Bonds that Burn and Bind

Chapter 7 Part 1

AN: Giving you a bonus chapter because I updated late last time, enjoy!

"Who are you talking to?" Orin asked, approaching from behind while Winnie stared blankly up at me.

Small goosebumps rose on my arms as I recalled the strange dream I had woken from before finding Orin in my room. Some details were hazy, but in it, I felt like I was Winnie. It had ended with her being devoured by monsters, yet here she stood with a thin layer of fog curling around her feet, looking exactly like I had last seen her.

"A friend, I need to check on her," I said, brushing past him as I grabbed my spare robe, slipping it on as I rushed into the hallway. I didn't hear Orin follow, but that didn't mean he was done with me tonight.

Memory guided my feet in the dark as I descended the grand staircase adorned with flowers for my wedding tomorrow and through a side passage that led into the courtyard.
I found Winnie there, still facing my window where a shadowy figure lingered, Orin.
Gravel crunched under my feet as I walked towards her. "Winnie, are you okay? How did you get away?"

She looked at me with the same blank expression.

How did she know which window was mine? The thought made me stop.

She stretched her arms out in front of her and moved towards me as if pushed across a sheet of ice by an invisible force—not once did her feet move. I backed up, not fully processing what was happening, then turned, but there she was in front of me somehow. Her hands grabbed mine, her touch even colder than the oracle's. The small part of my mind not screaming at me to run laughed at the fact that two scary things had grabbed me in one day.

"It's up to you now." Mischief curling her lips into a smile. "Show them your fangs," she said and vanished.

I stared dumbfounded at the spot she had just occupied. One of the soldiers in my company had seen specters only visible to him until he had followed one off a cliff. Occasionally, my mind turned shadows into crouching forms and replaced passing faces with those of the monsters I had slain in Incartha. But never something as vivid as this.

I glanced back up at the window but found it empty. A bitter breeze carried a few escaped strands from my braid across my face. I raised my left hand to brush the strands aside, but it felt strangely weighty. I held it out and when I saw what was on it I screamed.

In the fringes of my awareness, I became conscious of a forest with leaves turned pink and orange by magic.

"Help us!" They whispered not with words spoken in a language I knew, but somehow, my mind translated them. "Sea devil, come. You are bound to us now by her revenge."

"No!" I cried as they repeated their message in an endless loop. I covered my ears as my body urged me to respond to their beckoning.

Two pairs of feet rushed toward me, and I looked up, half expecting to see horrifying specters. Only to find my brothers standing over me, their faces lit by the full moon.

"You screamed?" Lief asked, tucking his white tunic into his pants. Daen stood beside him, clutching his head, leaves tangled in his dark curls, a queasy look on his face.

"Where were you?" Lief looked towards Daen. "I got another bottle of wine, and you were gone when I returned. I thought we were having a brother bonding session tonight, you know, right before our sister we thought was dead for four years gets married?"

"Sorry, I'm not sure where I went. I woke up in a bush when I heard Val scream," Daen replied.
Lief shook his head, and his ponytail swished back and forth. "You had two glasses of wine."
My eyes fixed on some movement across the dark courtyard, but it was only a maid coming out of the stables, adjusting her clothes as she quickly made for the door leading into the manor.