Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer #2_UK)

by Laini Taylor

  A few months later, they wed. As Eril-Fane had made her a bracelet, he made her ring, too. On his small apprentice stipend, he rented rooms above a bakery—in Windfall, where the gods’ plums rained down. They made a sickly sweet reminder, always in the air. Even if you never looked up, you couldn’t escape knowing the citadel was there. But the rooms were cheap, and they were young and poor. He carried her up the steps. Azareen was tall and strong, but he lifted her like silk and air. He kicked the door shut behind them and took her straight to the bed. They’d waited. Of course they’d waited, but every night it had been harder. They were match and striker, each to the other. They touched and were set afire.

  Two days earlier, with his hot mouth on her neck, she had closed her eyes and told him, “I don’t want to be a maiden when he takes me.”

  “I won’t let him take you,” Eril-Fane had said, his arms tightening around her, his whole body going taut.

  But they knew what happened to those who tried to thwart Skathis’s plunder: fathers’ throats ripped open by Rasalas, husbands carried skyward and dropped. They knew not to interfere; the women would be returned, and none wanted their men to die. Still, when it came to it, some men just couldn’t bear it, and Azareen worried what Eril-Fane might do. The risk was not only to them. To show any fighting skill would give away their training and betray the Tizerkane, who were not prepared to mount a defense, much less a full-scale revolt. And anyway, it would be for nothing. Whenever Skathis came among them, he wore a second skin of ultrafine mesarthium under his clothes. He could not be hurt. Azareen tried to make Eril-Fane swear not to die for her, but he would not take that oath.

  As for her not remaining a maiden, though, there they quite agreed. They said their vows and he carried her home, skipping their own party in favor of their bed. They were young and burning, and they lived under a terrible shadow. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

  For five days and five nights, they strung minutes like beads— each one a jewel, shining and precious.

  On the sixth day, Skathis came. Rasalas’s landing shook the street. Azareen and Eril-Fane were walking home from the market, holding hands and smiling their lovers’ secret smiles. To the god of beasts, they were irresistible: beautiful, smooth, and sweet. They were like dessert for a monster like him. Eril-Fane pushed Azareen behind him. Terror rose in her. Rasalas leapt. The beast was an atrocity: a winged thing, all misshapen, skull bared by rotting flesh—metal skull, metal flesh, and its eyes just empty sockets aglow with infernal light. It flew at them, plowing into Eril-Fane. The momentum sent Azareen sprawling, so she was lying on her back on the cracked lapis stones when Rasalas’s great claws closed around her husband’s shoulders.

  And lifted him.

  She watched him grow smaller as he was borne away struggling. It happened so fast. She was the one left behind. She had never prepared herself for that. Sometimes men were taken, but not with the certainty of women, and she could only lie there, gasping, until someone came to help her up, to take her home to her family.

  Really, it felt as though she had lain there gasping for the next two years and more. They were such a blur of longing and aching, and when Skathis finally did take her, she was glad—to put an end to the waiting, to find out what had become of her husband, if he was even still alive.

  He was. But he was no longer her husband, not then or ever after. He was Isagol’s broken toy. He could not touch or love her. He couldn’t even weep. She never could stop loving him, though in the worst of times she’d tried. Thakra knows, she’d tried.

  And here they were now: no longer the same smooth, young creatures they’d been. Eighteen years had gone by since the day Skathis took him, and it felt like an entire lost lifetime. Now, in these past few days, he had both wept and held her hand, and she had sensed, for the first time, a shift taking place within him. She had begun to feel the first fragile unfurling of something she thought might be healing. But was she only seeing what she wanted so desperately to see? As she watched him go, and wondered, a shadow drew a circle around him. She looked up, startled, and saw the white eagle circling. An unaccountable chill gripped her. Azareen was not one for omens, and had no good reason to fear the bird. But for a single, potent moment it felt as though fate had drawn an arrow, pointed it right at her husband, and declared him the next to die.

  Chapter 26

  Dizzy Little Godspawn

  Sarai was as ready as she was going to get. Sitting on the floor beside Minya, preparing to reenter her mind, she couldn’t help thinking of all the nights she’d sent out her moths to invade humans’ dreams and unleash horrors on them. She recalled how Minya would come to her room at sunup and ask, eager, “Did you make anyone cry? Did you make anyone scream?”

  For years, the answer had been yes. Sarai knew better than anyone: It’s easy to make people cry. Grief, humiliation, anger—there are countless avenues to tears. It’s easy to make them scream, too. There are so many things to fear.

  But how do you stop someone from crying? How do you lead them out of fear?

  Can hate be reversed?

  Can revenge be defused?

  How much more daunting these tasks were. Sarai was overwhelmed. “Trust yourself,” Lazlo told her. “She may be strong, but so are you. I’ve seen what you can do in dreams.”

  She raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t help it. “Yes, you have.” She bit her lip in a bashful smile. “But I don’t think that will help me now.”

  Lazlo grinned, cheeks warming. “Not that. Though I’d love to do that again later. I meant the time you defeated Skathis. You didn’t think you could do it then, either.”

  “That was different. He was my own nightmare. Minya’s real.”

  “And you’re not trying to defeat Minya. Remember that. You’re trying to help her defeat her nightmare.”

  When he put it like that, it sounded less impossible. And those were the words she went armed with when she reached for Minya’s hand and traveled, by touch, into the landscape of her mind.

  She found herself standing in the nursery, and was unsurprised. After the last time, she had a feeling that this was Minya’s cage. Again there were babies in the cribs and children playing on mats on the floor. There was no skip or blur by the door this time, but neither were the Ellens to be seen. This seemed wrong. Whenever Sarai had imagined what it was like in here before the Carnage, she had pictured it how it was in the citadel after, only in this smaller space and with more godspawn. Her childhood memories were full of the ghost women—their good sense and good cheer, their scoldings and teachings, their jokes and stories, their singing voices and their ever-changing manifestations. Great Ellen’s hawk face compelling them to tell the truth with its unblinking avian stare. Or Less Ellen helping Sparrow come up with whimsical names for her orchid hybrids, things like “Dolorous Wolf Maid” and “Frolicking Cricket in Lace Pantaloons.”

  So she had to wonder at their being absent from Minya’s memory or imagining.

  She saw Minya, looking as she had last time: clean and long-haired in a tidy smock. The pall of dread was absent, or at least greatly reduced. When Sarai closed her eyes and felt for the dream’s aura, there was a low, steady thrum of fear, like blood moving under skin, and she had the impression it was a constant here, as much as the air, the metal, the babies, and that it had been Minya’s reality.

  Last time, Minya had been the biggest of the children, but now there was another girl her size. She was dark-haired as nearly all of them were, and half dark-eyed as well. Her left eye, though, was green as a sage leaf—a startling pop of color in an otherwise plain face.

  They were playing together. They’d taken one of the blankets and turned it into a hammock. Each girl was holding an end, and they were swinging the little ones in it, one or two at a time. There were squeals, bright eyes. Minya and the other girl kept time with a chant. It was familiar—a sort of bright twin to the chant Sarai had heard last time:

  Dizzy little godspawn, Swing them in a blanket,
Don’t let them fly out, Whizzing like a comet.

  And more in that vein, all innocent fun until Sarai began to notice that the low, steady blood-thrum of fear was bubbling to the surface. The girls were raising their voices so as not to be drowned out by it, and speeding their game to keep pace with it, the words coming faster and louder, smiles turning to grimaces as their eyes went flat and grim with the knowledge of what was coming.

  Sarai thought she knew what it was, but when the figure appeared in the doorway, it wasn’t the Godslayer, or any other man or human.

  It was Korako, the goddess of secrets.

  Sarai knew what Korako looked like primarily from witnessing her murder in Eril-Fane’s dreams. He had slain her with the rest of the Mesarthim: a punch with a knife, right to the heart. Her eyes had lost life in an instant. She was fair-haired and brown-eyed, and Sarai knew her up close: her dying face, pale brows arced high in surprised contrast against the azure of her skin. It was practically her only vision of her. She had none at all from Weep. Alone of the Mesarthim, Korako had never gone into the city. The only ones who knew what she looked like were those who’d been in the citadel when Eril-Fane slew the gods, because only they had returned home with their memories intact.

  The goddess of secrets had been a mystery. None ever knew what her gift even was. She hadn’t sown torment, like Isagol, tangling emotions for the fun of it, or eaten memories like Letha, who sometimes went door to door for them, like a caroler on Midwinter’s Eve. Vanth and Ikirok had made their powers known, and Skathis was Skathis: god of beasts, king of horrors, daughter-stealer, city-crusher, monster of monsters, madman.

  But Korako was a phantom. There were no horrors to pin to her, save this one, and there was no one left to tell of it but Minya. Here it was, playing out: the goddess of secrets come to the nursery.

  She was the one who tested them. She sensed when the children’s gifts stirred and coaxed them forth. And then she led them away with her and they never came back.

  She stood in the doorway now, and dread pounded like drums. Sarai understood that Minya’s unconscious was layering in some retrospective knowledge. The girls in the room didn’t know the goddess was there. She watched them for a moment, and her face was a mask. She spoke, or did she? Her lips didn’t move, but her voice was soft and clear. She said, with a questioning lilt, “Kiska?”

  And the little girl who was Minya’s playmate turned, unthinking, toward her. In the next instant, she froze, and just like that she was caught. Her name was Kiska, and her gift had come. For weeks, she’d kept it hidden, but all was undone just like that when reflex betrayed her. Korako had only thought her name, but Kiska had heard her. She was a telepath. Korako had suspected and now she knew.

  She said—was she sorry?—“Come with me, now.”

  Hundreds of times she’d done this before. Hundreds she expected to do it again. She little imagined, did she, that this was the very last time? That little Kiska with her one green eye was the last child she’d take from the nursery. Eril-Fane would rise up only three weeks later, and kill the gods and the children, too. But Kiska would be gone by then. Today was her farewell. She shrank with fear, and showed no defiance.

  Minya did. Sharply, she said, “No.”

  Sarai, a spectator, saw what Korako must have seen: a small, ferocious, burning girl with a presence ten times her size. “You can’t have her!” She was shrill, afraid but also furious. You could see her father in her—if, that is, the god of beasts would have used his power to protect children. “GO. AWAY!”

  Korako didn’t argue.

  It occurred to Sarai, watching, how easy she might have made it all. Whatever was in store for the children, why had she not simply lied? Why not pretend she was taking them to a lovely new life, with homes and grazing spectrals and the feel of grass beneath bare feet— with mothers, even. They’d have gone with her, willing, and been eager for their turn. But she didn’t say a word. She seemed almost to steel herself. Her spine got a little stiffer, her face a little blanker, and she didn’t meet Minya’s eyes.

  Sarai saw something she’d never noticed before: There was a mesarthium collar around Korako’s neck. A collar, like an animal might wear. She searched her small cache of memories of the goddess. Had she really worn such a thing? Sarai tried to remember her death from Eril-Fane’s dreams. Had it been there? She couldn’t be sure.

  Then, in the doorway, Korako made a gesture—a signal to someone—and. ..

  ...the skip reappeared. The anomaly, the blur. It reasserted itself in that instant. Again, Sarai had the impression that something was being obscured. She tried to look and saw only shadows. There was an ache in the aura, like pressing on a bruise. Was it Korako’s doing? Was she hiding something? But that didn’t make any sense.

  This was Minya’s dream. If it was keeping a secret, it was her secret, and her mind keeping it.

  Could it be the answer to where the children were taken, too painful for her to remember? The mind could do that. Sarai had seen it. If something was simply unbearable, it put up a wall around it, or buried it in a tomb. She had seen horrors hidden in a biscuit tin and planted under a seedling so the roots would grow around it and hold it fast. The mind is good at hiding things, but there’s something it cannot do: It can’t erase. It can only conceal, and concealed things are not gone. They rot. They fester, they leak poisons. They ache and stink. They hiss like serpents in tall grass.

  Sarai thought that Minya must be hiding something with that blur. She needed to know what it was. She gathered her power around her. She was the Muse of Nightmares. Dreams did her bidding. They could not hide things from her.

  She bent all her will on the place to force it into the light. The resistance seemed to wail and thrash. It was strong, but she was stronger. It felt like ripping something open—a rib cage or a coffin. And then it was done. The blur was vanquished, and...

  ...the Ellens appeared.

  Sarai thought she must have been wrong. Why should Minya conceal the Ellens? They weren’t dead on the floor like the last time. This wasn’t the Carnage. What was there to hide?

  Her next feeling was relief. She had felt the nurses’ absence so keenly. The nursery was like a half-painted picture without them in it. She thought they would comfort the girls, because that was what the Ellens did.

  Or...that was what her Ellens did. These Ellens ...

  Sarai saw their faces, and she almost did not know them. Oh, their faces were their faces. They were shaped the same, anyway. Less Ellen wore an eye patch, but Sarai already knew that she had. Isagol had plucked out her eye. In her ghostself she restored it. It wasn’t the eye patch that was the problem, though, but her good eye—or at least, the revulsion in it. She was looking at Minya and Kiska the way humans look at godspawn, as though they were obscene. And Great Ellen...

  Sarai felt stricken, robbed, punched in the hearts, and laughed at all at once. Her sweet Great Ellen had round red cheeks that they called happiness cheeks, and they were still round and red, but happiness had nothing whatsoever to do with this woman. Her eyes were as cold as eel flesh in snowmelt. Her lips were puckered like a badly sewn buttonhole. And her aura was pure molten menace.

  She went for Minya. Less Ellen seized Kiska and muscled her toward the door, where Korako was waiting. The whole time, the little girl was looking back over her shoulder, helpless dread on her face. Minya fought, kicking and spitting. She let out such a scream. It was the one that lived inside her—the apocalypse thing, throat-scouring, head-filling roar of endless rage. It whipped out of her like an animating spirit breaking free of the skin that contained it. In the dream, as it could not in truth, her wrath took the shape of a demon. It coalesced, red of skin, fire-eyed and huge. It dwarfed the nurses. It filled the room. What teeth it had, what a howl. Sarai was pummeled by its fury. She staggered, stunned, but also glad, because surely Minya was taking control. She would seize the dream, and her friend as well. She would save Kiska and win, and have at least a moment o
f peace, even if it wasn’t real.

  But the demon only howled with anguish as Kiska was dragged away.

  And then Great Ellen drew back her arm and backhanded Minya to the floor. The howl cut off with an abruptness that Sarai could compare to just one thing: the moment her body, after its long, quiet fall, hit the gate, was impaled, became dead. The rage storm ended. The wrath demon vanished. And Minya lay like an unloved doll splayed out on the floor.

  Chapter 27

  The Living and the Ghosts

  Years ago, Minya had made them all swear not to use their gifts on one another. It had seemed a little unnecessary. Of course it was important that Ruby not use hers, but the rest of them? Sparrow’s and Feral’s gifts weren’t dangerous, and Minya’s wouldn’t even work on the living. Still, they’d all sworn so solemnly, so completely under Minya’s spell—and not grudgingly under it, but happy to be there. They’d adored her, their sharp-tongued, dark-eyed deliverer. But now it struck Sarai that it was her Minya had looked at while they all said their oaths. It was her gift Minya had feared. But all these years she had kept her promise, allowing Minya to keep her secrets. If even once she had defied her, might she have understood?

  Now she flinched out of the dream, stunned and pale. Lazlo was there. He was holding her other hand, and he’d felt the emotion flooding through her, the same way he’d felt her screamed NO! His hearts were pounding. He didn’t know what was happening. It felt like being locked out of a room while someone you love was trapped inside with unknowable terrors. “Are you all right?” he asked. “What happened?”