Unable to sleep again, my mind started to turn over the enigma of Mortana.
From what Orion told me, she sacrificed other people to save herself. That was how she operated. I no longer thought Orion was a psychopath. He pretended to be one, but I suspected that underneath it all, his revenge mission was driven by love for his mom.
But Mortana? She sounded like a real psychopath. Someone with one guiding principle—making sure she got what she wanted. Maybe even a sadist? He’d said she tortured him in the prisons.
Why was I suddenly getting so angry about this?
I found my fists tightening so hard that my nails were piercing my palms. Red-hot anger flowed through me at the thought of Mortana, this evil woman who’d stolen my face.
My body felt electrified with rage. Oddly powerful, even. I wanted to rip Mortana’s head off her doppelg?nger body, but the weirdest part was that I felt like I could actually do it.
Wait…what was happening to me?
A flash of searing heat burned my wrist, and I looked down to see something like a tattoo flickering on my skin, black and red—burning like embers in a fire. I stared in fascination as something started to take shape before my eyes. A skeleton key smoldered on my wrist.
What in the world…
A golden light beamed over it. With a pounding heart, I started to realize where the light was coming from.
I touched my forehead, casting my wrist in shadow again.
Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.
Powerful emotions could reveal a demon’s true nature…
But I couldn’t possibly be a demon. He’d tasted my blood, hadn’t he? He’d been sure I was mortal. This had to be a nightmare.
At last, the smoldering skeleton key faded away on my wrist. Only then was I able to breathe, and I gasped, staring at the pale skin on my arm where the key had been. “Holy shit.”
Orion’s eyes opened, and he frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”
I touched my forehead again, but the light seemed to be gone now. Only Orion’s eyes glowed pale blue in the dark.
“I, um…I think I was just imagining things,” I said.
He reached for me again, pulling me close to him, surrounding me with his arms. “You’ve had a lot to adjust to in the City of Thorns.”
My muscles started to relax again in his arms, and I stared out into the dark grotto.
Diagnostic theories: temporary psychotic break with visual hallucinations, or night terrors from sleep paralysis.
At least, I hoped one of those theories was right.
I lay down again, nestling into his strong arms. I tried to force myself to relax, to let go of that horrible vision. A nightmare. That was all it was.
I turned back to Orion once more, and I caught him looking at me, his eyes half-closed.
“Orion,” I whispered, “tomorrow, will you help me find out information about my mom?"
He nodded and murmured, half-asleep, “Yes. Then we need to get you out of here.”
“What about the king’s weakness?” I asked.
“I’ll figure it out.”
A nightmare. That was literally what Orion was, wasn’t he?
Nightmare: from the Old English maere—an incubus. A creature that robbed you of breath in the night, that fed off you. The monsters that crawled from the shadows to drag you into the afterworld. But despite what he kept telling me, I didn't think he was really a monster. As much as it annoyed and inconvenienced him, he was putting my safety above his own goals. He cared about what happened to me.
When I closed my eyes again, my mind flashed with the image of the burning skeleton key. Why had it been so easy for me to summon my shadow-self here in the City of Thorns?
Dread slid through my blood.
Why did it feel like I knew Mortana?
A horrible thought struck me like a lightning bolt—the secret I’d been keeping myself from turning over in my mind. The thing I’d been running from.
What if it was me?
What if I was the one who’d killed Mom? What if I had a dark side I wouldn’t admit to myself? That night was so chaotic, and I remembered being angry at her for making me run, for not explaining what was going on. I remembered thinking she was crazy.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I could feel myself shaking.
What if I was the real nightmare?
“Rowan,” Orion whispered, “I can feel that you’re panicking over something. What’s happening?”
My stomach tightened. “Just what you mentioned. The danger in the City of Thorns.”
“I can help you sleep, if you want,” he said quietly. “It’s an incubus thing.”