Page 15 of Ashen Souls

“Exactly where you were always going, Patches.”

Patches? Why would he call me that? Was it some twisted joke about the car crash? About me being stitched back together in a hospital bed?

I swallowed, trying to find my voice. “Patches? What is that supposed to mean?”

An amused huff broke the darkness. “Hm,” was all he offered.

“Am I dreaming?”

For a moment, the only answer was the unnatural oppression of the room. “If you are, you’ve been dreaming of me for a very long time.”

Movement stirred in the murk near the far wall. The candles reacted first, their flames reaching higher, drawn toward whatever had just shifted in the dark.

And then he stepped into the light.

He was massive, the chamber suddenly too small for the breadth of his shoulders. His skin held a deep bronze sheen, fractured by faint lines of ember-red that pulsed beneath the surface. It looked as if a furnace lived inside him, choosing exactly where to vent its glow.

Dark wings unfurled at his back, tattered webs of soot and smoke. Veins of dim fire bled through the dark, echoing the incandescence beneath his skin. They moved with a leashed power, never fully extending, as though he were a god refusing to spill over the margins of a mortal room.

His hair was ink-black and unruly, falling over his brow in a mess of curls that felt like an afterthought. His face possessed a beauty that felt like a provocation: harsh lines, high cheekbones, and a mouth that looked like it understood exactly how much damage it could do.

But his eyes were what finally broke me. They burned like dying coals, low and predatory, so ancient they made my own instincts scream.

And they were fixed on me.

“You,” I breathed. “Were you there? In the fog?”

“You remember me.”

“I remember dying,” I said, the words scraping my throat. “And a voice. That’s all.”

“That isn’t all,” he murmured.

He moved across the floor, his bare feet making no sound upon the stone. He didn't rush, yet he closed the distance with an unnerving ease.

“Who are you?” I asked, shrinking back into the bed. “And why am I here?”

He halted at the bedside. The fever radiating from him intensified, cutting through the chill of the silk.

“Daeren.” One corner of his mouth lifted, as though my confusion amused him.

The name lodged in my chest, a searing thing I couldn't displace.

“Daeren,” I repeated.

His hand rose. I braced for the warmth on my cheek, but his fingers drifted lower, finding the skin of my wrist.

Deep beneath my ribs, that invisible thread, the one that had pulled me taut for weeks, snapped into place, tethering itself to the hand that held me.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” I managed.

His thumb traced the blue line of my veins, trapping my quickened pulse beneath it. “Perhaps, but you were never meant for the world you left.”

A shudder racked me, driven by fear and a hunger I couldn't justify. “Why am I here?” I asked again.

He watched me, his eyes brightening, casting a glow over the harsh lines of his face.

“I’ve spent a millennium watching your soul from the void, Aveline.” His voice fell to a low frequency, a thrum that hummed in my bones. “Through every restless hour. Every disappointment you called a compromise. Through the ache you couldn't name.”