by Krista Rose
I stood on trembling legs and made my way across the room to the infirmary desk. Stacks of neatly-printed papers lined one side, covered in the illegible foreign marks of the Suraki language.
On the other side sat the heavy glass bottle in which they kept the sedative.
The whispers clawed at my thoughts, shredding them like cats might curtains. The healers had only given me a few drops of the liquid, just enough to dim the maddening, haunting sounds that assaulted me; I had the brief idea that more might drown them out entirely, and leave me in peace.
I hesitated only a moment before snatching up the bottle and uncorking it. The bitter smell of burnt leaves assaulted me, and I took a deep breath before downing the contents, shuddering at the awful taste.
A sharp pain shot through my chest at almost the same moment the last drop of the sedative crossed my lips, and I doubled over, gasping. The bottle slipped from my nerveless fingers, and shattered against the floor. I heard a shout in the hallway, heard the rush of feet as faceless healers poured into the room, catching me as my knees buckled beneath me.
What have you done? the Crone shrieked in my mind. You fool girl, you have killed us both!
But I was beyond caring. The sedative was working, filling my veins with numbing darkness, making the world around me turn warm and blurry. My eyes fluttered closed of their own accord, my body going lax into the arms of those who both held and shook me.
My last thought was of a pair of sea-colored eyes, staring up at me, an ocean of pain and secrets between us.
And then the blackness claimed me, and the voices at last went still.
KYLEE
5 Syrthil 578A.F.
The Rhyulian Mountains
I discovered in the morning how we had escaped the goblins. When the creatures had attacked, it had startled our pegasi, who bolted into the sky without us. I had a fuzzy recollection of staring after them in dismay as we were surrounded by the hostile green creatures. After I had passed out, Vanderys had used his own magic to recall our frightened mounts. My mare had been injured during the desperate rescue, a spear stabbed firmly into her glossy white rump.
Vanderys had managed to get us to the cave on a different mountain, treating both me and the pegasi and setting the wards before he had collapsed from exhaustion.
Knowledge of his efforts left me feeling small and uncomfortable, a knot of gratitude lodged beneath my chest. So it was with something close to relief that I focused on the small, misshapen sculpture he had created before I had awakened. “You want me to fight a rock?”
“Not a rock, lyssen.” His voice was patient. “It is a fal’en.”
“Fah-lane,” I repeated, and frowned. The rock didn’t respond. “Is that the fancy Cedrani word for ‘rock’?”
“No. It means ‘living statue’.”
I peered closer. The statue was only about a foot and a half tall, shaped vaguely like a human. It had small round stones the size of my fist for legs and arms, and a bigger one for its head. “It doesn’t look very alive.”
“That is because I have not yet activated it.”
I blushed and straightened. “Oh.”
“As I was saying, you are not to attack the fal’en. You are to find its weakness, and use the Binding of Thanir to exploit it.”
“I’m guessing lightning isn’t its weakness.”
His lips twitched. “No.”
“Vanderys, this is stupid.” I gestured in frustration. “How the hell does a rock have a weakness? How am I supposed to fight a statue with a ring? And why the hell would I want to?”
“The fal’en are living statues, lyssen. They have been used for millenia to guard temples and palaces, since they do not need to sleep or eat or even breathe to protect them. Mine is crude, yes, but I can promise you that you will wish to defend yourself. Once I activate it, it will not stop attacking you until it is destroyed, or you are. Are you ready?”
I gaped. “You’d let it kill me?”
He ignored my question. “Are you ready?”
No. I swallowed and lifted my hand, aiming my ring at the stone figure. “Ready.”
“Yriset.”
The statue shuddered once, then charged me. Its tiny stone legs struck against the mountain, hard enough to create sparks. It barrelled into my legs, bruising my shins and knocking me off-balance. I staggered back, swearing.
The fal’en swung a stubby arm and clipped my knee. I leapt awkwardly away from it, yelping at the sudden pain. “What the hell, Vanderys?” I danced around the possessed stone-man, trying to stay out of its reach. “Stop this crazy thing! It’s- Ack! It’s trying to cripple me!”
“You must concentrate, lyssen.” He winced in sympathy as the statue head-butted my shin. “You must find its weakness.”
It’s a bloody rock! I wanted to scream it at him, but doubted it would change anything. Besides, I needed my breath to continue to dodge the evil little creature, who seemed determined to bruise every inch of skin between my knees and my ankles.
I scrambled up the side of the mountain, hoping that I could climb out of its reach and praying that it would not be able to follow me.
For a moment, it seemed my plan had worked- at least, until the fal’en began picking up pebbles and hurling them at me. I endured the sporadic hailstorm, wincing as it found sensitive, unprotected skin.
Vanderys watched, his face carefully blank.
Weakness, I reminded myself. I need to find its weakness. What is the weakness of a stone?
The first thought that popped into my mind was a pickaxe. But that would only make smaller stones, and I had a feeling that it would merely reassemble beneath Vanderys’ spell, potentially as more than one creature. I did not want to be chased by an army of tiny rock-demons the size of my toes for the rest of my life.
Rocks become sand, the rational part of my mind reminded me. What turns rocks to sand?
And suddenly I understood. I could see it clearly, as if reality had dropped away, leaving only me and the fal’en, still flinging tiny pebbles at my head. I could feel it in my fingertips, what I needed to stop the creature.
I dropped from the cliff face, raising my ring hand as the creature charged. I pictured the wind, howling against the sides of the mountains, wearing them away into deserts. I saw it in my mind, blowing harder and harder, stripping the stone down until it was nothing more than sand, spilling between my fingers. I held on to that image in my mind, then pushed it down my arm, and out of the ring.
A shrieking tornado erupted from my hand and swallowed up the fal’en. The statue attempted to fight, its tiny arms waving wildly, but the tornado was too strong, and the stone-man disintegrated, the wind pulling it apart before my eyes.
The tornado collapsed into a pile of sand at my feet. The fal’en was gone.
I glanced up at Vanderys, who nodded at me. “Very good. How do you feel?”
I scowled. “My legs hurt. A lot.”
“I imagine so. But otherwise?”
I opened my mouth for a biting remark, then paused. How did I feel? I was not tired, despite creating a small tornado for the first time. My teeth did not ache; there was no pain lurking behind my eyes. “I’m fine,” I replied, then shrugged, unwilling to admit my surprise. “Wasn’t that the point?”
“And the ring?”
I glanced down at it. “I haven’t asked, but I’m sure it feels fine, too.”
He made a face at me. “One of these days, lyssen, I am certain that mouth of yours will get you into trouble.”
“But not today,” I replied cheerfully.
“No.” He smiled reluctantly. “Not today.”
“Great. So, what’s for breakfast?”
VITRIC
In the dream, I was flying over a desert, golden and blinding beneath a sky so blue it made my eyes hurt to look up at it. My skin felt taut and dry, the air shimmering with heat above sands that stretched out around me as far as I could see. Far in the distance, pulling me like a lodestone, reared a
black temple that shone like the carapace of a long-dead beetle.
I reached it far faster than I would have thought, but didn’t slow down. I shot through the walls, sinking through stone and marble and disorienting dark emptiness, until at last falling into a candlelit room near the center of the temple.
The room was an infirmary I realized as I looked around. Neat cots lined the walls, and books cluttered the shelves above the room’s single desk. Two black-smocked healers conferred in lowered voices with a third man dressed like a priest.
And, laying on a cot on the far side of the room, was Kryssa.
Usually my dreams of her were memories, from a time when it seemed anything was possible between us. This was not such a remembrance: I did not know this place, or these people.
I moved toward her bed, my feet making no noise as I walked across the cold marble floor. Her face was too pale, her eyes sunken and bruised. She looked half-starved, and her hair was dirty and tangled. Her bare arms were covered in scratches, and her wrists bore the unmistakeable abrasions of manacles.
And yet, she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
The voices of the healers finally reached me. I had the impression that they were speaking another language, but somehow in the dream I was able to understand them.
“-drank all of the dimcraja,” one healer was saying, his voice low and angry. “She’s suicidal. It’s sacrilege.”
“She kept saying she could hear the voices of the dead,” the other argued. “She’s delusional from the cattakasha. Perhaps she thought the dimcraja was water.”
The first healer laughed mirthlessly. “No one thinks dimcraja is water. The taste is too vile.”
The priest raised his hands. “Enough. I will not sell the slave, regardless of her intentions. Tell me instead of her status.”
“She is in a coma, my lord,” the second healer replied, when it became obvious the first would not speak. “We have managed to purge her of most of the sedative, but I do not know-” He hesitated. “I do not know if she will survive.”
My heart clenched. I stared at the face of the girl I had loved since childhood, willing her to wake up. She did not.
Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow flickered. I turned, frowning. The room felt as if it had grown darker, despite the unwavering candlelight. The air turned cold enough to steal my breath.
The shadows moved.
They surged around Kryssa, spreading out above her bed like the wings of some massive, unseen bird. The darkness in the room intensified as tendrils of freezing grey mist crept along the ground.
The priest and healers continued to talk, oblivious.
“We are lost.” The voice emanated from the shadows, neither male nor female, strange and rasping and empty. “She will find us. She will save us.”
Then the shadows reached for me. My voice caught on a scream as I was pulled down through the floor, into impenetrable darkness.
5 Syrthil 578A.F.
Fallor, Valory
“VITRIC!”
Someone was shaking me. I sat up, and the kitten on my chest yowled in protest as it was dislodged. A hand on my arm stopped me from reaching for my sword, and I blinked until Brannyn’s face swam into view. I was soaked in cold sweat, my heart hammering against my chest. I dragged my hands over my face, swallowing past the raw feeling in my throat.
Satisfied I wouldn’t reach for anothe weapon, Brannyn let go of my arm and sat back, his eyes focused and intense upon my face. “You were screaming.”
“Bad dream,” I managed hoarsely. “Sorry.”
“About Kryssa?”
I blinked at him. “How-?”
“It was her name you were screaming.”
“Oh.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I remembered the shadows closing over her, and shuddered. “Not particularly.”
“This happen before?”
“Once or twice.” I jerked a shoulder, trying to shake away my fear. “It’s just a dream.”
Brannyn stared at me, his face thoughtful. “You know, I’ve seen a lot of strange things over the years. Hell, a couple of days ago, I imprinted with a dragon and left it to guard my family’s manor against my Vampyre cousin. If that doesn’t define strange, I don’t know what does. But by far, the strangest thing I’ve ever seen is Kryssa’s ability to touch other people’s minds. I watched her reach into the minds of more than thirty people at once as easily as if she were drawing water from a well. I don’t know the extent of her gift, but I think sometimes it might be limitless.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the last time she was sick, she called for you constantly. I’m saying perhaps these dreams… perhaps they’re not really dreams.”
“You think Kryssa is- what? Pulling my dreams to her?” I remembered the sense of flying, of being drawn to the temple. I shook my head. “She’s always asleep in the dreams.”
What about when she was weeping? My mind whispered. You woke with wet fingertips from trying to wipe them away. Or the time you saw her kill that assassin with a dagger, and woke with blood on your face? Or when-
“Something about this one frightened you,” Brannyn continued, oblivious to the whirl of my thoughts. “Something to do with Kryssa.”
“She- she was in an infirmary,” I began, “in a temple in Surak. The healers said she tried to kill herself. That she was hearing voices.”
“Surak?” he repeated, frowning. “What’s she doing in Surak?”
“The priest said she was a slave.”
Brannyn’s eyes widened. He gripped my wrist, his hand so warm I was certain he had burned me. “Tell me everything. Now.”
I removed my wrist from his grasp. The skin was pink, as if I had been splashed by very hot water. I watched his expression darken as I told him what I had dreamed.
He growled when I finished. “Damn it, Kryssa. What have you gotten yourself into?”
“It’s just a dream,” I reminded him, though my voice didn’t sound very convincing, even to my own ears.
Brannyn stared at me.
“Haven’t you heard from the others?” I asked hopefully, then swallowed again, the dryness in my throat making every word painful.
“No.” Brannyn shook his head, then stood. “Get dressed. We need to go to the Manor.”
“Why?”
“We need to talk to Sylvathi.”
I muttered a curse as Brannyn walked out of my room, closing the door behind him. I stared after him for a long moment before finally shoving free of my blankets.
I got dressed in haze. I couldn’t shake the thought that if all those dreams had been real…
I remembered standing over her as she had screamed about blood and death and immortality. The healers around her had plotted her murder, eyeing her with fear and suspicion. I had woken screaming from that nightmare as well.
My mother had been less than pleased.
There had been dozens of other such dreams: Kryssa grieving over the body of a healer, her eyes hollow and full of pain; Kryssa arguing with the shade of a dead woman, her face changing between her own and the Crone’s; Kryssa standing over the bodies of her brother and sister in an alley, a burning wagon illuminating the fear in her eyes as she held up a sword to defend them from the night.
And there were the dreams where I had simply held her in the dark, feeling her heartbeat against mine as I chased the cold and fear from her skin…
It had been the dreams that had convinced me to accept Lady Hetarielle’s offer. I had believed Kryssa to be dead. Staying in the village where I had loved her while dreaming of her alive- it had been too much.
I glanced down at my wrists. The scars had healed and faded; my sister Megaera showed promise of becoming a fine healer one day. But I couldn’t forget the disappointment I had felt when I had awakened, alive and with my wrists bandaged, all the knives in our house hidden from me. The betrayal in my father’s gaze had haunted me, and my m
other’s hurt and constant hovering had all but driven me mad.
So when I had escaped the house and stumbled upon Lady Hetarielle and the bear, it had seemed almost like a godsend. Finally, I would be able to escape the memories of Kryssa, the dreams that left me aching and lonely in the light of day.
And, though the dreams had still followed me to Enevai, I had finally managed to convince myself that they were just dreams, and nothing more.
But I could admit now, at least to myself, that when I had been offered a choice by the Great Mages of where to be sent for an assignment, I had jumped at the chance to be sent to Fallor, because that was where she had gone in my dreams.
And I found her.
Brannyn knocked on the door, interrupting my thoughts. “Vitric, you ready?”
I shook the thoughts from my head and tugged on my boots, grabbing my sword and belt as I hurried to open the door. “Ready.”
He jerked a shoulder toward the back door, shooing kittens out of the way with his foot as he walked toward it. “Come on.”
The journey to Rose Manor was uneventful. Brannyn spoke little, absorbed in his own thoughts and leaving me to mine. More and more, I remembered details of the dreams I had tried to forget, pieces of nightmares I still didn’t want to remember. If everything I had dreamed was true… I shuddered at the thought.
The Manor loomed before us at last, somber and stately in the afternoon sunlight. Sylvathi dozed on the lawn, the green of his scales almost blending with the grass, making him appear like a large, smoking hill. He opened one brilliant emerald eye as we approached, and snorted more smoke.
“We need to ask you something,” Brannyn answered to a question I couldn’t hear. “Is there a way for someone to see something while dreaming, and that thing to be real?”
Sylvathi raised his head and arched his tail in curiosity. He rumbled.
Brannyn shook his head. “Not me. Vit- I mean, Desper.” He tried to keep up with my alias when we weren’t sure we could be overheard. “He dreamed of my sister in Surak. As a slave. Could he have seen something real?”
