Page 97 of Cursed By the Dawn

“I don’t?” he choked out. “Perhaps that’s true.”

“Your actions have said everything he needs to know. If you truly wish to be redeemed, tell me everything. Tell me how we can save Noctis and the Dream Realm.”

Mithras rattled his chains, showing me his hands. “Raelion—he’s—it’s already done. Five years ago, I made plans for you to take my life in Istralla. You’d have been escorted to the capital and treated like royalty before I offered my head to you on a Maker-forsakenplatter.” Tears spilled down his sunken face. He looked up at me, eyes dull. “For five years, I thought you haddied, Esmer. You and Erebus weren’t in the Dream Realm, and you weren’t in Noctis, either.” He made a strangled sound. As if he was choking on his own blood. “I haven’t been strong enough to resist him these last five years. I’d withstood him for centuries, bolstered by hope, but this was too much.”

He reached toward me, chains clinking.

I recoiled.

Mithras dropped his arms. “To kill Raelion for good, you will need to destroy his physical and incorporeal bodies. His physical body ismine. Find me at the Revel of Dawn and aim for my head or my heart. Perhaps both.” He gave a short, miserable laugh. “And then, when I’m dead, descend into the Dream Realm and fight Raelion again. He’ll be weak,” he gritted out, drawing his hand back to his chest. “When I say it’s too late, I mean forme. I never said it was too late foryou.”

And then I was shoved backward by an unseen power, spiraling away from the dream with the force of a gale.

I woke up clutching my chest, hair tangled and chest heaving. The first threads of light trickled in through the bedchamber’s windows, soft and steady despite the frantic animal in my ribs. It was today. Everything would happentoday.

The rise of a new dawn for Noctis, or its brutal, bloody fall.

“You dreamed of him?” Erebus asked, simmering with anger even as he held me close, examining me for any signs of the demon lurking within.

Demon. Demon. Demon.

I could feel him wondering—searching—as I recounted my dream with Mithras. I was the only one who had managed to dream; Erebus had encountered nothing but darkness. The other Weavers joined us around the canopied bed, faces hardened with both concern and resolve.

“To think he had the right to say goodbye,” Erebus snarled. Twin crescents, indicative of the exhaustion that plagued us both, marked the hollows of his eyes. “He will never speak to you again after this day. First I will take his heart, then I will sever the tongue from his throat.”

A chorus of bright, cheerful bells interrupted us, echoing out from somewhere beyond the citadel.

The Revel of Dawn was here.

The nine of us dressed quickly in what Silas had prepared for us: lavish white outfits with gold embroidery, ruby jewelry and adornments, and matching gold masks with extravagant beadwork. We looked so unlike ourselves that I wanted to laugh, but if we deviated at all from this attire, we’d be sorely out of place.

Before we left, we hid our weapons on our bodies, as none would bepermitted at the Revel. Erebus strapped two long daggers, deftly concealed by a short cape, to his back, and I positioned mine within my voluminous sleeves. They were nothing compared to the strength of our shadows, but they were all we had. In Noctis, our shadows were fickle, only appearing in areas of great power—like the Weaver tombs—or when faced with great disease—like Corruption.

Erebus and I were the last to leave the room. His towering body stilled as he drank me in, from the rubies in my ears to the slippers beaded with golden suns at my feet. Raelion’s marking was hidden, perfectly concealed by a high neckline.

“You belong with me in shadow, but there’s something radiant about you in gold.”

A strangled sound escaped my lips, a cross between a confident laugh and a hysterical sob. I placed a hand upon his cheek, brushing the edge of his gilded mask. “No matter what happens today, I want you to know that I regret nothing. You changed my life for the better.”

“Our story isn’t over yet,” he said, jaw tensing as he regarded me seriously. “I won’t allow it to be.”

And then he quieted my answer with a fierce kiss that was nothing but love.

Citadel Firstlight had transformed overnight.

Masked Revelers, dressed in finery identical to ours, crowded the halls as they hurried toward a great ballroom. It was a blur of movement and excitement, of radiant hope and joyful celebration. Inside the ballroom, there was dancing, singing, laughing; a celebration filled with people genuinely elated at the day’s significance and what it would bring. They chattered excitedly about dreams—what they hoped to see and do. It reminded me of my childhood. Of how Elliot, Eden, and I would curl up under a pile of blankets and speculate about what dreaming felt like.

How we wished, desperately, for the chance to safely try.

Above us was a domed ceiling that was segmented into several panels. The central panel was an enormous mural of the Light Bringer raising a scepter in front of a golden sun. From it hung strips of red fabric that crawled across the painting and the ceiling’s panels and draped all the way to the glossy floor.

I wrinkled my nose.

The curtains reminded me of bloody entrails.

I held my chin high and plastered a bland smile onto my face, trying not to appear vindictive or unhappy. The gravity of what we were aboutto do was not lost on me. Killing Mithras would likely be a very public affair, and we were in a room filled with hundreds—if not thousands—of faithful citizens. Silas swore we’d have the allegiance of the Light Legion. Theia promised the citizens of Noctis would recognize the Weavers and accept the truth.

Still, slaying the glorious Light Bringer would be an irreversible disruption.