in black, old and patient. Adelaide’s chest clenched. She felt Apollo’s hands, his teeth, his voice in her ear.
“One will claim you in blood.”
The golden flare surged next. Adelaide’s thoughts flickered to Cael, to the way his shadows had shaken around him, to the way she’d felt something else inside her that wasn’t the Devil’s fire.
“One will guard you in silence.”
As the Queen spoke, the lights overhead shifted, lines of burning script etching themselves briefly between them—ancient words Adelaide couldn’t read, but somehow understood. Promise. Warning. Choice.
Adelaide took a step back. “I don’t want either of them to—”
The Queen stepped forward, closing the distance, her hand lifting.
“And you…” Her palm pressed against Adelaide’s lower stomach, right over the place where her own flame had first erupted in The Devil’s bed. Heat blossomed there, bright and fierce, making Adelaide gasp.
“…child of mine…” The Queen’s eyes burned brighter, fierce and sad and proud all at once.
“…will burn them both.” The lake surged. Fire leapt higher. The three rising lights collided in the sky with a thunderous crack. Adelaide felt something tear—In the world. In herself.
Ripples raced outward from the point of impact, shredding the reflections on the water, splitting the stars into jagged, shimmering shards. For a breathless instant, she saw it: Apollo on his knees, Cael in chains, herself alight from the inside out, all three of them bound in the same circle of fire.
She choked on a sound—half scream, half sob—And woke.