Court Of Tethers and Ruin *A dark fae fantasy- romance*

Chapter 9: Crimson threads, visions and threats

Ayla woke choking on the ghost of the witch's laughter.  Her head pounded and her vision clouded with faint sparkling dots.

Her fingers scrambled at her own throat but her hands came back bare - no ink or blood stained hands, no threads coiled around her neck like a noose. Only sweat damp skin and the too quick flutter of her pulse. The fire had burned down to skeletal embers, their blue glow painting the frost-laced walls in watery light. 

Then she felt it. 

The thread. 

Her thread. 

It spilled from her wrist like a slit vein, tainted a deep almost black crimson and glistening, its other end spearing straight through the chamber door. She'd grown accustomed to its constant presence since her arrival in the Winter Court, this single tether in a world of invisible connections that no longer graced her with their presence. But tonight it throbbed, each pulse sending a dull ache through her ribs. Tonight it was tainted.

Ayla pressed a hand to her chest feeling the erratic beat of her heart and the uneven shallow rise of her chest as she took in shaky breaths. The vision came without warning she buckled over, her back concaving outwards: 

Large sharpe hands slick with black blood. A shattered crown at his feet. The thread between them fraying into gossamer strands—

The door creaked open.  Ayla's head snapped towards the door.

"Still abed?" Kairos' voice cut through the vision's remnants. He stood framed in the doorway, moonlight catching the sharp angles of his face. A statue of obsidian and and auburn marble, his hand braced against the doorframe with a stark casualness. The thread between them tightened, vibrating like a plucked nerve, she watched the thread dim and then brighten into a vivid red, remnants of gold peaking through before dimming into the darkness of the shadows.  Danger. She thought, the word echoing in her mind and the hair on her arms standing taught.

Ayla swallowed. She could taste the vision's metallic tang on her tongue. 

Kairos took a step forward as if summoned by the thread's tension, he lefts no impression on the hoarfrost laced floor as he moved towards her, his movements slick and impossibly fluid with predatory elegance . His eyes stayed focused on her face only to slowly lower to the swift raise and fall of her chest. Ayla flinched instinctively raising her forearm to protect herself. The thread darkened to the color of a deep bruise. He raised a perfect eyebrow, tilting his head as he watched her shaken form. "You look like you've seen a ghost." 

Yours she almost said.

Though perhaps ghost was not an accurate description.

She wasn't sure what she had seen. A ghost? The remains of the witches inky vision? A dream? She wasn't sure. Her mother had warned her about witches before, her warning was as clear as the day she told Ayla and Amara about them, she could hear her mother's voice ringing in the back of her mind. Witches were deceivers, their notions were not always clear. They served chaos and darkness and were often the ones pulling the strings of larger plans. In the past before they had begun to vanish from the earth they served a god who called to them from the depths of darkness. Beings of shadow. They may not have been seen in centuries, but the whispers of their sightings had never ceased and the shadows of their doings were still stained into the earth. Their bargains and spells bringing forth disaster even after generations.

The only problem is Ayla was not sure if the witch was the deceiver or if some part of her vision was true and this was a warning.

She needed to be careful. She couldn't afford to be swayed by a puppeteer and she couldn't afford to end up like Thalia.