ShatterStar

by Krista Rose

  The dragon peered at me. Smoke poured from his nostrils as he studied me, then rumbled another question.

  “No. He’s not a mage.”

  I flushed under Sylvathi’s scrutiny, feeling very small beside him.

  Brannyn frowned when the dragon growled. “An All- all-what? All-Dreamer? What is that?” He turned to me, listening to the rumbled response. “Sylvathi says there is something called an All-Dreamer, a person who has true dreams. It allows you to see things that happen very far away, but usually only in the time that you fall asleep.”

  “So, he thinks Kryssa is one of these All-Dreamers?”

  Sylvathi huffed smoke.

  “No.” Brannyn shook his head. “He says it’s you.”

  “What? Me? How am I an All-Dreamer?”

  “He says he can smell it on you.” He shrugged. “He thought you knew.”

  “Smell it?” I shook my head. “No. That’s ridiculous. I’m not a mage. I have no magic at all. These dreams- they’re just dreams. Or Kryssa trying to communicate with me. Not some All-Dreamer insanity.”

  Sylvathi growled.

  “He’s right,” Brannyn agreed. “Sylvathi has met quite a few All-Dreamers. Besides, our connections only work when we’re awake. You dream of Kryssa because you’re thinking about her when you go to sleep, I bet. If you thought about the others…” His eyes began to gleam.

  “Brannyn, that’s ridiculous. I’m not- I can’t- It’s-” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “No.”

  “It’s not a second head, Desper. Its just a type of magic, one you only use while sleeping. That has to be a little hard to identify.”

  A tear slipping down Kryssa’s cheek. “Love makes you lose things, dear heart. Pieces of yourself. No one else matters after a while.”

  “No,” I repeated, shaking my head to clear it. “They’re just dreams.” Otherwise- I couldn’t even think of it.

  Brannyn rolled his eyes. “Look, fine, they’re just dreams. But I’m worried about my siblings. All of them, not just Kryssa. If there’s a chance that you can see where they are-” He stared at me, willing me to understand. “Please.”

  “I-” I took a deep breath. What if it were my sisters? “Alright. What do you want me to do?”

  We left Sylvathi sun-bathing on the lawn, and made our way to the front doors of the Manor. Someone had seen us arrive, because Brannyn’s cousin Brycen was waiting for us at the door. Haidee was curled in his arms, asleep and drooling on his shoulder.

  “Amandine is waiting for you in her study,” he told us in a whisper, cupping the back of his daughter’s head. “She says it’s quieter in there.”

  I wondered how Amandine knew we had been coming, then heard the screaming coming from the great room. It sounded as if someone were being dismembered; when I peeked inside, I realized it was worse. All the young children of the Rose Family were contained within the room. They were climbing the walls, the furniture, and the two overwhelmed women attempting to watch them.

  Brannyn and I shared a look of mutual cowardice, and hurried past, retreating to the study.

  Amandine scowled as we entered. Her normally-perfect hair was unkempt, and there was a smudge of dirt on the end of her sharp nose. Her carmine dress was ripped, and she was fussing with a small jar of powder, struggling to pull out the cork.

  “Good, you’re here.” She held out the bottle toward us. “One of you open this.”

  Brannyn took the bottle, eyeing it curiously as he opened it. “What is it?”

  “Headache powder.” She glared at the door as another shriek floated in from down the hallway. “Little monsters are trying to kill me. If the legions don’t arrive soon, I may just unleash them on the Vampyres.”

  “I thought you liked children?” Brannyn asked as Amandine swallowed a spoonful of the powder.

  She made a face. “I like other people’s children. But watching them for an afternoon or holding a baby for an hour is not the same as this-” she gestured “-pandemonium.”

  Something shattered down the hall, and all three of us winced.

  “The children do not like being trapped in the house,” Amandine continued. “They’re used to playing outside. But we don’t have enough eyes to watch them, only Sillow and Maari and myself. So they’ve become terrors.” She sank onto a divan, looking small and fragile as she buried her head in her hands. “I can’t do this.”

  Brannyn looked shaken, as if seeing a ghost. But I had seen this before: seemingly invulnerable people that had reached the extent of their strength and simply collapsed.

  My mother had been like that.

  I stepped forward to kneel in front of her, taking her hands in mine. They were cold and frail, the hands of a woman too old to be under such strain. Protecting her family, dealing with the inner tragedy of Felice and the deaths she had caused, then to have her will challenged by pint-sized anarchists- who wouldn’t break under such pressure?

  “It will be alright,” I assured her. I stroked the tears from her cheeks. “You’re strong, you’re fearless, and they’re just children. You’ve faced far worse.”

  She gave me a watery smile. “You’re a dear boy, but I’m afraid you’ve never raised Rose children.”

  “No, but I did have to convince one she loved me once.” I grinned. “Can’t be harder than that.”

  “Kryssa?” she guessed, one brow raised. She looked me over when I nodded. “You’re more stubborn than I gave you credit for.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  Amandine chuckled. Some of the color returned to her cheeks. “Perhaps you’re right. But I’m still going to hide in here for a few more minutes, and maybe when I return they will be asleep.”

  A piercing cry sounded from the great room.

  Brannyn quickly shut the door. “Actually, Amandine, we were wondering if you could help us with something.”

  “Oh?”

  “Vi- Desper has been having dreams of Kryssa, and I think they’re true dreams. Sylvathi called him an All-Dreamer, but-”

  “It’s ridiculous,” I interrupted.

  “-but Vitric doesn’t believe it,” he continued, ignoring me. “I was wondering if you had something to help him sleep? I want him to try to look in on the others.”

  “An All-Dreamer?” Amandine murmured, frowning at me thoughtfully. She stood, and began rummaging through the bottles on a shelf. “I’ve heard of All-Dreamers before, but I had thought they were merely stories.” She pulled a bottle from the back of the shelf, filled with a pale green powder. “This is moonflower. It’s a sleep aid, and promotes vivid dreaming. A spoonful of this should help you control your dreams if you are an All-Dreamer and make you more accurate, though I should warn you that it can become addicting.”

  I stared at the innocuous-looking powder, felt my stomach clench in dread. I remembered black wings covering Kryssa, that terrible voice scraping through the space between us.

  Did I want to risk seeing that again?

  I glanced at Brannyn’s face, saw the desperate hope there, and sighed. Then again, how could I refuse?

  I took the jar from Amandine, and the small silver spoon that she produced. The moonflower smelled sugary-sweet, and melted like vanilla cream on my tongue. It was tempting to empty the entire bottle into my mouth, but I restrained myself. Barely.

  Amandine gestured to the couch. I laid down, my eyes already starting to get heavy. My limbs felt like lead, weighing me down.

  “Think of Lanya.” Amandine’s voice was soothing, and I could feel myself starting to drift. “Picture her in your mind.”

  I was racing across a vast mountain, the air warm and sweet against my face. In the distance, I saw a fantastical palace, carved into the surface of a mountain. Cedralysone, I realized as I shot across a green valley, brilliant and beautifully tended, and through a large waterfall that cascaded over the front of the palace.

  I was in a large bedchamber. Brannyn’s sister Lanya was sitting on a small bench, combing her long g
olden hair in a mirror. A tall, Elven woman in black armor leaned against the wall facing her, her violet eyes amused.

  “And then he fed me cherries in whipped sugar as we watched the stars appear,” Lanya was saying, and she smiled dreamily at her reflection. “He’s been telling me their names.”

  “Have you mated with him yet?”

  The brush tumbled from Lanya’s hand as she flushed. “Lyrel!”

  “What?” Lyrel shrugged. “I can tell that you want to. Half the Court can see it. There are wagers of how long you will make him wait until you take him to your bed.”

  Lanya opened and closed her mouth several times, then tilted her chin, a dangerous gleam in her eye. “How much is the wager that I won’t sleep with him?”

  “Ten to one against.”

  “I’ll take those odds.”

  “I am fairly certain it is unfair to bet on yourself.”

  “Fine. Then you can place it for me. We’ll split the winnings when I don’t sleep with him.”

  Lyrel’s brow lifted. “I thought you wanted to sleep with him.”

  “I do. But I’m not going to have our relationship degraded by a betting competition. I can wait until our wedding night, as can he.”

  “That’s not how things are done among the Cedrani.”

  “But I’m not a Cedrani, am I?” Lanya tossed her head. “Lord Rathis made that perfectly clear in his toast last night at dinner. It was subtle, but rude. What Aleydis and I have will outlast the hatred and pettiness of the Court, and then we will split the winnings on top of it.”

  The Elven woman smiled. “You shall make an interesting queen, m’orin.”

  “Thank you.”

  I stepped away from the conversation, my ears burning. To hear Brannyn’s sister talk so frankly about sex was… well, uncomfortable. I concentrated, wanting to be out of the room, and thought of Kylee.

  Again, I was flying, soaring through the air. But this time I did not land, instead rising high above the mountains, up into the clouds. At first I thought my dream-self had gotten lost, but then I saw her. She was riding on the back of a pegasus, her face elated as she stared down at the world beneath her mount. She glanced over her shoulder toward an Elven man flying behind her.

  “I see a clearing down there,” she shouted, her voice whipped away by the thin air. “Want to make camp?”

  He nodded, and they dived toward the ground in spiralling circles, leaving me high above them in the clouds.

  That’s two of Brannyn’s siblings, I thought, excited over my new-found control of my dreams. What about the others? Say, Alyxen?

  I was surrounded by blinding white light, aching and intense. A high-pitch shriek seemed to fill my ears, like the scrape of metal on stone, but the noise went on and on. I gasped, covering my ears, though it did nothing to change the sound.

  Reyce! I thought desperately. Get me out of here!

  I was back in Cedralysone, but now it was nighttime. Kryssa’s youngest brother stood by a window, staring out over the night-drenched valley.

  He turned to look at me when I entered. “You’re here. I’ve been expecting you.”

  I stared around, trying to figure out who he was talking to.

  “Vitric.”

  I turned back, my eyes wide. I could feel my mouth hanging open. “H- how-?”

  He gestured to the bed, where another Reyce lay sleeping, so bundled in the blankets that I hadn’t noticed him. “I have some control of my dreams as well.”

  “Well, that’s-” I huffed out a breath. “This is all a little strange to me still. Is this real?”

  “To an extent.” Reyce shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I know we don’t have a lot of time, though.”

  “What’s going on? Brannyn hasn’t been able to reach you. Kryssa-” My voice caught in my throat.

  He made a face. “I’m not sure. I suffered a seizure when I came here. When I’m awake, I can’t talk with anyone, even the others. I think Kryssa was taken somewhere. There’s a lot of fear whenever Lanya thinks of her. Alyxen, Aillel, and Tanner are missing, too, and Kylee left on a pegasus.” His eyes burned into me in the dark. “There’s something wrong here.”

  I struggled to find words for the questions burning inside me. “Kryssa was taken? By slavers?”

  “Maybe.” He frowned. “That would make the most sense.”

  My heart seemed frozen in my chest, but I made myself ask the next question. “Is she- is she dead?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I would have felt that. I would have known. She’s in danger, but we’re all in danger.” His expression turned frightened, the face of a child. “I think someone is going to die.”

  I shook violently. I thought at first it was in response to his words, but then I realized it was something outside myself- an invisible hand on my shoulder, shaking me back into wakefulness.

  “Your time is up,” Reyce informed me, his eyes wide and lost. “You’re waking up.”

  “Wait, I need to know-” I struggled to fight those shaking me, even as the dream began to dissolve “-who’s going to die?”

  But Reyce only stared at me as the dream faded, and I opened my eyes to see Amandine and Brannyn standing over me, their faces concerned.

  I sat up quickly, and realized I was cold and sweating. My hands trembled as I took the glass of water Amandine offered me and drank the contents in a single swallow.

  “Why did you wake me up?” I asked, my voice raspy and hoarse. I felt weak and exhausted, as if I had spent three hours chopping firewood rather than taking a brief nap.

  “Because you’ve been asleep for six hours.” Brannyn informed me bluntly. “We have to start our shift soon.”

  “Six hours?” I repeated. “But- but that’s impossible.”

  “Completely possible, since you just did it.” He tilted his head. “Did you find the others?”

  “I- I did.” Talking about my dreams as if they were real felt odd; but then, so had experiencing them. “Lanya is in Cedralysone. She-” I thought about the awkward conversation I had witnessed, and started to blush again “-seems to be enjoying herself.” I cleared my throat. “Ah, Kylee is flying over a mountain range on a pegasus with an Elf. I couldn’t find Alyxen. And Reyce is… strange.”

  “Strange?” Brannyn repeated, his brows drawing together. “What do you mean, ‘strange’?”

  “He could see me.” I frowned at the memory. “He told me that Kryssa was in danger, that they’re all in danger. He thinks someone is going to die.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring.”

  “Sorry. That’s just what I saw.”

  “And you did a very good job, dear,” Amandine soothed, giving Brannyn a stern look. “You tried very hard.”

  “That’s very little for a six-hour nap,” Brannyn muttered.

  “Dream-Walking takes practice.” She poured me another glass of water, which I drank gratefully. “It’s a skill, like many others. To focus your sleeping mind to find people hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away requires training, which he hasn’t had. Perhaps you should thank him for trying, since what you have now is more than you had without.”

  He flushed. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “And thank you. I appreciate you looking.”

  “I’m sorry it’s not what you wanted to hear,” I replied, but my mind couldn’t stop thinking of Kryssa, and Reyce’s words: We’re all in danger. I think someone is going to die.

  Brannyn sighed, and offered me a hand to help me off the couch. I felt light-headed for a moment, and my legs were cramped from laying still for so long.

  “Come on.” He turned and headed for the door. “We need to get back to Fallor before nightfall. Maybe tomorrow we can try again.”

  I swallowed, my thoughts still haunted by Kryssa, and followed.

  ALYXEN

  6 Syrthil 578A.F.

  The Abyss

  The pressure was incredible. The brilliant, blinding white light that surrounded us seemed to press against my skin, cr
ushing the air from my lungs. I couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t think, paralyzed by the immense weight. I thought we might be moving, but it was impossible to tell how far or how fast or even where we were, much less where we were going. The only way I knew the others were still with me was by the feel of their hands upon mine, still frozen to the book.

  We were brought to a sudden, jarring halt, thrown from the light as if by some giant, unseen hand. The book closed, and the light faded.

  Tanner groaned. “You just had to touch the magical singing book, didn’t you?”

  I sat up gingerly, staring around at our new surroundings. It was a small, empty room made of damp stone, with no windows and a single barred door. My stomach dropped.

  “Well, this is pleasant,” Tanner remarked drily.

  “This is a jail cell,” Aillel informed him with a frown as she shoved her hair out of her face. Her violet eyes were irritated. “What about this strikes you as ‘pleasant’?”

  “I deal with stressful situations with inappropriate humor.” He gave her a tight smile as he stood and brushed himself off. “Surely you’ve realized this by now.”

  I pressed fingers to my throbbing head. “Tanner, please. Enough.”

  “Never.”

  “Any idea where we are?” I asked Aillel, ignoring him.

  “No.” She rested her hand against the door. “But wherever we are, it is very old. Several thousand years, at least.”

  “And how can you tell that, O Wise Leader?” Tanner rolled his eyes. “Seriously, we can’t even-”

  Aillel gently pushed against the door. The rusted hinges crumbled to dust, and the door fell forward, slamming into the floor with a resounding clang.

  Tanner blinked. “Oh.”

  I peeked my head around the frame of the door. Beyond our cell was an abandoned corridor, lined with more doors like our own and ending in a flight of stairs that led upward toward a sickly greenish light.

  “Come on.” I waved them forward as I stepped into the hallway.

  “Alyxen, wait.” Tanner’s voice was tinged with worry. “We don’t know if anyone heard that. We don’t even know where we are. And we don’t have any weapons. What if-”