I’m alone in the same meadow, but my viewpoint is much lower as though I’m peering up through a hole dug in the earth. The night is falling quickly, and somehow I know that with the darkness come other things. Wicked things. My view is obscured by tall grass, but I don’t dare move. Robes rustle through the grass nearby and three figures approach: a woman, a man, and a younger man perhaps a little older than I am.
“See now, my child, how lovely? You will be safe here. This place will protect you,” the woman pauses and takes the younger man gently by the shoulders. In the waning sunlight, I can see the Mark on the woman’s face, curling up from her jaw to her brow. She wipes a tear from his eye and he looks away.
“I don’t care. I don’t like it. I want to stay with you, Mother!” he cries.
“Enough, Jacek. You know we’re only doing what’s best for you,” the man with them says sternly. His cold, distant demeanor is a stark contrast to the woman’s. The Mark on him is so prominent that only a hint of his yellowish skin peeks out between the blue-black lines. Instead of covering them up, he wears a rich, sleeveless red robe that ties loosely at his waist and displays them proudly, like a trophy.
“You know what we’ve had to do to bring you here,” the older man says. “This place will keep you safe. You are to remain until we return for you. You can do what you like until then. Anything you like. Do you understand? Stop sniveling. You should be grateful.” His tone tells me he’s the sort of man who doesn’t tolerate being challenged.
“Yes, Father,” Jacek looks down shamefully. As the sunlight fades and the meadow goes gray, the woman holds him close and sings a sweet song to him. I’ve heard it before. Mya used to sing it to Rian and me sometimes. We called it the Sunteri song.
“Dineae. Say goodbye,” the man says impatiently.
“Just a moment longer, Corbin. Perhaps we can stay through the night?” Dinaea presses her face into Jacek’s hair and the boy looks straight at me. His eyes are dark, his hair long and black. He and the other two are vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place them.
“We’ve gone over this. Don’t be weak. We can’t linger. Come.” Corbin takes her by the arm and lifts her to her feet. Her eyes lock with Jacek’s as she and Corbin fade away. When they’re gone, Jacek sinks to his knees in the grass and weeps.
The scene before me shimmers and I’m in a memory of the meadow again. This time it’s night, but I have a sense that quite a lot of time has passed. Years, perhaps. A figure moves among the tall grass, dark and ominous. His robes billow out behind him like a storm cloud. He flicks a finger and several nearby lumps of earth rumble and rise and shake themselves off. They’re creatures, like Stubs, and it’s clear that they’re under this man’s control. He turns toward me and his dark eyes flash with mischief as the corner of his mouth curves into a smile. Again he gestures and I feel Stubs’ limbs move under his direction.
What follows sends chills through me. I can hardly bear to watch as Jacek makes his commands and the hatred that surges through Stubs is so strong I can taste it. All around me, the other field knolls bare their teeth and charge each other, gnashing and snarling and sending tufts of grass flying. As Stubs joins in the fray, Jacek’s laughter echoes over the meadow. There’s no way for them to fight it. Pain surges through me as one of them yanks a handful of grass from my back. I whirl and lash out and bite off its stubby finger and it screams in agony.
This is wrong, I think to myself as I pommel my opponent with my knobby fist. We are peaceful. We are kind. This is not our way. The thought brings clarity with it. I push away the hate. I fight it. I find my heart and cling to it until my fist is my own again, but it’s too late. My opponent, my friend, it’s too late for him. Jacek’s laughter creeps over all of us like a dense fog, but it can’t touch me now. I’m too aware. He has no power over me. I should fight him, try to stop him, for my brothers’ sake, but I don’t. I’m too confused, too frightened by this young man and the power he wields over us. I sink into the earth and bury myself. I grieve for my brothers and wait the evil to pass.
With a gasp, I’m jolted back to the present. I fall back into grass and gaze up into the deep blue sky. My limbs feel so light that I could be floating, and my head is spinning, tingling pleasantly. Despite what I just saw, I’m smiling. The sensation of magic surging through me is too wonderful to ignore. As the feeling slowly fades, I’m assaulted by the information I’ve learned. It horrifies and angers me, and it makes me want to do more, to wield more magic and push the uneasiness away. I want to fill myself up with that power again, so I don’t have to think about anything else.
“Lady Knight?” Stubs’s cautious whisper brings me to my senses. My thoughts are of Dineae, Corbin, and Jacek. I remember now.
“The Sorcerers.” I close my eyes. “The mother and father. They were at the keep. The battle in Kythshire. They were the first ones we encountered.” I remember Iren blowing flecks of golden dust at Dinaea and Corbin on the balcony. I remember watching them thrown against the keep wall, seeing them slide lifelessly to the rubble below. “They didn’t survive.” I prop myself up on one elbow and look at Stubs. “That first memory. How long ago was it?”
“In her time, years,” he answers. “Our time moves differently. Days are slower.” He watches me and I start to slide into his great amber eyes again. This time, I ache to go there. My skin prickles with the need to feel that floating again. I want to soar in my own skin, to lose myself. Instead I stop myself and look away.
“So this man, Jacek, he has been here for years?”
“Such a long time. Every day he grows stronger, and every night he creeps and brings his fear. He is king here now. He rules the Dreaming. We are all too terrorized by him to stop him. All of us who are left.”
“But, why? To what end?”
“It started as boredom. Loneliness, we imagine. We were his playthings. It was his way of keeping occupied. But as he grew in power and discovered how much he could own, he didn’t stop. As the son of two Sorcerers, is she surprised by this? He has no regard for our world, or any world. He walks in dreams and reaches through to the Waking and tweaks and pulls and manipulates. He touches things that oughtn’t be touched. He makes his plans. He holds his sway. He grows, and none here are brave enough to stand against him. He is no longer Jacek now. All of us call him something else.”
“Dreamwalker,” I whisper. The sensation of magic coursing through me is fading, and creeping over me in its place are depression and exhaustion. My arms and legs are heavy. I can barely keep my eyes open.
“Yes,” Stubs sighs. “Dreamwalker. I know she is tired now. It is to be expected. But there is one last thing she must learn, and she is such a fast learner, hm?” He smiles apologetically and blinks his wide eyes, and despite my weariness, I agree once more and gaze into them.
“Good,” he says, sounding rather tired himself. “This time,” his voice is distant and coaxing, “she will do what Jacek did. She will move me herself. Make me do something, I won’t say what, so she will believe it was her own doing. Think about it and do it, Lady Knight.”
I don’t know if it’s my exhaustion or my repulsion to the idea of controlling someone else that keeps me from picking this bit of magic up as quickly. It takes me a long time to achieve the effect Stubs is so keen on teaching me. He doesn’t want me to sink into him this time, as I do when I see through his eyes. I have to do it from the outside, so that I can remain within myself.
The sun slowly climbs into noon and then starts to dip lower. It’s hours before I finally make his arm raise up. Magic surges through me, prickling my skin, charging me with its power. I push harder as it courses over me. I imagine strings that flow from my fingertips to his arms and legs. I make him walk, I make him run until he’s breathless and stumbling over his own feet. It’s difficult for me to stop, as filled with elation as I am, but when he blurs past me I see the fear in his eyes, the pleading, and I let go.
He stumbles and rolls to a stop in the grass
before me, panting. The tantalizing sensation caused by magic drains away, and in its place I’m filled with an awful sense of dread and exhaustion. My first instinct is to do more, more magic to fill me up again, but I fight the urge. Stubs’ gasping for breath on the grass before me frightens me. I did this to him, and he had no way of stopping me. The notion makes me sick to my stomach. Why did I agree to such a thing? This isn’t me. I’m a swordswoman, not a Mage. Not a Sorcerer.
“Stubs, I’m so sorry.” I crawl to him and stroke a frond of grass from his face as he shakes his head at me and brushes my hand away.
“She did what I taught her,” he says breathlessly. “She learned it well.” His eyes drift closed as he continues. “Now she must rest, while she is safe in the light. Tonight, she will see into the Dreamwalker. She will learn things. She will stop him.”
“What? No, Stubs…” I shake his arm gently. “How can I manage to see inside him without him suspecting? What good will it do? He’s a Sorcerer, isn’t he? Wouldn’t it be better to learn how to defend myself against him? What you’ve taught me isn’t enough to defeat him. I need my sword at least. Tell me how to arm myself.”
“Not defeat, only look. She must believe in herself,” he says sleepily. “She is already armed. Rest now. Rest, Lady Knight. While it is still light.” He curls up with his head tucked beneath his grassy hump so that he looks like a small hillock in the rolling meadow, and snores.
The absence of magic leaves me feeling bleak and empty. It sends me to dark places, even as exhausted as I am. What if I never leave this place? What if I’m like Jacek, trapped until someone comes to release me? Trapped forever because my captors have died? Will I ever see Rian or Flitt again? Or my own parents?
I gaze at the golden Mark that curls down my arm and into my palm. What am I now? What forbidden rules have I broken? What will Uncle say? What will Rian say? Will I lose him? Despair washes over me. They will cast me out. Even if I am able to leave the Dreaming, things won’t ever be the same. I’ve Marked myself, and the worst part of all of it is even as I lie here lamenting about it, I want more. Just a little more, to feel that wonderful vibration again.
A flock of birds dips and rises across the meadow, and I fix my attention on just one of them. I push myself to it easily and see the ground far below, speeding past in a blur. Magic charges through me, relieving the gloom, filling me up with its bliss. Reluctantly I pull myself away after a while of soaring and immediately I regret my decision to try one last push. My head drops back into the grass, and I pass out straight away.
I wake to darkness and a sense of foreboding. There is no twittering flock of birds now, no gentle breeze to carry the scent of blooms to me. Something lurks nearby, something heavy and grim. Slowly I reach out to Stubs to rouse him, but he isn’t there. There’s just a mound of earth covered in tall grasses, so convincingly still that I begin to wonder whether he had ever been here with me at all.
That’s when panic sets in. I’m not ready to face the Dreamwalker alone. I don’t know enough. I’m too weak, I don’t have my sword. I see him now, creeping ever closer across the meadow, his black cloak spreading out behind him like a shroud of darkness that smothers everything in its wake. I try to scramble away but the grass is too noisy, so I freeze where I am and hold my breath.
The little sound I’ve made has given me away, and though I try my hardest to lie flat in the grass, he approaches. I hold my breath as I watch him near. He’s older now than the boy whose parents left him in the meadow. Older than I am by ten years or so. His face is narrow and gaunt, his dark eyes circled and blackened by the Mark.
I try to imagine the strings as he approaches, like I did with Stubs. It’s my only hope of keeping him away. I envision them like golden lines that curl around his feet in the tall grass. I try to make him turn and leave. He laughs, and I’m surprised by the pleasant tone of his voice.
“Have you been amusing yourself all day in the meadow, then?” he asks with amusement. “I enjoyed it here as well, when I first arrived. So many playthings. But they grow dull after a while.”
I don’t answer. I hold my breath and try again, willing him to move away, to leave. I’m bolstered by the magic that courses through me. It makes me feel alive. Confident. Again, he laughs.
“Oh, my darling,” he says. “I’m so pleased by all you’ve learned, and in such a short amount of time. Stubs is a fine teacher. We shall do well together, you and I. Come now, let me see you.”
I glance at the lump of earth in front of me, where one amber eye watches from the soil beneath the grasses. I don’t know what to think. The only way Jacek could know it was Stubs who taught me is if he was in on it. The eye closes quickly when I meet it with my own, and disappears into the earth again.
Shaken, I slide back to put distance between myself and Jacek, who is slowly closing in on me. My heart is racing. I don’t know what to think anymore. I trusted Stubs, but why? Should I have? The golden curls of the Mark on my arms and legs glow softly in the starlight.
What have I done?” I whisper to myself.
“You did what you thought to be right, Azaeli,” Jacek soothes. “It took me some time to figure you out. Once I did, you were quite simple to manipulate. You see, my dear, you have a strong drive to save people. Or creatures, as the case may be. And you are trusting, but you trust in yourself more than others. So I had you greet yourself at the mirror. I had you coax yourself in. Once the promise was made, the wheels were set in motion. Now you have the drive, you see. Now, you will go to Kythshire to speak for them. I knew those pathetic whelps would come in handy, Azaeli, and they did. Most certainly. Come and look, my sweet. I know you have questions. I have the answers for you right here."
His voice is so alluring, and the temptation along with it to use magic again and feel it coursing through me is difficult to resist. He can tell me what I need to know, everything I want to know. He can give me answers. Maybe I can find out how to leave this place, how to get back to Rian and Flitt.
I’m worried about them. It must be difficult to reach me here, or I’m certain they would be by my side by now. Maybe he knows how I can reach them. Still, some small part of me screams out in warning. Run away. Run and don’t look back. I stand up and turn away, and his voice is sweet in my ear just as I start to run.
“Where will you run? Everything here belongs to me. Come and look, Azaeli. See my kingdom and all of its little pleasures. I have things, you see. Many things. Some forgotten, some thought to be lost forever. Come, my sweet, beautiful lady. Come with me and see.” His cloak flutters near my shoulder and gives me pause. His words invoke a strange memory. My sword, a gift from my father, forged by his hand. My sword, slipping from my grip into a powerful vortex, in the midst of our battle with the Sorcerers. My sword, spinning away from me.
“It’s here?” I whisper, dazed. I had thought it lost forever. If it really is here, I could claim it. I could use it against him. I slow my pace and look at him over my shoulder. His cloak is dark as starless night. It floats around him far and wide, like ink spilled into the sea.
“Let me show you,” he whispers, beckoning to me. Starlight dances in his dark eyes as I turn toward him. I’m drawn to him by some unknown force. Before I can think, I step closer and fall into his open arms.
We tumble together into nothing and he holds me closer. His touch is cold and confident, and it makes me want to trust him and fight him away all at once.
“This world is as vast as one’s imagination,” he whispers to me as we fall. My heart is racing. I squeeze my eyes shut. I have always feared heights and falling. It’s even worse when everything around is dark and there’s no way of telling when the impact will come.
“Master it,” he goes on, “and you own it, Azaeli. That, I have done. Open your eyes,” he says as I feel his cloak flutter around us and my feet touch the ground gently. “Behold my kingdom.”
Chapter Nineteen: The Border
Tib
The trees a
nd water are a blur below us as we soar over the countryside. It looks different from up here. Smaller. It makes me feel small, too, to see the whole world stretched out beneath us. The wind whips my hair around and I laugh. I have never felt this free. We fly through the morning and into noon. Behind me in his high-backed seat, Shoel flicks the reins. The cygnet circles lower. We’re nearing our destination.
“The border.”
Yes, the border. Kythshire. I look out to the west, but I can’t see a wall or a marking. All that’s there is ocean and sky and bright green land. The leaves shimmer brightly in the sunlight and make me look away. I feel a strange sensation. Something repels me. I don’t belong here. Turn around, it says to me. Find another way.
The cygnets slow. We dip beneath the canopy and weave between tree trunks. The forest is thick. There are no paths or clearings. No markings for travelers. No way to know where you are or where you’ve been. We glide low along the ground and land gently. The space is small. The cygnets barely have room to spread their wings. The elves climb out and then help Saesa and me down, too. Julini takes Saesa aside and speaks quietly to her. Gives her something.
“Tib,” Shoel says quietly. I look up at him. He smiles at me, but there’s worry in his eyes. “You’re certain of this?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” I nod. I’m certain. This is where I should be right now. Shoel still doesn’t look too convinced. He shakes his head. Reaches into his vest. Hands me a square of cloth. I turn it in my hands and look it over. It’s a white scrap, just the size of my palm. There’s elf writing on it, and the head of a cygnet sketched in black.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It is a Sigil. If you are ever in trouble,” he explains, “whisper to it, and I shall hear.” I fold it and tuck it into my bandolier.
“Thank you for everything!” Saesa throws her arms around Julini. The woman smiles and looks at Shoel. She says something in their language as she pats Saesa kindly. Shoel sighs and replies to her, and she nods reluctantly.
Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) Page 21
