Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer #2_UK)

by Laini Taylor

  The smith, they noted, wore vambraces instead, covering his forearms and etched in intricate designs. It seemed a profligate quantity of godsmetal, and showed his importance. Smiths accrued gods-metal by imperial reward—for service, and victory in battle. With each success, their ships grew larger. The bigger the ship, the more glorious the captain. The wasp ship was small, which would suggest the smith was either not glorious, or simply young and at the beginning of his career.

  “And what was your mother’s gift?” asked the tall, shaved-pate telepath, whose name was Ren.

  “Shock waves,” answered Nova.

  “Magnitude sixteen,” added Kora, proud, and the girls were gratified to see the Servants’ eyes widen. They were impressed. How could they not be? How many of them were sixteens? The scale of magnitude went to twenty, but gifts of a strength eighteen and above had been recorded only a handful of times in history. In practical reality, sixteen was about as good as it got. Moreover, magnitude was heritable, which meant...

  “This should be interesting,” said the white-haired Mesarthim, Antal, still trying to wipe the stench of their clothing off his hands. The girls were curious about his hair—so much of it, and so white. He didn’t seem old, but then, Mesarthim didn’t age. Longevity, perhaps even immortality, was a side effect of the godsmetal, so it was impossible to tell.

  “Let’s see what you can do,” Solvay said to the girls, and then she turned to the smith.

  He had not yet spoken, but only leaned against the wall, watching. His posture was lazy but his eyes were sharp. He alone of the four showed an interest in what was no longer hidden by the sisters’ stinking clothes. As Kora and Nova stood there, abashed, his gaze took a leisurely journey over their bare white legs and shoulders, their thinly veiled young breasts and bellies, as if their smallclothes and crossed arms hid nothing from him.

  “Skathis?” prompted Solvay when he didn’t respond but only continued his brazen perusal. He turned to her, eyebrows cinching together, as though unaware that they were all waiting for him. “Shall we begin?” she prompted, and there was something brittle about her tone, something cautious.

  “By all means.” He turned back to the sisters. “Let’s see how you look blue.”

  And those words, which heralded the girls’ lifelong dream, were dirtied by Skathis’s mouth, which seemed to leave a film on them, making Kora and Nova all the more anxious to hide themselves from his gaze.

  He tossed something to Kora. It was an easy underhand lob, and gave her time to start in surprise and reach for it. It was as small as a packed snowball—the icy kind that hurt—and she registered that it was godsmetal just before she caught it. She thought it would be hard, but it hit her hand like jelly and burst, splashing up her arm and clinging, so that it seemed to have caught her, and not she it.

  There was nothing haphazard in the way it pooled and flowed over her skin. It didn’t drip, but spread out smoothly, thinning itself like leaf and gilding her—not gold, but blue—from the tips of her fingers, up her wrist, and over her forearm, so that she seemed to be wearing a glove made of mirror. She stared at it in wonder, turning her hand over, flexing her fingers, her wrist. The metal moved with her like a second skin.

  And then she felt it: a low hum, a vibration.

  At first, it was only her hand and forearm where the metal touched her, but it spread. All thoughts of modesty were forgotten as the thrum moved up her arm, even beyond the shining glove. As she watched, her skin began to change color. It grayed, like storm clouds or uul meat, flushing upward from the edge of the glove, rising toward her shoulder, carrying the thrum and the gray with it. She felt the buzz in her lips, in her teeth.

  Nova saw the change come over her sister, her skin darkening to gray, then finally to Mesarthim blue. It was perfect. She’d imagined it so many times: the pair of them blue and free and empowered, and far away from here. And now it was happening. Tears pricked her eyes. It was finally happening.

  They had always believed, deep in their hearts, that their gifts would be strong like their mother’s. As to what they would be, it was hard to decide what to hope for: elemental, empath, telepath, shape-shifter, seer, healer, weather-witch, warrior? They changed their minds all the time. Nova, especially, had always been gift-greedy, never able to settle on one. Smith, of course, was the emperor of gifts (and the emperor himself was, of course, a smith), but Kora and Nova knew how rare it was, and had never gotten their hopes up. Lately, with the village men eyeing them like livestock, invisibility had begun to seem appealing to Kora.

  “I’d rather inflict blindness,” Nova had asserted. “Why should we have to disappear just because men are animals?”

  And now the moment of discovery was upon them. The suspense was almost unbearable. What would they be, once their gifts awoke? In what capacity would they serve the empire?

  The hum surged through Kora. Once it had covered the whole surface of her body, it seemed to sink deeper, through her skin to the core of her, to penetrate her heart, the backs of her eyes, the insides of her knees, the pit of her belly.

  Then in her mind: a presence. It gave her a start, but it was not unfamiliar. A short while ago, outside, she and Nova had spoken a plea in their thoughts—see us—and the telepath, Ren, had come into their minds, and he came again now into Kora’s.

  Don’t think, he counseled from inside her mind. Don’t wonder. Just feel.

  I feel...a humming in my skin, she thought experimentally, wondering if he would hear her.

  He did. That’s the physical threshold. Go deeper. Our gifts are buried within us.

  She tried to do as he said. She closed her eyes and imagined she was opening other eyes that would look inward instead of out.

  Nova watched, marveling at the silky azure of her sister’s eyelids, a shade darker than the rest of her skin. She was beautiful like this, majestic even in her dingy smallclothes. The godsmetal glove lent her an elegance that even homespun couldn’t ruin, and her hair, which against her white skin was mild and pretty, became, set against blue, a drama of contrast. Even her pale brows and lashes stood out in a new and striking way. Nova wondered what was happening inside her sister. She wanted to be in Kora’s mind with her, sharing this experience as they had shared all their dreams for all their lives. What was she feeling?

  At first, nothing. Kora was trying to look within herself, but she didn’t know what she was supposed to see, so there was nothing but the imperfect darkness of her eyelids, washed with wavering red where light glowed through.

  Don’t see, said Ren. Feel. What feels different?

  Maybe he guided her. Maybe she did it on her own, but Kora began to become aware of the discrete entity that was herself, apart from environment, expectations, and the watchful eyes of these important strangers. Apart even from her sister. It was like being suspended inside herself, hearing the blood moving in her veins, feeling the throb of the heart that pushed it, and her limbs, and her breath, and her mind. She envisioned herself turning blue to her bones, the mesarthium seeping into her, and not infusing her with magic, but waking the magic that was already there.

  She felt a pressure in her chest. As soon as she did, the telepath did, too.

  There, he said. There it is.

  What is it? she asked.

  Bring it forth, he said. Let it come.

  The pressure intensified, and she felt something in her chest begin to give way. It unnerved her. It felt as though some essential part of her was about to spill out of her body—as though her rib cage were going to swing open and...let something out. There was no pain. It was like discovering that, all along, her body had been made to do this, that her chest was hinged like a gate and she had simply never noticed.

  Nova saw her sister’s head tip back. Her eyes were still closed. Her hands flew to her chest and clawed at her undershirt, dragging at it so hard that it ripped right down the center to reveal the vale between her breasts, shadowed indigo and heaving with breath. “Kora!” she crie
d, and tried to go to her but found she couldn’t move her feet. Looking down, she saw they’d sunk into the floor, the godsmetal trapping them in place. She nearly fell. Then the telepath spoke into her mind: Do not interrupt her metamorphosis.

  She stopped struggling and watched, helpless and then awestruck as Kora’s gift emerged.

  Quite literally, it emerged.

  Kora’s chest felt as though it had swung open, but it had not. It was intact. The blue channel of skin visible through the rent in her undershirt became, all at once, clouded. A milky vapor extruded from it, taking shape before her like smoke poured into an invisible mold. It was big, and growing fast. Very quickly it dwarfed her. Nova’s breathing matched exactly the rise and fall of her sister’s chest. She looked to the Servants, frantic, to take reassurance from their expressions that this was normal and expected, but she saw only astonishment. Whatever was happening to Kora, it was anything but normal.

  It was a ghostly thing in the air, and it had wings, great, sweeping wings. Nova’s first wild thought was that it was a seraph, one of the six angelic Faerers who had cut the portals between the worlds. But as it took its final shape and turned from ghost to solid, she realized it was not an angel, but a bird.

  The creature that spilled out of Kora took the form of an immense white eagle.

  Kora’s head was still thrown back, and her arms had opened at her sides, in unconscious mimicry of the bird’s outstretched wings.

  She herself did not see what had emerged from her. Her eyes were closed—a fact that should have rendered her blind, but didn’t. She beheld the Servants, their shocked faces, and she saw Nova, mouth agape.

  “An astral,” said Solvay, her voice suffused with awe. “I don’t believe it. An astral here, in this forsaken place.”

  “I’ve never even known one,” said white-haired Antal, quite forgiving the stench of uul.

  “And a powerful one,” said Ren. “Just look at that manifestation.”

  Kora, seeing only what it saw, didn’t know what they were talking about. She opened her real eyes, and was hit by a dizzying doubling of her vision, to be seeing through two sets of eyes at once. Dizzy or not, she perceived what had coalesced before her.

  It was magnificent, as white as starlight on snow. Its face was fierce and beautiful, hook-beaked and black-eyed. It could be mistaken for a flesh creature—almost. But it floated with unnatural lightness, hardly needing to beat its wings, and the edges of its feathers had a melting aura that belied its seeming solidity.

  “Does it have mass?” asked Solvay.

  “Touch it and find out,” drawled Skathis, making no move to do so.

  It was Nova who did. They didn’t stop her this time. Her feet remained trapped in the floor, but the eagle’s size had brought its wing within her reach. She touched it, running her fingers over its long feathers. If she had ever felt silk, or even known of its existence, then she might have been able to describe such softness. But she hadn’t. The closest she could come was the slippery smoothness of clean hair.

  The Mesarthim talked amongst themselves, and Kora and Nova heard terms like “range” and “sensory connection,” not grasping what they meant. “Magnitude” they understood, though.

  “Undoubtedly extremely high,” Antal said, and both sisters flushed with pride, Nova’s in no way less than her sister’s, though it was not her own gift in question.

  There was talk of further testing, but it was vague, with Ren, Solvay, and Antal glancing to Skathis, apparently waiting for him to weigh in. He remained fixed on Kora and the bird, a hard glitter to his gaze, and at length he said, “The emperor will be pleased.”

  And that decided the matter.

  Ren helped Kora bring the bird back into herself, which seemed impossible at first. Wherever it had come from, it was real now, and massive, like something birthed that could not be put back. But she found that it could. As it had poured out of her chest, so did it pour back in, her doubled vision resolving, and the dizziness with it, so that she felt almost normal again—though it was hard to imagine ever feeling truly “normal” after this. “What does ‘astral’ mean?” she asked, breathless. “I’ve never heard of it before.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Solvay. “It’s an extremely rare gift, my dear.”

  “Don’t go swelling her head,” said Skathis. “She’ll get the idea she’s special.”

  “She is special,” said Solvay.

  “Literally, ‘astral’ means ‘of the stars,’” Antal explained. “Because the first astral claimed he could voyage through the stars without ever leaving his home. It means that your senses, your consciousness, perhaps even your soul can take form outside your body and travel, leaving your physical self behind and returning to it.”

  “And...I’ll be able to see what it sees, wherever it goes?”

  “It’s not an ‘it,’” Antal answered. “It’s you, Korako. That eagle is you, as much as your flesh and blood is you.” He smiled, a glad sort of smile shared by Ren and Solvay, which made them vastly less intimidating. “And yes, you will be able to travel in astral form.”

  The atmosphere in the wasp ship was so different from when the girls had first been brought in. The Servants had been stiff, with the aggrieved composure of those carrying out a tedious task made worse by a truly vile stench. All that had transformed into something almost giddy. It was evident that Kora was a discovery of great value, and it seemed most certain now that she was chosen. She would not be left behind here, bereft of the godsmetal that had brought out her gift. She would keep her blue skin forever, and her mystical eagle, too. She was what she had always believed herself to be: powerful.

  “I’ve never heard of so large a manifestation,” said Solvay. “There’s an astral in the Azorasp whose projection is a finch.” She laughed. “Korako’s could swallow it whole.”

  Korako. Hearing her sister’s name—her full name, no less— spoken aloud and not twinned with her own, gave Nova a flutter of nerves, as though some process had begun that would split them from one double person into two singular ones. No. She pushed away the thought. It would be as they had always planned: the pair of them as soldier-wizards, serving the empire together, together always.

  The mesarthium released her feet, and Nova flung herself forward, wrapping Kora in her arms. “I knew it,” she whispered. “You’re magnificent.”

  But the girls’ joy and vindication could be only half formed until Nova’s worth was proven as well.

  The godsmetal glove began to peel away from Kora’s hand. She watched the metal turn liquid once more, and pool back toward her wrist, gathering itself together. She felt a lurch of loss. She didn’t want to revert to her old self, unmagical and un-blue.

  And she didn’t have to. Skathis didn’t take the godsmetal away, but formed it into a thin, curved band lying across her palm. A diadem. Both girls’ breath caught in their throats. How they’d dreamed of this moment, and even played at it with seaweed or bits of twine.

  “Put it on,” Skathis instructed, and Kora raised it to her brow to fit it in place. But the smith said, “No. On your throat.”

  Kora paused, confused. “What?”

  “Like a collar,” Skathis said.

  Solvay’s jaw tightened. She looked down at the papers in front of her and pretended to straighten them, saying nothing.

  Kora, uncertain, did as she was told. As soon as it touched her neck, the godsmetal curved around it, encircling it completely, and though it was not too tight, it made her uneasy there. This was certainly not how she’d dreamed it. She ran her fingers over the thing and gave what she hoped was a brave and grateful smile.

  Skathis turned to Nova. “Catch,” he said, and lobbed another small godsmetal ball.

  Chapter 17

  Nice Dreams Now and Then

  Minya was out cold.

  “Oh gods,” said Ruby with a hysterical laugh. “I was afraid she wouldn’t drink it.” She pulled out a chair and dropped into it while the othe
rs gaped—all but Sparrow, who let out a shaky sigh.

  “Well done,” she told her sister, picking her way through shards of shattered teacup to reach Minya’s limp form. The little girl was sprawled across the table, eyes closed, mouth open, one arm flopped over the side. She looked very small. Delicately, Sparrow lifted the flopped arm and tucked it onto the table.

  “What just happened?” Feral asked, his eyes darting from girl to girl. “What did you do?”

  Ruby lifted her chin. “Something,” she said with great dignity. “You might have heard of it. It’s the opposite of nothing.”

  He looked at her blankly. What was that supposed to mean? “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “I drugged Minya.” When she heard her own words, Ruby’s eyes went wide. She repeated, with wonder, “I drugged Minya,” and then, warming to her subject, “I saved us, that’s all. Weep too. Maybe the whole world. You’re welcome.” As an afterthought, she admitted in a substantially lower voice, “It was Sparrow’s idea.”

  “But you did it,” said Sparrow, who felt no need to claim credit.

  Sarai came up between them. She didn’t have to worry about the broken porcelain on the floor, but just floated an inch or two above it. She looked at Minya’s little face. With her eyes closed, and her mouth relaxed from the tight line or smirk it was usually fixed in, you could see how pretty she was, and how very young. She didn’t look at all like a tyrant intent on starting a war. And now...for the moment, at least...she wasn’t. She was just a little girl asleep on a table. “Thank you,” breathed Sarai, reaching for Sparrow and Ruby. They were all shaking in the stillness, trying to adjust to the sudden lack of threat.

  “Yes,” said Lazlo, breathless. “Thank you.” He was still reeling under the full horror of his predicament. He didn’t know what he would have done, or whom he would have sacrificed. He prayed that he would never know, and never again be in such a position.

  “I can’t believe you two did this.” Sarai laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh. It was weak and amazed and, above all, relieved. She had thought she had come to her end out there, where it was so cold, and souls melted like darkness at dawn. “It was the bottle?” she asked. “The green one?”