He swallowed. “Hello Nikolai.”
The head moved, just a little. “Lucas? It is you. Why are you here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Lucas pointed out.
Nikolai finally looked up. Lucas’s gut twisted into a knot—the eyes were clouded with black fog. Perditor eyes.
“I think I’m dreaming,” Nikolai said.
“So am I.”
The dark brows dropped. “Are you in my dream, or am I in yours?”
Lucas shrugged and looked around. “Don’t think mine would be quite so grim. Although there are no guarantees.”
Nikolai closed his eyes. “I did this.”
“For real, or in your dream?”
He shook his head. “Does it matter?”
The note in Nikolai’s voice struck like an arrow to Lucas’s heart, and he took a cautious step closer. “The Nikolai I know never does this without a reason.”
A flash of pure silver in those eyes, before the black swirled in again. “My reasons no longer matter. Galeran controls me now.”
The knot in Lucas’s gut tightened. “He controls your power? I thought it was locked away?”
“He had a Watcher put a rune on me that is linked to him. It gives him access.”
The knot in Lucas’s stomach tightened. “What does he want to do with it?”
The Liberi shook his head, and the eyes gleamed inky blackness. “He says he wants to pursue the Bellatis’ goals. To end the corruption of the realms and restore the life energy to balance.”
Lucas frowned. That didn’t sound too bad. “That sounds like something the realms badly need.”
Nikolai’s sculpted lips straightened. “I know. But if his motives are pure, why am I in chains?”
Lucas’s breath left him in a single exhalation. A part of him had hoped his vision was only a mirage. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I saw them chain you.”
Nikolai’s eyes flashed and then closed. “I fear the reason. Because bound as I am, I am powerless to stop him.”
Ice traveled up Lucas’s spine. Nikolai in charge of all that power was terrifying enough. But to have another control it gave this Galeran the power over life and death.
And made him into a god.
This couldn’t be allowed to happen. Lucas found himself falling to his knees before Nikolai. “You’re so strong, Nikolai. You have to fight this.”
Nikolai blinked at him. For just a moment, the gray shone through. “I don’t know how.”
He seemed so helpless, and hopeless. Like he was ready to give up, when the battle had only just begun. It surprised Lucas. Maybe the big guy really didn’t know how hard it was to fight against what life threw at him, so that he could look at himself in the mirror and not wince.
But then again, some wild animals died when put in a cage. As though it destroyed something vital within them. Could he show Nikolai how to fight?
Lucas’s fingers scrabbled through the dead meadow grass and found what he sought. He gritted his teeth and reached for the big man’s hands. He turned one over and placed the acorn onto the palm.
The second he folded Nikolai’s fingers around it, the Liberi stiffened. A pulse of something undefinable shot between them, a tingle of pure electricity that zinged straight through Lucas. But he kept hold, not letting Nikolai drop the seed.
“You have seen into my memories, Nikolai. I have learned that the only way forward, is through. You can’t let what the Watchers have done, or Galeran either, defeat you.”
