Prince of Dreams

by Pippa Dacosta

  In the basement chamber, where the faelights flickered and the swirls in the floor glowed, Sirius watched, outside my line of sight, like he always had, and Oberon poured his ink-acid concoction into incisions in my skin. I endured every meticulous cut and every drip as I thought about Kesh Lasota’s life on Calicto. The nobody messenger girl with a fake life. It hadn’t been a bad life. Somewhere in all that time, I’d begun to believe my own lies, making them true. And then there was Kellee, the smart-mouthed marshal who had followed me home and never left. Despite all our ups and downs, he had stuck by my side. And Talen, the imprisoned pilot. Imprisoned behind more than tek and bars. Imprisoned behind a name he no longer wanted. And Aeon, foolish Aeon. He had tried to save us both, again, by forgetting. And here we were, in Faerie’s clutches, about to be crushed. But I had a plan. All I had to do was make the Dreamweaver mine. Here, he was powerful, and with him, I would be too.

  My consciousness swayed. I’d stopped feeling the pain hours ago, but Oberon’s firm fingers continued to work, painting me in warfae markings. The same marks Eledan, Oberon, and hundreds of other fae had been gifted over the centuries. But why give them to me? I was a fool no more. These marks weren’t rewards. I’d belonged to Oberon my entire life. This was all part of his plan, part of something to do with the polestar. I was nothing more than his tool.

  I’ve always survived them.

  When the king finished, honeyed words of praise fell from his lips, words of pride and strength, but they might as well have wisps buzzing around me for all they meant. The king left, and when Sirius lifted me off the floor, cradling me in his arms the way he always had before, I didn’t fight. The procedure had numbed my body and driven me inward, but my mind remained sharp, and there I plotted my next move.

  Sirius carried me through the tunnels, faelights twinkling on and off like stars, and my flushed skin tingled under Faerie’s soft air. A part of me wanted to pretend the last six years away from Faerie had never happened. That I was just the Wraithmaker again, Oberon’s obsession, and I’d never seen Faerie from the outside. But once the weariness passed, I’d crush that little voice forever.

  The bed cradled me now. I smelled autumn. My eyes fluttered closed.

  No!

  I snatched Sirius’s metal wrist. His glare flashed in warning. I squeezed tighter. I couldn’t let go. If I let go, I’d fall.

  “Please…” My voice was a broken thing. I didn’t care. “I can’t sleep, not yet.” The Dreamweaver would find me, and weak as I was, I’d never survive him.

  He plucked my weak fingers off his wrist and turned away.

  “Sirius…?”

  The guardian’s shoulders tensed.

  “Talk to me. Tell me something about yourself…” My vision blurred, swirling all his reds together and turning him into a living flame. I blinked, and his outline sharpened, becoming hard and cold again. “Words cost you nothing.”

  He didn’t turn, didn’t move. But the slight movement of his back muscles beneath his shirt betrayed his careful breathing.

  He was angry. That was part of the flame I’d seen in my semiconscious state. He probably thought I didn’t deserve this gift. He hated everything about this, everything about me. He always had.

  “Leave, then.” I turned my face away. My weak body leaked tears I didn’t want him to see. “Leave and maybe I’ll be dead by the time you return. Oberon will not blame you… if his marks kill me.”

  The growl of dissent was all the answer I received before his boots beat out a rhythm across the floor and the door closed. He was gone, and all I could think was how I wanted him back, because even his company was better than this solitude, better than falling asleep.

  I closed my eyes, ignored the tears, and waited for the inevitable.

  “The marks were gifts.” Sirius’s rumbling voice tempted me out of the dark. “They were the highest accolade bestowed upon mighty warriors in a time long before the thousand-year war with the humans.”

  The guardian had pulled up a chair to my bedside. All I saw was his shoulder and side profile. The rest of him was angled away, toward the window, as though he’d rather be anywhere but here. But he was here. He had left, but he’d come back, and now he was talking. Not snarling or growling or looking down at me like he wanted to crush me into dust for inconveniencing him.

  “Few fae have them,” he continued, still staring toward the window. Without the rage, his voice held a smooth, deep tone that was perfect for storytelling.

  He didn’t have any warfae marks. I’d seen enough of his body when I’d fastened a tek arm to him to know for certain. But he was old, one of the original guardians. He’d been around for as long as time. So why wasn’t he marked like the other ancient ones?

  “Gifts on Faerie do not come without a price.”

  Then warfae marks were never freely given? In exchange for service, perhaps? Soldiers who had loyally served their general? Eledan and Oberon were marked. But who could they have served? Mab? Someone or something else? So many questions, but if I spoke now, I’d remind him I was here and he’d shut down and pull up all his barriers again.

  “They are an honor…” He left the sentence hanging, as though there was more he wanted to say but wouldn’t, not here on Faerie, where the very air might carry his words to the wrong ears. “To mark a saru cheapens our heritage and sacrifice.”

  I tilted my head, admiring the perfect architecture of his profile. Strong, stubborn jaw, clenched now because he’d reminded himself why he was here. Fine russet eyebrows pinched in a permanent scowl. It had taken Faerie centuries to hone him into the epitome of arrogance. And could I blame him? I was how Oberon had made me, until I got out, until Kellee and Talen showed me the truth.

  The fae feared being away from Faerie. They worried it weakened them. But what if they were wrong? What if time away from Faerie made them stronger? I hadn’t known Talen before, but he wasn’t weak, just changed. And Eledan had been away from Faerie since the war with humans. Tek exposure had racked his mind, but he wasn’t weak. Had I not ripped out his heart, he would have returned to Faerie as the conquering hero, even with a human-made heart.

  “These marks,” I began, happy to find my voice clear, “are not gifts to me.”

  “Yet you accept them.”

  I laughed sharply enough for his attention to snap over his shoulder to me. “Do you think I have a choice?” Was he blind or blissfully ignorant? I couldn’t refuse the king anything if I wanted to survive.

  I shuffled up in the bed, pulling the quilt with me. Some of it slipped, exposing a little of my bare chest, but considering everything Sirius had seen, I didn’t bother to cover myself. The new marks burned down the backs of my legs to the soles of my feet. Those on my feet had hurt the most. Oberon had had to cut and pour deeper and harder than before because I’d healed. He hadn’t mentioned my new abilities, probably because they hadn’t surprised him.

  I pulled the sheet away from my legs and winced. My flesh was raw and red around the new marks. “Do you think I wanted this?”

  His gaze followed my thigh down to the tips of my toes. “The fact you treat the gift with such disdain is further disrespect.”

  “By cyn, you’re such a fuckin’ fairy.” I flung the sheet back over my legs. “Get out of your own head and try to see beyond your own ego. Empathy is hard for you, but try. Imagine, for a moment, you’re saru—”

  “Impossible,” he scoffed.

  “Don’t you have an imagination?”

  “Of course I do.” He rubbed at his temple and winced.

  “Then try.”

  “And lower myself to saru—”

  “It’s called imagination for a reason. It’s not real. Pretend.”

  His face screwed up like he’d tasted something sour and didn’t know how to spit it out without causing offense. “No.” The strong arms he’d used to carry me here folded resolutely across his chest.

  “You can’t do it. That’s okay.” I shrugged. “Nobody
is perfect, least of all you. Even the tiniest, weakest of saru children can imagine the most amazing things—”

  “I am capable of imagining anything. I just do not want to.”

  How could a millennia-old being be so closed-minded? “You don’t want to sully that pretty brain matter of yours with dirty saru images?”

  I deliberately let the sheet slip, exposing my left side, breast, waist, and hip. All of it.

  He stood and stomped to the window. “I regret returning to speak with you.”

  “I was merely trying to explain how a saru cannot refuse a sidhe anything, never mind the king. I did not ask for these marks. I did not ask for anything that’s been done to me since my first memory of kneeling to the fae as a child. If anyone is at fault for marking me, it’s Oberon. Direct your anger at him.”

  I expected him to retaliate and accuse me of treason or something equally dramatic, but he instead glowered at the darkening sky.

  Nightfall would soon be upon us. Arran didn’t have long. I didn’t have long before Eledan came to collect on our agreement. I threw the sheet back and stood, testing my weight on my legs. The soles of my feet tingled where the skin was freshly healed, but the sensation was no more distracting than pins and needles. Before, it had taken me weeks to heal.

  I stretched, rolled my shoulders, and padded naked to the dresser. Sirius expertly ignored me. A shame, really, since I wasn’t beyond using nudity to unsettle him. Unfortunately, he was well used to seeing me naked.

  I opened the drawers and sorted through the clothing for something unfussy and practical. “I’m surprised we do not have saru attending us.”

  “Oberon forbade any saru to be alone with you.”

  Oh. I hadn’t known that. But I wasn’t surprised. He knew what I was capable of. The saru might not know I was the Messenger, but the king did. It didn’t matter. The Dreamweaver would spread my rumors for me.

  “Why did you return to speak with me if you hate me so much?” I pulled out a pair of billowy linen pantaloons and a simple button-up waistcoat and set them down on the dresser.

  “You were healing too quickly for me to stay away for long.”

  “Where did you go?” Did he have a family or a household near the palace awaiting his return?

  “I must only answer Oberon’s queries. Yours I can ignore.”

  Oh fine. I straightened the mirror so it presented my naked reflection. Thorned marks snaked over my skin. Only my face, neck, and hands were unmarked now. I’d once loved them and been proud to wear them. More recently, I’d come to hate them, and now… now I wondered what their design meant. They were not random. Oberon had a reason for everything he did. Not art, then. But what was their purpose?

  “Who was the first fae to be marked in this way?” I asked.

  “Oberon,” Sirius said. “His brother was the second.”

  “Who marked them and why?”

  “To my knowledge, the brothers have never revealed that information.”

  Eledan would know more. Fortuitous, then, that I had a date with the Mad Prince. I dressed quickly, feeling stronger the more I moved and the pain faded.

  Sirius discreetly watched my reflection in the window’s glass. Once I was dressed, he sent a long judgmental look my way. “Do not think I am unaware of what you’re doing.”

  “What do you mean?” I gathered my hair, twisted it up, and knotted it into place.

  “The saru have reported that their nightmares have stopped, though they don’t want to explain how. I’d ask them, but I don’t need to when the answer is obvious.”

  “It is?” I had been lying for years, yet Sirius’s heavy gaze had an uncanny ability to dig beneath my lies.

  He leaned against the sill and smiled. “The sleeping potion. Your desire to sleep though you fear it. Despite Oberon giving me the menial task of guarding you, I’m not some shallow fool incapable of seeing beyond your acts.”

  He knew I had met with Eledan. And he knew there was more to come. But had he told Oberon? “I’m certain I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

  Sirius’s lips twitched. We both knew I was lying. He’d hold the information over me and use it when it best suited him. I needed to get my game pieces in place before then.

  “Oberon said something in the throne room, do you remember?” he asked.

  He looked too smug. I concentrated on my waistcoat buttons to keep his focus off my face. Sometimes, the gulf between fae and saru was obvious, and this felt like one of those times, as though he were so old, that he had learned everything, and I was but a child in Faerie’s playground.

  It is a dangerous thing to wish for the dark.

  I tugged on my waistcoat, making it sit neat and straight. In the mirror, I looked somewhere between saru and a lowly fae citizen. I didn’t have my coat or my whip, but such weapons were almost useless here. Words were my weapons now.

  “Be careful, Mylana. This isn’t Halow. In Faerie, the dark answers.”

  The use of my name on his lips pulled my gaze back to him. He didn’t look smug anymore. Concern had softened his permanent scowl. But that couldn’t be right. He thought he knew everything, thought he’d seen it all. But there had never been a messenger on Faerie before. And I knew the dark answered. I was counting on it.

  Chapter 6

  Kesh

  * * *

  I knew exactly where they were keeping Arran because the palace cells were close to the gladiators’ wing where I’d spent most of my childhood. With Sirius scowling in disapproval behind, I strode through the middle of the open gardens and whipped up a storm of whispers in my wake. Saru were not permitted in the formal gardens and certainly not so openly. I was wearing casual daywear, about as far from formal as one could get, and my ragged hair flew loose as if I were wild thing that had wandered out of the hills. My smile was an affront to all fae, so I kept it there.

  Sirius drew up next to me when he realized shadowing me was a subordinate position. He heard all the whispers—Wraithmaker… guardian… shame… punishment—probably better than I did, but he kept his face professionally blank until we reached the inner walkways. Out of their sight, he let his lips ripple in a silent snarl. Every second he was seen with me was another slight against his lofty status. I made a mental note to remind him he had Oberon to blame for this, not me.

  “Why torture yourself with this?” he asked. “The boy will die. You should begin forgetting him.”

  The corridors around us had darkened. There were fewer faelights here to light the way and fewer windows. Why waste light and air on prisoners?

  “You can stay outside if you prefer,” I told him.

  “I’d prefer not to be here at all, but I don’t have the power to make that choice.”

  How very saru-like. I didn’t bother pointing out the comparison. He would only argue how he was superior in every way and incomparable to saru. The guardian was a brick wall of stubbornness.

  Stoic-faced fae guards flanked the main entrance to the prison. They acknowledged Sirius and let us pass without a word. My guardian was good for something, it seemed.

  Roses climbed each of the cell bars. But these weren’t the tame human roses the fae had seeded on Earth. These originals were sentient, and just like Kellee’s trees on Valand, they were hungry.

  Arran’s cell was the last one on the left. As I passed the others I noted their saru prisoners, all of whom were palace or household saru. They’d likely done little wrong. Spoken out of turn, perhaps, or admired their fae masters without permission.

  Arran had a further contingent of two guards. To my surprise, Sirius dismissed them, and they obeyed without a single word of protest. The guardian had sway with the palace guards. They respected him. They listened to him and perhaps would follow his orders too. That was information worth holding on to.

  Arran sat against the back wall, one leg drawn up with his arm draped over his knee. He looked through the bars and through me, barely reacting. White puncture marks peppered
his forearms. The roses had been feeding.

  I’d forgotten what the palace cells could do to saru.

  “You’ve seen him,” Sirius grunted. “Let’s go.”

  I stepped closer to the roses-wrapped bars. Mahogany-colored flower heads angled toward me. Smelling the emotion I exuded, their petals rippled open, drawing more of my scent into their center. Too close and they’d latch on and pull me in. If I didn’t get free, they’d drink me dry until I felt nothing at all.

  Arran had fought, and the roses had fed on his anger, draining the fight right out of him. I should have expected it, but I had hoped he would be coherent so I could tell him I understood why he’d done what he had. That I didn’t blame him for loving the fae, for loving Oberon. I’d made the same mistake often enough. I wanted to tell him that though I couldn’t forgive him yet, I wouldn’t let him die, that I was working on a plan to get him out and change everything. Sirius’s presence ensured all those things stayed unspoken. All I could do was look through the bars and wonder how things had come to be this way.

  “How long before nightfall?” I asked the guardian.

  “Could be two days or two weeks.”

  I stepped away from the cell and started back the way we’d come, passing by the same saru.

  “But your best guess?” I asked as we came out into the gardens.

  “Two days. Three at most.”

  Two days to convince Eledan I was on his side and free him so he could free Arran. It wasn’t long. It might not be long enough. The only way to slow night’s approach would be to convince all of Faerie that night wasn’t desired, but given the planned execution, all of Faerie was abuzz with talk of Arran’s impending death. Night was coming, and the Dreamweaver was my only hope.

  “You will try to free him and you will fail.” Sirius strode beside me as we walked deeper into the gardens. “Provoke the king and he will be left with no choice but to sentence you to death for your actions.”