The Weight of Dreams

by Molly Lavenza

  The Weight of Dreams

  The Changeling Covenant, Book Two

  by Molly Lavenza

  Series cover designs by Marsha Black

  ©2019 Molly Lavenza, All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. All similarity to any

  person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter One

  Declan’s words struck me like a death blow.

  She’ll kill us both now.

  The first time I heard them, I was in his arms, covered in chocolate soft-serve ice cream, unsure when or if the vision of us in the vibrant, lush meadow would be fulfilled.

  No.

  I wasn’t ready. It was too soon.

  He held his hand out, stepping towards me in an offer to pull me to my feet again. The utter defeat in his voice had brought me to my knees, and I wasn’t sure if I could rise again, not with the way his icy blue eyes faltered in his efforts to look into mine.

  What if he was right, and all his determined efforts to bring me to Faerie were in vain?

  Hot tears trailed down my cheeks, the once dry skin now soft and smooth since our transition to the realm in which I was born and had always belonged.

  From my position down amidst the sweetly scented grass, I could see that his scruffy, worn Converse were no longer a faded ivory but smeared with pale brown and greenish yellow smudges from all the running we had been doing since entering this realm.

  I had no idea how my own discount store moccasins had fared during our journey, but for once in my life, after a long day my feet and legs didn’t hurt. They weren’t aching or throbbing; they weren’t even on my radar.

  Usually at this time of day, back home in Ohio, I would be taking a nap, wrapped around my body pillow in bed like a little girl.

  Here in Faerie, where time ran differently in a way neither Declan nor I understood, I should have felt out of place, a fish out of water, unlike the beast we had just encountered on the bridge over the lake.

  But I didn’t. Everything about me was comfortable, carefree, calm - except, of course, during our interactions with the lux, or was it luxes? Had it been the same one each time, or did they all look the same?

  The list of answers I had been searching for all day was only growing, and every time I learned something to satisfy one question another question arose. Physically, I had never felt more alive and aware, but emotionally, the calm I had finally discovered was shattered by the hopelessness in Declan’s eyes.

  Hopelessness?

  I took his hand and used his weight to pull myself so we were eye to eye. For the first time in my life, I had strength to offer someone else.

  Strength to offer the boy who came into another realm to rescue me. Spent over seventeen years searching for me. How could I possibly show him what his sacrifice of time and effort meant?

  His lips were warm and soft and while I had no idea what I was doing, he fell into the kiss as I captured them with my own. All I knew of kisses came from TV shows and books, and from my friend Corrie’s complaints about boys at school who were slobbery.

  Declan was definitely not slobbery.

  I hadn’t been tentative or gentle when I kissed him, but he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me closer, deepening the kiss before I knew what was happening. If a lux or worse, this nebulous she would have appeared, we would have been easy prey.

  All I felt and knew was Declan, and I knew in my heart that his experience mirrored mine. If I could show him that even though I didn’t really understand much of what was happening to us in Faerie, I believed in him, maybe it would bring his own faith in his purpose back.

  After all, I was his purpose, and returning me to where he had continued to say was my rightful place - wherever that was - his aim. If he needed more time to explain, I had plenty of that now we were in Faerie and I was bound to him to guide me.

  A rustle in the tall grass that surrounded us made us hold each other tighter as we broke the kiss, but as soon as our lips were apart he kissed me again, quickly but gently. I had hoped to see a smile, even a small one, when he was serious and quiet for a few moments before he spoke.

  “We aren’t alone. In Faerie, no one is.”

  It wasn’t what I hoped to hear, not after that kiss, but he didn’t look sad anymore, or defeated. Back on track, and refusing to give up, was more like it, and exactly what I had been going for when I accepted his hand and decided to take matters into my own.

  As romantic as fairies seemed in the human world, my experience in Faerie so far had led me to realize that here, beauty was in a delicate balance with danger, and a mistake on the part of a newcomer, whether or not she was a true creature of the realm, could make the difference between life and death.

  “Run.”

  Declan’s single word was a breathless growl, and he jerked me forwards as he turned away, holding my hand tight. I wasn’t sure if my shoes were even still on my feet, and at the pace we were going, they wouldn’t have lasted anyway.

  My hair, newly golden and flowing behind me weightlessly, caught on a tree branch as we left the open meadow and headed into a wooded area. I yanked on it as Declan continued to pull me, and finally tore a chunk of it from my head with the fierceness of both of our efforts.

  “I’m sorry, but we can’t stop. We can’t . . .”

  His apology was lost in an otherworldly groan that started out low and deep behind us, and I was tempted to slow down and look to see what could possibly make such an unholy sound. It was sudden and ominous, like the roar of an unimaginable mythical beast, and from the way the sound grew with my every step, it was following us at a mortifying pace.

  “Don’t look back,” Declan called, his own face still forward as he quickened his pace, dragging me with him. “Please, Hope, don’t you dare look back.”

  My decision to trust him led me to keep my mouth shut and my eyes on the back of Declan’s head instead of giving in to my morbid curiosity by checking out what was happening behind us. The groaning grew louder, its pitch varied as if it was trying to speak. Whatever it was saying, it wasn’t good, not for us, or anyone or anything else close by.

  But how far could it follow?

  It wasn’t a question that was going to help me keep up with Declan, but I couldn’t help wondering. I pushed myself to focus on the boy in front of me, his determination that was faltering only moments before, revived by my impulsive kiss, inspiring me in turn.

  I slipped a little, the leaves underneath my feet piling up as we moved farther into the forest, and suddenly the roar was against my back, a hot wind breathy and moist against my neck.

  Before I could even scream, the ground beneath me shuddered and Declan jerked my arm.

  “Don’t slow down!”

  His voice had shifted from determined to desperate, and as I struggled to keep my feet moving over the forest floor, I felt the earth behind me slipping
away. How much longer until there was nothing underneath me at all?

  “Declan!” I screamed, reaching out to grab at his arm, hoping that any extra leverage I could gain by holding on to him with both hands would help me escape the gap that was opening up not only behind me, but only a few steps behind.

  He yanked hard again and my hand faltered in the air, my efforts hindered by his movement.

  “Keep going!”

  His voice was distant now as the groaning noise rushed over my head. I closed my eyes against the heat I could actually see in waves through the air in front of my face, bringing a rush of heat to my skin.

  The packed leaves no longer cushioned my steps, and my feet swung in the empty space, pedaling as if I was attempting to ride a bike, a skill I had never been able to master growing up. Falling as I did back then, but with no parents to hold up the shiny pink bicycle they had bought me to inspire my efforts, I grasped Declan’s hand as tightly as I could.

  He called my name and I saw his face, his beautiful, icy eyes wide open with terror, for a brief moment before I fell, alone and afraid, into the abyss.

  Chapter Two

  “Ah, the dreamseer has arrived. Alive and well, too.”

  I hadn’t fallen far, but hard enough to land uncomfortably on my butt so that the well from a masculine, amused voice annoyed me. Certain that the voice didn’t belong to Declan, I wondered if he had somehow followed me into what I had feared was a dark pit, but had ended up somewhere else.

  Anything was possible at this point.

  There was definitely another man close by, one who was already getting on my nerves.

  Blinking into the bright sunlight, I lifted a hand to shield my eyes and glared in the direction of the voice. Whoever it was, he sounded quite pleased with himself.

  “If she doesn’t know that you’re here, she will soon, and what a show that will be!”

  The haughty laughter that followed his statement made me wrinkle my nose. Who was this guy, and why was he interested in me? And who was this she everyone kept talking about?

  First things first, I reminded myself, rocking forward onto my heels and rising to face the shadowy figure in front of me.

  His height was impossible . . . like one of those classic anime characters with huge boxy shoulders and way out of proportion lengthy legs. Maybe it was just the angle of my vision, or maybe, like the lux, he wasn’t human at all.

  Were there any humans in Faerie?

  “Where is Declan?”

  Before I could ask this creature anything else, Declan was first and foremost in my mind. This had been the strangest, most exciting day of my entire life, and it was all because of him. Whatever else was going on, I wanted and needed to be with him for the long haul.

  He might have lost his memories, but he had a handle on the lay of the land in Faerie, and I had no clue where to go next. If I could even go anywhere with this guy looming over me.

  “I don’t have any need of him, and from this point on, neither do you,” he sneered, his self-assurance practically oozing from his lips as he spoke.

  I narrowed my eyes and looked around, surprised and confused at the overbearing amount of floral landscape surrounding us. A wide pathway lined with vines of leaves and flowers, it was nothing like I had imagined encountering during my brief fall into darkness moments earlier.

  “Why so shy? I know not everyone in the human realm is so quiet.”

  My attention fell back to him, and I stepped closer, slowly and carefully. He hadn’t tried to hurt me yet, but the way his voice crooned with sarcasm, I was certain he wasn’t as genial as he was pretending to be.

  “I’m worried about Declan. He’s probably looking for me, and . . .”

  His forced laughter rang out like a clattering of bells, false and harsh, making me backtrack instinctively a few steps when he interrupted me.

  “Worried about him? You should be worried about yourself!”

  The smile that spread over his thin face was taunting, but his eyes, almost entirely white, ran over me in a very serious, very calculating way.

  “Or just let me do that for you. You’ll have nothing to be afraid of if you stay by my side.”

  As if, I wanted to say, but stopped myself before I said a word. If this person, creature, or whatever he was had the power to create the surge of emptiness that had opened up beneath me after a fierce, brief chase, sucking me down into this overgrown tunnel of flowers, I couldn’t be sure I could manage whatever else he had up his sleeve.

  Or, in his case, gown. He was clad in a flowing white garment that resembled something a character from The Lord of the Rings might have worn, and together with his matching eyes, he was a disturbing sight. If his eyes hadn’t been so unnerving, he might have been attractive, in a Shakespearean, Midsummer Night’s Dream sort of way.

  I kept my eyes on him as I tried to gather my thoughts and figure out how to ask for the information I needed him to share with me. Why did he separate me from Declan, and why did he want me to stay by his side, as he put it, at all?

  His smile never left his face, even as I imagined that my own expression mirrored my confusion and concentration. His dark hair, curly like Declan’s and windblown as if he had spent time standing beneath a ceiling fan, swayed a little in the breeze.

  Where was that lilting movement of air coming from?

  I had too many questions and couldn’t wait any longer to ask, even if he had already dodged my primary interest and wasn’t showing any signs of willingness to offer any information at all.

  “Is Declan okay? Will you at least tell me that much?”

  It sounded antagonistic, although I was really going for diplomatic. He didn’t seem to mind my tone, maintaining his false smile as if it would do him any good when it came to convincing me that he wasn’t to be feared.

  Or maybe he didn’t care whether I was afraid of him, or if I trusted him, at all.

  “I’m sure he’s fine. Stumbling about searching for you, I’m sure.”

  Somewhere in the distance, a high-pitched whine suddenly sounded, and after a few moments, I felt my shoulders creep up and curl forward as I realized that it was a scream. Before I could ask what, or who, it was, the scream stopped as abruptly as it had started, and I stood staring at the endless trail behind my antagonist.

  Was someone out there, hurt, or worse, dead? What sort of place had I fallen into?

  Was this even still Faerie?

  “He’s used to that, though. Searching for almost eighteen years for the faerie baby he himself left behind in place of a weakling human infant.”

  He shook his head slowly as the words registered his meaning in my head.

  Declan was the one who switched me with the real Hope Lampers? Impossible. Not only had he not mentioned what would have been an incredibly important fact, but wouldn’t he have known where to find me if he had been responsible for the act?

  “I can’t expect you to trust me when we’ve only just met, but I promise, I’m not lying. Ask any lux, for that matter. Don’t even mention that I’ve told you.”

  The breeze, rich with floral scents and a hint of something minty, cooled my damp neck just as it moved my nearly weightless hair across my back.

  The luxes had not endeared themselves to me, and even if I trusted them, asking would only show that I didn’t trust Declan.

  And I did trust him. Didn’t I?

  “So transparent. I suppose living in the human realm made you weak in both body and mind, so predictable with your emotions so clearly written on your face.”

  I opened my mouth and stepped forward, no longer worried about any sort of retaliation, but before I could speak, he snapped his fingers. The spark that burst from the action jumped into the palm of his hand, growing into a huge flame.

  The heat was intense and sudden, proof that this was no trick. I didn’t move away, though, and stood as close to him as I could without touching the fire or his body.

  “For our journey. I may b
e an immortal fae, but I’m not a cat.”

  I frowned. Journey?

  “Silly thing,” he chuckled softly, his voice creepily intimate. “Cats can see in the dark in the human realm just as they can here, correct?”

  There were cats in Faerie? I had always been allergic to every pet possibility, a devastating fate for a lonely and bullied child, but here in Faerie, where I was no longer weak or ill, I had to be able to hold a cat.

  If a cat in Faerie was the same sort of cat I had been watching from afar since I was a little girl, that was. They could be entirely different, but at least they could see in the dark, as this guy claimed.

  “Will you tell me your name, if nothing else?”

  My cheeks were warm, and I suspected they were flushed with the heat of the flame so close. I was surprised that no laughter followed my question, only a brief silence before an answer came after a small, polite bow of his head.

  “Prince Lantis, at your service.”

  When he lifted his head just enough to glance up at me, I saw that the smirk had returned.

  “But you can call me Lantis. After all, we’re going to become close friends.”

  I leaned back without thinking as he hummed to himself before adding extra emphasis to his assertion.

  “Very close friends.”

  Chapter Three

  Lantis turned and lifted his elbow, his eerie eyes on mine.

  “Let me escort you to my home, or at least my home for the time being. I mean to take my proper place in the center of Faerie, in the royal bower, but these things take time.”

  I stared at him, still unclear as to what was happening. The scream that had punctuated the general silence only a few moments earlier haunted me, and I wondered if who or what it was that had cried out was even still alive. The abruptness of the scream’s end was too final for me to find any reason to expect that the poor being hadn’t been silenced forever.

  “Come now, let’s not be missish. You’re a big girl, and now that you know where you belong, I can take you there.”

  Still not helpful, Lantis seemed to think that I was aware of so much more than I actually was. I wondered if I could play on that and get him to reveal more, even as I wanted him to explain where Declan was in relation to our own current position in Faerie.