Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer #2_UK)

by Laini Taylor

  The rim of the sun appeared. It had never seemed so flimsy: That rind of light was all that stood between her and a month of darkness. She knew better than to look right at it—it was slim, but it was the sun—but she couldn’t help herself. She looked. She must have looked too long. A white aura bloomed in her vision. She blinked but couldn’t look away. Something about it...

  The sun vanished but not the white aura. It must have burned into her eyes. It was dead center and growing. She blinked again. It was getting bigger. She squinted. It had a shape.

  And then she saw what it was—if she dared to trust her sun-

  struck, wondering eyes.

  She would ever after believe the star had passed her message to Kora. Because the shape gliding toward her was the huge white eagle that had effused from her sister’s chest. How was it here? Was Kora here, too?

  Nova was filled with lightning—the brilliant flare, the thunder’s peal. She opened her arms to the bird. She wept. Her tears froze on her lashes. Kora had come to save her.

  But where was she?

  There was only the bird. There had been no vessels in the harbor for weeks, and wouldn’t be now for months. The ice was closing. Winter was upon them, and the sea around Rieva became a treacherous wilderness of tide-borne ice shelves crashing together, buckling, heaving open into narrow straits only to smash shut again and splinter any ships caught in between. No one could approach. No one could escape. Kora couldn’t be nearby. There was only the bird, but the bird was Kora. Wasn’t that what the Servant had said?

  It’s not an ‘it.’ It’s you, Korako. That eagle is you, as much as your flesh and blood is you.

  Its wingbeats stirred a wind. Huge as it was, it seemed weightless, coming to hover in front of Nova. Its eyes pierced her and she wondered if her sister was really looking at her through them. She tried to smile and be brave. “Kora,” she said. “Can you hear me? Can you see me?” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, and she realized only then that it had been weeks since she’d said anything out loud. Shergesh preferred her silence, and whom else did she have to talk to? All her conversations happened only in her head.

  “I miss you,” she choked out. “I can’t...” She started to say what she’d told the star. I can’t bear it. I’m dying. Save me.

  But the words wouldn’t come. They filled her with shame. The bird made no sound but Nova felt Kora’s presence, and she wanted to be strong for her. She summoned a smile. “It’s Deepwinter’s Eve. I don’t suppose you have that in Aqa. Well, let me tell you,” she said, and tried to hide her desperation under a thin veil of chatter. “The Slaughter was a fine time this year. I’ll bet you’re sorry you missed out....”

  The bird was fading. Nova blinked. It was luminous in the starlight, but it was dimming like a dying lamp. Nova wondered with a lurch of her heart: Was it really here at all? What if she was only imagining it, some thread of sanity snapped? But then it clicked its beak and shifted in the air, its great taloned raptor foot thrusting a bundle at her. It was small. She clutched it to her chest with her mittened hands and gasped as the bird vanished before her.

  “Don’t leave me,” she whispered, but it was already gone.

  She thrust the bundle down the front of her coat; she couldn’t open it with her mittens on, and didn’t dare take them off in this cold. She went back down the ridge trail to her husband’s house. No one paid her any heed. She crept in quietly and built up the fire before removing her outer layers. Shergesh was snoring. She hated the sound, but hated it less than his querulous voice snapping orders at her unceasing.

  With shaking hands, still numb from the cold, she opened the eagle’s bundle. A part of her mind still thought she’d imagined it, bird and bundle and all. Maybe even now it was all hallucination, however real it seemed in the firelight of the house.

  It was a length of cloth finer than anything she’d touched— slippery as water, the light gliding over it, dancing like the aurora. It was patterned with tiny flowers in a hundred different colors. She thought she’d weep, it was so lovely. But that was just the wrapping. She unwound it.

  There was a letter. It said:

  My sister, half of my own self. I am not free to come for you, as our mother could not come for us. It is not as we imagined here. The empire is failing.

  Nova blinked. The words were senseless. The Mesaret Empire was everything, and always had been. It could not fail. What did that even mean? The letter did not say. It went on: I send you this with deep misgiving. I don’t know what else to do. I know you know this, Novali: The punishment is death.

  For what it’s worth, I heard the Mesarthim talking. They said that when you stole their gifts, you made them stronger—the way a lighthouse lens amplifies light. Nova, my heart. You are stronger than Rieva. You are stronger than the sea. Find me.

  Find me. I am not free.

  Nova’s heart stuttered, then it raced. I am not free. Twice Kora had written those words. All this time, Nova had imagined her sister training, growing strong, living the life they’d dreamed of. It had been so real in their minds. How foolish it seemed now. It hadn’t even occurred to her that they’d invented it whole cloth. She’d been so deep in her own self-pity, she’d never even considered...What was Aqa really like? What was Kora’s life, if it was not the one they’d imagined?

  And the empire... failing?

  Nova would have been less stunned to see the sky shatter like a sheet of ice.

  There was an object in the bundle. She saw it and stopped breathing. She knew better than to touch it. Through the wall, she heard Shergesh’s snores falter into the snorts that heralded his waking. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost dropped the thing several times trying to wrap it back up. She shoved the bundle into the back of a cupboard, but the letter, it was still in her hand. She heard Shergesh’s sitting-up grunt, then thump-thump as he swung his feet out of bed, and she panicked and threw the letter in the fire.

  No no no no no. She tried to grab it out. It was Kora’s writing, and she didn’t want to lose it as they had lost their mother’s. Too late. It crisped and curled, and then Shergesh was in the doorway, scratching himself and wanting things, as was his way.

  Nova didn’t dare take the bundle back out till the next night’s snores settled into rhythm. She crept out of bed and unwrapped the floral cloth with trembling hands.

  The punishment is death.

  It was a nothing less than a godsmetal diadem, as fine and perfect as the ring made by a raindrop fallen on still water. She couldn’t fathom how Kora had gotten ahold of such a treasure. Every gram of godsmetal mined in all of Mesaret was accounted for in multiple ledgers and guarded by imperial soldiers. Only Servants sanctioned by the crown were granted the use of it, under strictest oaths and oversight. People killed for it, fought wars for it, wasted fortunes mining for it.

  And what was Nova even supposed to do with it?

  If she touched it, her skin would turn blue and give her away, and what good was her gift to her, anyway? Pirate. Skathis had spat out the word like a bite of rotten meat, as though there were nothing more contemptible in the world. She hadn’t understood it then, but she’d had a lot of time to think, and now she thought she did. Her power was to steal power, but there was none on Rieva worth stealing. On her own, she was helpless, godsmetal or not, trapped on an island at the bottom of the world.

  But Kora knew all that, and still she’d sent it, with the message:

  Find me. I am not free.

  Which could only mean that Kora was even more trapped than she was.

  A seismic shift occurred in that moment. Nova had been waiting for her sister to save her. But what if she had to save her sister?

  Purpose possessed her, and a strange calm descended. She wrapped up the diadem. She hid it well. And while Shergesh snored and the sea iced over for the long winter dark, Nova began to plan.

  Chapter 38

  The Sea Stared Back

  The waiting was the worst part. T
he plan was madness, and there was no way to know if it would even work. Nova couldn’t very well test it. For all she knew, she would be caught and executed. Still, there was nothing to do but try to act normal, day in, day out, waiting. Always, she carried on her silent conversations.

  With the star:

  Tell Kora I’m coming.

  With the sea:

  Haven’t you frozen yet? Could you hurry, dear? I’d be obliged. You see, I’ve somewhere to be.

  With her husband:

  You don’t know what I am, old man, but you will. I promise you that.

  And her father:

  I’m going to use you, and ruin you, and then I’m going to laugh. I hope you enjoyed your five bronze coins.

  And they couldn’t read her thoughts, but nor could they hold her gaze, and always looked away first. Well, except the sea. The sea stared back, and even as it slowly iced over, it was warmer, Nova thought, than her husband or her father.

  At last, the time came. The sea froze. The only escape from Rieva was across the ice to Targay, a larger island with a harbor where icebreakers docked even in winter. Nova had considered striking out alone, but the ice was treacherous. It was never still. It buckled and cracked, broke apart, smashed together, with force enough to behead breaching uuls. To make it all that way, she needed more than luck. She needed someone who could freeze water and make a solid path.

  Someone like her father.

  His gift, of course, was dormant. It was also weak. But Nova kept coming back to that one line from Kora’s letter—how the Mesarthim had said she had made their gifts stronger. She wondered: Could it be true? That day in the wasp ship was such chaos in her recollection. But once the notion gripped her, she could not let it go. It really was her only chance. Of course, Zyak would hardly agree to help her escape.

  That was where Shergesh came in.

  Nova crept out of bed. Heart pounding, she took the diadem from its hiding place, peeled back the beautiful cloth, and gazed in awe at the godsmetal. If she was going to do this mad thing, she would have to touch it, let it work on her. The punishment is death, as Kora had reminded her, though she needed no reminding. If she touched the diadem, she would become blue, and there could be no going back.

  Her hands shook as she let the cloth fall and grasped the circlet in both hands. The metal was cool and smooth. She watched her skin flush gray, then blue, as the hum moved over her and into her, awakening what was inside her. She recognized it now, and drew it forth. And then she went and knelt beside her sleeping husband.

  Everyone knew what Shergesh’s gift had been. He bragged of it all the time, and liked to say what he would use it for if it were at his disposal. On their wedding night, when Nova had balked at taking off her clothes, he’d told her, “If I had my power, you’d do what I tell you.” He’d wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and leered. “But that would take the fun out of making you do it.”

  Which he had then proceeded to do.

  Mind control. That was his power—too weak for the empire’s use, but, Nova hoped, not for hers. If she could amplify it, then she could use it—to control not only him but her father, too. Careful not to wake the shriveled old tyrant, she touched the diadem to his wrist. He stirred while the hum moved through him, but he was a deep sleeper and did not wake. When it was all done, and he was as blue as she was, she gave him a hard shove and said, “Wake up, old man. It’s time you found out what you married.”

  Wake up he did, and he blinked at her in the firelight as though he must be dreaming. She didn’t give him time to realize he wasn’t. She snatched his gift. It was easy, bless Thakra. It was right there for the taking. And as soon as she had it, she turned it back on him. “Get up and get dressed for a journey.”

  Still blinking, confused, Shergesh rose from the furs.

  And did exactly as she bid.

  And that was how Novali Nyoka-vasa came to cross the frozen sea with a sledge, a team of dogs, and the men who had bought and sold her.

  It took a month. Targay was not near, and the way was anything but easy. When they ran out of food, they had to fish, and that took time. Over and over they came to broken ice, and each time Nova looked into the black water, she felt its soft persuasion all the way down to her bones.

  It’s too far, it said. It’s too late.

  Every day it got harder and harder to tune it out. She had to pour all her power—and Zyak’s—into mending the ice, to forge a way onward. The single diadem between them, they had to take it in turns to hold it against their skin, so their power could not ebb away, and all that they did—every single thing—was the work of Nova’s will, using the power she stole from them to keep them in line.

  There was no room for mercy, and they deserved none. She felt no pity, and no triumph, either. She was too weary for triumph, and aware at every moment how quickly it could all go wrong. She could only sleep in snatched moments, when they were both sleeping, too, and in her fatigue she felt like she was floating, unable to settle in her skin. Shergesh was not strong, and had to ride in the sledge. Nova feared he’d die before they reached their destination, and she only cared because if he did, she would lose her control over her father. It took a great deal of her focus to keep her grip on his mind. Whenever she slackened her hold, she could feel him trying to resist her, even occasionally gaining a moment or two of freedom. Once, she nodded off, only to jerk awake and see him charging toward her, his silence at odds with the viciousness of his face. “Stop!” she commanded, and he jerked to a halt. She was afraid to sleep after that.

  Every day, she’d find her star in the sky, and ask it to pass a message to Kora.

  I’m coming, she always said, and always she hoped that the white bird would appear, as it had on Deepwinter’s Eve. But it never did. In fact, she made it to Targay, and from there all the way to Aqa, but she never saw the bird again. She reached the imperial city to find it fallen into chaos—the emperor dead, his godsmetal stolen, and all hell broken loose.

  And Kora? She was already gone.

  Chapter 39

  Treacherous Whisper

  The seraphim of long ago had made the portals because they could.

  The endeavor was wrapped in words of glory, and there was greatness in it: The discovery of the Continuum that was the great All, an infinite number of universes lying pressed together like pages? The ability to pierce through them, and voyage from world to world? Who, with such a power, would not use it?

  The Faerers were called the lightbearers, and glory was their mission. Six went in one direction, six the other, and they wrote the greatness of their race into each world they discovered. They were magnificent. It was only natural they should be worshipped. Religions sprang up in their wake. So did mass graves. Saviors to some, they were destroyers to others. In the world of Zeru they slaughtered one race to liberate another, and the name of their leader, Thakra, came to signify the dualism of beauty and terror.

  Angels were not for the faint of heart.

  The two Sixes put hundreds of worlds between them, flying ever outward from Meliz. And then one of them cut a door too far. It opened into darkness, and the darkness was alive.

  This came to be known by survivors as the Cataclysm, though survivors were tragically few. The Faerers fled back whence they’d come, and the great beasts of darkness pursued, pouring after them through the cuts they’d made from sky to sky to sky. All the way back to Meliz they came, and every world the Faerers had opened, they devoured. Even Meliz was lost, Meliz eternal, the garden of the Continuum. Those seraphim who escaped into the neighbor world Eretz managed to hold the portal closed, and they held it to this day, pouring their strength into shoring up their sky to keep the darkness at bay.

  A bold young queen in that distant world was even now training a legion of angels and chimaera to battle the darkness and hopefully destroy it. But that’s another story.

  As for the other Six, led by Thakra—who knows? Perhaps they died long ago, or perhaps th
ey’re still going, far, far out in the infinity of the great All. That’s another story, too.

  This is the story of the portals between Zeru and Mesaret, and how they were used after the angels had moved on, and by whom, and at what cost.

  Mesaret was the world with the extraordinary blue metal that made its people like gods. Through the cuts in the sky their empire spread. With their skyships and soldier-wizards, they were invincible. For a time.

  All empires fail. They overreach, spread too thin, collect one enemy too many. They’re gnawed at from within by corruption, greed, betrayal. The Mesaret Empire was no exception. There was fighting on all fronts when a young smith called Skathis looked into the swirl of chaos and saw...opportunity.

  He slew the emperor, but he did not take his place. He had other aspirations. He wished be a god. So he took the emperor’s godsmetal, and then he left the world with his ship and a small, handpicked crew that included his spy, Korako, whether she wanted to go or not.

  Nova reached Aqa just too late. She missed them by a week. And she might as well have wished to fly to the moon as follow them through the portal. It simply wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, she did it. Not that year or the next, but she did it. Skathis had a mesarthium skyship to navigate portals and realms. She had nothing but her wits and her diadem, and still she found ways to follow. Sometimes it took her years to get from one world to the next. The trail grew old and faint, but always she kept on going.

  There comes a certain point with a hope or a dream, when you either give it up or give up everything else. And if you choose the dream, if you keep on going, then you can never quit, because it’s all you are. Nova had made that choice a long time ago. She was so far down this path that to turn around would be to face a howling, dark tunnel with nothing at its end, not even ice or uuls. There was no going back. There was nothing else. There was only Kora, and the words that haunted Nova: