Skykeeper (The Drowning Empire Book 1)

by S. M. Gaither

  I keep ending up in places throughout the hold without remembering how I got there. Blinking, and then I am somewhere else, the hazy memories of everything that came before rushing past in the corners of my vision.

  At some point, I end up outside.

  It’s dark. No light from the drom reflecting over me. I should be cold, I think dimly, because there is a wind whipping up through the narrow, rocky passage in the distance—the one that led us to our fortress—and I remember that wind being so frigid in my awake-life. And I’m still dressed the same as I was when I fell asleep: thin sleeping gown, no cloak, bare feet.

  I am not cold.

  Not cold, and not afraid of the dark. Nothing scares me anymore. Nothing confuses me. I think of the nearby river, of the calm spot along its banks that I led Finn to when I first arrived here, and I picture myself sitting beside my horse. And then I am there in the same way I have arrived everywhere else in this dream: blinking, and then sitting on the bank with Finn’s dripping-wet head in my lap, my feet skimming the top of the water beside him.

  I run my fingers through his mane, untangling the silky strands, braiding them and unbraiding them until I’ve lost all track of anything that might have passed for time in this world.

  It smells the same out here as it did in my room: flowery. Spicy, earthy air that I could happily breathe in for the rest of my life. Trees bow over us, their limbs brushing my shoulder like long, skinny fingers and sending a tingling through my flesh that isn’t altogether unpleasant. It’s more life-affirming than anything, really. This whole place is. It teems with energy: the river’s babbling, the wind hushing through the trees and the cracks in the rocks, the tiny swarms of frost pixies buzzing around me with their bright white lights glowing behind them. I hold out my hand to give one that is flitting nearby a place to land. To rest, because it looks tired.

  Its landing is soft. It covers the Pure scars on my wrist, its tiny feet tickling the raised skin. The shining dust each flap of its wings releases drifts down, settles on my arm and makes my marked skin glow.

  And then—gradually or suddenly, I can’t tell the difference now—the spaces in my bones begin to fill again. My arm drops back to the ground, sending the pixie fluttering away.

  My head feels heavy. I slump forward and press my cheek against the bridge of Finn’s nose, wrap my fingers through his mane more tightly to try to steady myself, to keep myself from tumbling into the running water.

  Words flicker in and out of my thoughts.

  Is this the point where the dream becomes the nightmare?

  It’s always been nightmares before.

  We have to go back to them, sometime. Don’t we?

  “I should go back inside,” I mumble, because saying it aloud makes it seem more possible somehow, as if I could really go back to before. Back to the singing and dancing and drinking and eating without a care.

  Why did I ever step outside?

  I could have stayed where it was safe.

  Finn nibbles at the bunched-up cloth of my gown’s sleeve, tugs it in a concerned sort of way. I look up, and in the reflection of his wide, obsidian-glass eyes, I see another of those pixies flitting around my head. A memory slides into my vision: a picture of my sisters and me catching swamp pixies back home. And it’s clear and lifelike, without the blurred edges of the rest of this dream-turning-nightmare.

  I can see them laughing, surrounded by the bobbing little lights.

  Green, not white, and not as bright as the ones here. They were bright enough when you collected a whole jar full of them, though, and poked holes in the top to make a living, buzzing lamp. It was always a competition: who could make the brightest light. A game we all got so caught up in, and that was silly, maybe—but it never seemed like it at the time.

  Nothing ever seemed too silly or pointless with them.

  I am never going to see them again if I don’t wake up.

  I lean back, brace one hand against the damp soil. Then I take the other hand and dig my fingernails into my braced arm as hard as I can. This has worked so many times. Before I had West or Coralind to wake me up, this is what I would do: dig and dig until I felt pain, and then I would finally wake up screaming, and I would stand up and carry on.

  But I don’t wake up this time.

  I don’t feel any pain this time, no matter how hard I dig.

  I do feel panic, though—or I think of panic, at least. My body is still numb, like a dead, weighty shell that I am trapped in even as my thoughts become more and more clear, racing faster and faster into a realization that I am stuck here, caught in the malleable space between sleep and dreams while the living world moves on without me.

  And no one in that living world seems to be coming to wake me up.

  I force my dead body to reach calmly into the river, to cup a handful of the water that still doesn’t feel as cold as I know it should. I throw it into my face, and follow it with another handful, splashing myself again and again until I am soaking wet, my hair hanging in limp coils about my face, droplets of water clinging to my eyelashes and in the corners of my lips. I take my hands from the water. My breaths heave out between panicking, angry sobs as I watch the rings settle, smoothing into a gently rippling reflection of myself.

  Trapped.

  I swing a fist through the reflection, as if breaking it could break me free too. But when the water settles again, I am still in the same place, body still solid and heavy and sinking in the muddy riverbank.

  Still trapped, and I can’t see any way out.

  I can’t just stay here. I feel more like my awake self now—the awake self that needs to keep moving, keep running. If I’m fast enough, then maybe I could outrun this too.

  I stand and stagger back up the shore. I’m not sure where I’m going, but it doesn’t happen in a blink this time. I see every shadow pressing in. I feel myself tripping over rocks. Sliding down muddy little hills. And I am slowly, slowly becoming aware of a numb tingling in the soles of my feet as I run, and I make an almost conscious decision to turn away from the path that leads back to the dimly lit entrance of the fortress.

  I can’t go back inside. It was only a dream. I can’t stay there.

  Instead, I turn deeper into that narrow road that leads outside, racing against the wind tunneling through it. My wet hair whips around my face. White fog wraps around me, weaving in and out of my arms and legs as though it is alive. And a voice buried deep in my thoughts reminds me that it could be alive. That I should feel fear, terror at the creatures that might be hiding in that mist.

  But there is no room for fear in my mind.

  Not when it is still only just waking up, and it is distracted by that tingling in my feet, which is slowly turning to a dull stinging.

  The rocks, I manage to figure out after a few moments of trying. You aren’t paying attention to the sharp places. You’ve probably torn your feet to pieces.

  It still isn’t really pain.

  And it still doesn’t wake me up.

  Even with my growing awareness, I soon lose track of how far and fast I’ve run. But at some point, I stop stumbling. I fall one more time, slam my knees into uneven ground one final time.

  I push myself back up, and my balance doesn’t sway anymore.

  The ground feels sturdy beneath my stinging feet, and just ahead, that ground eases gently to a flatter, wider plain. One that I can almost clearly see, because the rocks aren’t high enough to cast shadows now. And they aren’t high enough to block the view of the Sea-Above anymore, either. I can see it clearly: a vast expanse of dark purple, glowing with a weary sheen of yellow light. I can see the silhouette of everything beneath it, too. Black cutouts of the houses of Silverwater, the ridges of the Enyolet Mountains, the foothills that softly roll into the Atesian and the cliffs that drop mercilessly sharp down into it.

  The cliffs.

  Suddenly it feels as if I’ve had a destination all along.

  I remember those cliffs almost as clearly as I r
emembered the games I played with my sisters: not through a sleep-covered haze, but clear and brilliant and beckoning, as if the memory is trying to pull me further out of this murkiness I’ve been wandering through.

  I run faster.

  Faster, faster, faster—all the way to the edge, and then I hurtle to a stop and my body pitches forward, teetering dangerously over the side. My toes curl over the rough edge, and I throw out my arms for balance, pushing back against the empty air. Rocks skitter from beneath my feet’s perilous hold. They bounce down the cliff’s face, stirring up dust as they go. I stop breathing, stop crying, stop blinking and just stare, wondering how long and how far I might fall before waking up.

  Jump, and you can wake up. No one ever hits the ground in their dreams. They always wake up first.

  I want to wake up.

  I lean forward—just a breath of a space forward—and one of my feet slips a little. Another crash of dust and pebbles breaks free, tumbles down to the dark water. I feel fear for the first time since falling asleep, and I instinctively pull back, scraping one of my fresh cuts in the process. Blood seeps from somewhere just below my ankle, oozes down underneath my heel. It’s slippery. Warm.

  And I feel it.

  Not just the warmth, but also the pain that quickly follows. It’s not dull anymore, but sharp and excruciating. It should wake me up.

  I close my eyes, silently begging it to wake me up.

  When I open them again, I am still in this same place, growing increasingly aware of that same pain as it shoots up my leg and into my gut.

  I crouch slowly, carefully, to my knees and crawl my way back. Once I’m a few feet from the cliff edge, I fall the rest of the way down and roll over onto my back. I feel every rock. Every jagged ridge in the ground, every pebble sinking into my skin through the thin material of my gown. There is nothing surreal about it all now, except perhaps that most strange color of the sky above me—a color made even stranger by a swift and sudden dizziness that hits me and makes every streak of grey and purple and yellow ripple together.

  When everything finally stops spinning, I wish one last time for the warmth of my bed, and I close my eyes again.

  But this time, when I open them to the same surroundings, the same darkness, I don’t doubt what I’m seeing anymore. Because an understanding is creeping into my mind, trickling through like water seeping through cracks in a dam. More and more rapidly it seeps, until the pressure becomes too much, and those cracks expand from the pressure. And then the dam shatters, and the realization surges violently out: this was never a dream.

  I can’t explain how I know, but somehow I do.

  None of this has been a nightmare at all.

  And the reason I can’t wake up from it is because I was never really asleep.

  Chapter 23

  Get up, Pure child.

  You have obligations to see to.

  Of all people, it is the Solvel elder’s voice that creaks through my head as I lie there on the cliff edge, waiting for myself to come the rest of the way back. At least at first. But soon it changes, and with a cutting worse than anything the rocks did to me, I hear my brother’s voice instead.

  Get up, Avy.

  The ceremony is starting soon.

  I’m not going to tell you again, Avy. We’re going to be late.

  And he talks on and on and on, while the pieces of what I thought was a dream, a nightmare, are slipping smoothly away. Bits of sand pulled out by a receding tide. Soon, all that I really remember of recent events is changing into my nightgown and climbing into bed. And even that memory is growing vague. What have I missed in the moments between then and now? How did I even get here?

  How long was I awake, my eyes refusing to see what was really in front of me?

  It never happened like this, in any of my true nightmares. No part of those ever went missing. I carried every detail of them through to my waking life, which only reinforces that feeling that whatever’s happened here was something different.

  Something terrifyingly different.

  It’s something of a comfort, I suppose, not knowing those details. I wonder if this lukewarm comfort is the feeling that West was after when he made all those sham magic spells.

  Because it is easier to move without the weight of all those moments and memories I’ve lost, and without knowing the full extent of any mistakes I might have made.

  When my fingers and toes stop tingling, and my body feels almost normal again—neither porous nor heavy as stone—I sit up. I heal the deepest of the cuts along my feet and ankles. Take a deep breath, like the sort you take after having been underwater too long. The sort that makes you thankful for the miracle of oxygen and breathing and for every sense you possess, for the ability to smell salt and flowers in the air, to taste them in the breath you’ve inhaled.

  The sort that makes me aware of another taste in my mouth, too: a piquant, bitter coating on my tongue and throat. I’m thirsty, I realize. Incredibly thirsty. How long has it been since I’ve had anything to drink? Was it something I drank that caused this strangeness in the first place? Some sort of contaminant in the water we collected from the mountain streams?

  What is happening to everyone else back at the hold?

  It’s this last thought that brings me to my feet. Whatever has been ravaging my mind made me think that coming here, that lying so dangerously close to the edge of this cliff despite my oblivious state, was a good idea.

  There is no telling what the others might have done if they were under the influence of the same poison.

  I’m as careful as quickness will allow through the rocky passage, but by the time I reach the entrance to the fortress, I’m smearing fresh bits of blood over the ground every few steps. But I can’t make myself stop moving long enough to heal.

  Because it is so, so deathly quiet in here.

  I go to Coralind’s room first. It’s locked. And there is no noise from inside, no matter how many times I slam my fist against the door. I shout her name up and down the hall, over and over, until I am nearly hoarse, until anyone who heard my gravelly voice likely wouldn’t know who I was calling for, even if they heard me. Then I turn and run to West’s room. It isn’t locked—thank the Creators—and the door is as unbearably creaky as ever as I push it open.

  The room is empty.

  I shove the door the rest of the way open so hard that it crashes against the stone wall with a crack that rattles my bones.

  I rush inside.

  It’s not just empty. It’s stripped completely bare. Stiff bedsheets and empty, open drawers, a cold loneliness draped over the space like a shroud covering the dead. It’s as if no one has been in this room in years. As if West himself was a figment of my imagination. One that has finally been disillusioned.

  I back slowly from the room, stepping into the hall at the exact moment I become aware of footsteps behind me. I spin around, body braced and prepared for anything at this point. Varick pauses mid-step and raises his hands, as if in surrender. “Calm down,” he says softly, gently. “It’s just me.”

  The tension in my muscles doesn’t go anywhere. “What is happening? Where is everyone?”

  He lowers his arms and steps carefully around me, glances inside West’s empty room and then pulls the door to it shut, as though he can’t bear to look at that emptiness any more than I can. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve only just come back to my senses myself.” He leans against the wall, steadies himself for a moment before looking me up and down. “Where exactly have you been?” he asks, his eyes lingering on my muddy, torn feet and the tattered hem of my nightgown.

  “I went outside to get some fresh air,” I say drily. “Forget about me. I can’t find Coralind. And West is—”

  “I know. And they aren’t the only people or things that have gone missing.” His attention shifts to the stairs as the sound of voices floats toward us. “Five others, upstairs,” he explains, “and one more that I’ve sent to Silverwater to ask questions,
to try and figure out how many days have passed while we were hallucinating—they’re the only people I’ve been able to find alive. There were two more in a storage space downstairs, but they were…”

  Horror seizes me so tightly that I am not sure how I manage to breathe, much less speak.

  “The rest of us were spreading out to search,” he continues while I hug my arms against me. “For you, to start with. And then looking for signs about what might have happened, too. Then I heard you shouting. The last thing I remember is having another argument with that Westland boy, right after dinner— not long before you went to sleep.”

  “Another argument?”

  “Yes. Though I thought we ended it cordially enough; no swords drawn, and he went back to his room, and I fell asleep easily enough. But maybe…”

  “Is everyone else just coming back to their right mind, same as us?”

  He nods. “All of them robbed blind, too. And suffering a disgusting taste in their mouths that makes me think we’ve been poisoned, somehow. But I don’t know of any poisons that would have caused such a strange spell, to—”

  He stops abruptly as my balance sways, offering me an arm to steady myself with.

  I don’t reach for it, still too distracted by the thought that shook my balance—by the possibility of an explanation for all of this.

  “Aven? Are you all right? Do you want to lie down?”

  I shake my head, which only makes my unsteadiness worse, and then I race to my room and dive straight for the bags in the corner. They’re still full, so I don’t seem to have been robbed as completely as Varick says the others were, but I don’t care about all the things still in these bags either way.

  I only care about—only need to find—one thing.

  Please, just let them still be in here, I think as I dig through the bag, desperately searching. Please don’t let me be right about this. I don’t want to be right about this. Please please please—