Page 9 of Incoronate
My eyes snapped open.
The room was dark, the fog outside pressed thick and unmoving against the windows, muting the moonlight until everything felt sealed off from the rest of the world. Trace’s breathing rose and fell evenly from the floor beside my bed as Dominic remained still in the armchair, his presence the only thing anchoring the room to the real world.
Everything appeared normal, just the remnants of another bad dream, and yet every nerve in my body was screaming that something was very, very wrong.
…The time is now…
Terror flooded my chest, freezing me in place.
It wasn’t a dream. The Horsemen’s voices were back, curling around my thoughts the way smoke from a burning room crept under a door. Sliding throughmy head with the kind of ease that meant they’d never really been gone in the first place. They’d just been waiting in the dark for the right moment to strike.
I sat up slowly, the covers sliding down to pool at my waist.
…Come...
The voices didn’t ask. They didn’t even order. They just spoke, as plain and obvious as if someone had handed me a glass of water and told me to drink it.
My body responded before my brain did.
My hand was already moving the covers aside. My legs were already sliding toward the edge of the bed. There was no resistance, no internal argument, just a smooth, terribleknowingthat this was what I was supposed to do. I could feel a sense of movement and momentum, of the others already in motion, waiting for me to fall into step beside them.
I needed to join them. The Horsemen. My brothers. Whatever the connection was, I could feel it tugging at mefrom somewhere far away, pulling me toward them with the kind of gravity I’d only ever felt with Trace and Dominic.
Except this didn’t feel like love. This felt like obligation. Like a debt being called in.
Of courseI needed to join them. The thought arrived dressed up like my own, slipping into my head with the same easy familiarity as the voices themselves.
My bare feet hit the cold hardwood without me deciding to put them there.
I stood, my spine pulling itself straight as though strings were attached to it. The pull in my chest surged in approval, warmth spreading through my veins as though I’d finally made the right decision.
…The hunt begins soon…
…Do not delay…
The hunt.
Yes. The hunt.
The knowledge poured into me without invitation. The Son of Perdition. The threat that needed to be ended before it could grow into something worse.
There was no question in any of it. Only the inescapable certainty that this was what had to happen.
I moved toward the door without thinking about it, each step carrying me forward before I could second-guess it. The voices hummed their approval, a chorus of agreement that filled the spaces between my thoughts until there was no room left for doubt.
Trace stirred on the floor and I froze.
“Hey.” His voice was rough with sleep, concern bleeding into it the second he saw me on my feet. He pushed himself up onto one elbow, his eyes finding me easily even in the dark. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”
…He cannot stop you. Do not let him stop you…
“I have to go,” I said, the words flat and distant, as though it had traveled from somewhere far away before reaching my lips.
Dominic was on his feet in an instant, every line of him snapping to attention at once. “And where exactly do you imagine you’re going at this hour?”
…They will try to keep you here. Do not let them…
“I have to go to them.”
