Prince of Dreams

by Pippa Dacosta

  The sky had turned a rich purple color, partway between night and day. Cloudless, it stretched from the palace’s east wing to the west, painting the glass a deep plum and making the gardens rife with shadows. Flowers sparkled here and there, and pollen rose off some like steam from Calicto’s domes.

  “I will stop you. Your life is my paramount concern. In thousands of years, I have never failed Faerie, and I will not let you fail Her for me.”

  Sirius’s preaching was getting tiresome. Every step I took, every word I spoke, he captured it for Oberon. The dreamscape was the only place he could not follow me.

  “Let him die for you as he appears destined to do. It is a good end for a saru—”

  I jolted to a stop and my mouth twisted. “What would you know of a good end for a saru?” The garden carried my voice far into its corners. We were being watched. Everything had eyes and ears here. “You treat us like dirt to walk on. You don’t know what it means to be saru. You don’t know me, or Arran, or the thousands who die in service to the fae every year, because you’ve never looked beyond your own precious life. The court is your life. This palace is your life. You’re blind to everything else, just like I was.”

  I squared up to him, so I could try to look him in the eye. He stared back, unblinking.

  “You think you’re superior in every way when you’re not,” I continued. “A saru can change for the better. You’re forever stuck as this creature that is so in love with itself it can’t see how ugly it truly is. Oberon sought to destroy all the monsters, but he ignored the Light, the ugliest monsters of all.”

  My words plunged into a silence I hadn’t realized had descended over us, and for a few precious seconds, all of Faerie held its breath.

  A high-pitched whistle plucked on old gladiatorial instincts. I’d heard the sound before, a thousand times in the arenas. I ducked and twisted toward the sound in time to see a silver streak pierce the semi-darkness. A hazel arrow. Sirius’s tek hand flashed and caught the arrow in mid-flight at my chest height.

  Another whistle from above and to my right. I sprang aside, knowing that moving was my best defense. Sirius stepped in, blocking my line of sight to the source. He flinched, then reached around himself and tore an arrow from his back. The arrow had come in at a very different angle from the one before it. Different shooter. A cry sounded, sharp and brittle, followed by the bone-chilling howl of the cu sith—shapeshifting fae. I bolted for cover in a row of trimmed hedges, recognizing the maze layout too late. The last time I’d fought a cu sith in the arenas, it had almost torn my chest open. I’d only survived by throwing a wounded saru in its path.

  “Left,” Sirius barked as he sprinted behind me.

  We veered left, between more narrow hedges. An arrow whistled by and twanged against the brush to my right. Grass hissed close behind, giving up their location. They were gaining fast. Two, maybe three. Sirius bolted ahead and turned right and right again. I skidded around the corners after him. Three consecutive arrows punched into the ground. A fourth clipped my arm, flashing pain up my bicep and into my shoulder. Alien heat throbbed through my veins and tried to slow my sprint.

  “Over!” Sirius skidded to a halt and cupped his hands. Without slowing, I used his foothold to launch myself over the hedge and landed in a messy roll on the other side. Flicking my head up, I froze.

  A cu sith hound sprang. The creature shimmered in mid-leap, shifting from a hound to a male fae. He slashed five curved daggers downward, and for a few startling moments, I saw Kellee in him, claws spread and teeth bared.

  Instincts from all my fights with the marshal kicked in. I rolled at the last second and scrambled to my feet into a run. Cu sith assassins. I didn’t stand a chance. No whip, no Sota, no coat. And whatever spark had been alive inside me wasn’t flaring to life now. I had seconds to think of a way out. Minutes to live. They would not stop, and they would not listen to my sweet saru words.

  My boots slipped on grit. I went down hard, hip and arm scraping over dirt. The hounds thundered closer, howling their bloodlust. I twisted onto my back to see all three shimmering in the mauve light as they approached. Slim and pale, they looked like the worst of beautiful Faerie, like this planet had fangs, and they were those fangs.

  I had nowhere to go. They had driven me to a dead end in this maze. Had probably planned it that way. Wounds throbbed hot, and with each racing beat of my heart, the cu sith stalked closer.

  “This ends here, Wraithmaker,” one said, rippling his brace of daggers.

  “For Faerie,” the middle declared.

  “For justice,” the third snarled.

  I climbed to my feet, gritting my teeth and panting against the pain.

  I’d fought a vakaru over and over, and he was more powerful than these three cu sith. A smile tugged at my lips. Unarmed, I had nothing to fight them with but words and fists. “Oberon will kill you for this.”

  They grinned together.

  “He is not here,” one said.

  “The king is too afraid to leave his palace,” said another.

  The third lunged, almost too fast for me to see. I guessed he’d go for my gut—they always had in the arenas—and as I dodged left, I brought my right fist around, putting my whole body into the hook, and punched down into his arm. He barely felt it and backhanded me off my feet. Fire flashed across my face and down my neck. I hit the hedge and rebounded onto unsteady feet. Blood pooled over my tongue. Another came in and swung wildly for my middle. I spat into his face and punched him in his startled face, splattering blood.

  A hand clamped around my neck, and they were all on me in one chaotic howling mess. Fire flashed into my side. Knives punched in. Three on one. I healed fast, but I could not heal this. I jerked my knee up, landing the strike home in the soft, sensitive part all males possessed. The grip around my neck loosened to the sound of a colorful curse. Cool air kissed my throat. Or was that metal?

  One of them beamed into my face, stabbing fear into my heart. “Your head will adorn the palace entrance as a warning to kings and fools and to Oberon, the biggest fool of them all. The king’s reign is over.”

  Tek fingers curled around the cu sith’s throat. Sirius yanked him into the air and then slammed him face first into the dirt. Bone fractured like twigs breaking underfoot and the cu sith let out a strangled, fractured cry.

  Sirius didn’t waste any time finishing him, and he already had the second one in his sights. When the second assassin tried to run, Sirius sprinted and swept in low, kicking the cu sith’s legs out from under him. The cu sith sprawled into an explosive change, changing back into a hound, but the delay allowed Sirius to snatch at the hound’s tail with his good hand. He yanked him across the dirt and stabbed him in the back with a stolen dagger, pinning him to the ground.

  The third was running for the high hedges. He would leap over them and be gone.

  I grabbed a fallen cu sith dagger from the dirt and flung it true. The blade sang through the air and plunged into the cu sith’s neck. He hit the hedge and fell into a heap, dead, hopefully.

  Sirius crouched beside the first assassin, still alive but immobile with a broken back. They shared a look, one I couldn’t decipher. Understanding, perhaps. Fear on the cu sith’s part.

  “The Wraithmaker is under my protection.” Sirius spoke loud enough for anyone listening to hear. “Whoever paid you to kill her sent you to your deaths.”

  “How could… you serve… her?” the cu sith gurgled, coughing blood.

  Sirius switched his grip to his neck, using his tek hand. The cu sith writhed in agony, both from the wounds and the burn of tek. “I serve Faerie.”

  Sirius straightened, abandoning his prey, and shot me a look of hatred so pure it plunged deeper than any dagger. “I told you not to come here.”

  Apparently satisfied he’d frightened the cu sith enough, he grabbed my arm and marched me back through the maze.

  Swinging a glance behind me, I saw the assassins squirming awake. They would re
group—or those who had survived would. My target wasn’t moving. “We should kill them all.”

  “I’m not killing fae for you.” Sirius seethed.

  “They’ll try again.” I tugged against his hold.

  His grip tightened. “Let them.”

  Cool blood dribbled down my neck. The wounds in my side throbbed, and my shoulder was a seething ball of fiery agony. The tingling meant I was healing, but it still damn well hurt. Hurt too much…

  “Poison arrows?” I wondered aloud.

  “Probably.”

  I tugged on my arm again, but his cold metal fingers held firm. “Let me go.”

  “No.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “I’m saving you.”

  “I could have killed them. All of them. I should have.”

  “And that thinking is why they were sent to kill you.”

  I dug my heels into the ground, twisted, and yanked. I’d made that arm too damn strong. “Let me go, or Faerie help me, I’ll—”

  Abruptly, he let go, almost throwing me away from him. Ugly rage contorted his striking face. “You will what? Kill me?” Wildfire danced in his eyes. “You slaughtered hundreds of fae, you killed the queen, and you were rewarded?!”

  Frightened wisps burst from a nearby tree and darted into the air, lighting up the dark and Sirius with their dazzle. He seethed to the point where I worried even Oberon’s word wouldn’t stop him from killing me.

  “Oberon is insane!” he growled. “Faerie is dying, and the only fae who can mend Her is worlds away. And you!? You are a curse upon me, a curse upon everything I fight for, and a curse upon Faerie! You are Oberon’s madness!” His words cracked through the garden like pistol shots. And now that they were out, Sirius couldn’t take them back.

  His mouth twisted, lips quivering. Rage. He was from the Autumnlands. They did not rage easily, but when they did, it was a startling, powerful sight to behold.

  He lunged with a roar. Hard metal fingers clamped around my neck and lifted, my legs kicking at nothing but air. My throat closed and my lungs burned. My chest heaved, and all I saw were the unshed tears of fury in Sirius’s green eyes. His tek hand could crush me with a twitch. I’d made it that way. I’d made it strong, inflexible, and timeless. Like him. Stars burst in my vision. Or were they wisps? I couldn’t tell. My fingers dug into his grip, but the world was fading. If I died here, Oberon would surely kill Sirius. But that rage in his eyes… he didn’t care.

  “Don’t,” I wheezed, digging my fingers between his metal grip and my skin.

  He blinked, shook his head, and rose out of the furious mist. He dropped me and looked at his metal arm with the same hatred with which he had looked at me, shocked and disgusted.

  Spluttering, I rebuilt the small pieces of composure and turned my back on him. I didn’t run, didn’t whimper, though the saru in me wanted to do both. I walked alone through the garden, acutely aware of the whispers circling in the air. Oberon would hear of this. Every single word. What the guardian had uttered was treason. Sirius was living on borrowed time. But I had my own concerns, and he was just an obstacle in my way. If my deal with the Dreamweaver held, none of this—the maze, Sirius’s words—would matter.

  I made it back to my chamber and found Sirius impossibly there, on the bed, hands laced behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.

  “What are you doing?” I needed to sleep to dream. I could hardly do that with him in the way. Rubbing my sore neck, I circled the bed.

  “By Faerie and all that is Light, you will not meet with the Dreamweaver,” the guardian snarled. “You will not plot and scheme and lie your way through the court. You are a rot. Everything you touch dies. If you want this bed, you will have to drag me from it.”

  I laughed. It was the only possible reaction. So, he was throwing my game back at me? Unfortunately, I didn’t have his strength and couldn’t manhandle him anywhere.

  I folded my arms and tapped my fingers on my arms. Why did he have to make everything so difficult? Why couldn’t Oberon have assigned me a guardian who wasn’t such an enormous pile of sluagh-bait?

  “I find it hard to believe you were born this much of an asshole. Faerie sure screwed you up, huh? I pity you. You hear that? Me, a saru, pities you, a royal guardian. Ouch, that’s gotta hurt your enormous ego.”

  His cheek fluttered. “Spew your poison. I’m immune to your childish remarks.”

  My reflection in the dresser mirror caught my eye. Covered in blood and dirt and leaves, I looked like something the Hunt had dragged in. Scratches marked my neck and face, and bruises bloomed around my neck where his tek fingers had gripped me. I’d healed the physical wounds, but something else felt off. Something about my reflection looking back at me, something about the tiredness in my eyes. The same tiredness softened the edges of my thoughts. I had to think of a way around Sirius, but I could barely think at all.

  I rubbed my face. “I hate you.” I didn’t have time for his tantrums, for assassins, or for lying games.

  “Rest assured, the feeling is mutual.”

  I wished I’d punched him in the face instead of the cu sith. “You give me too much credit, you know. I’m just a stupid saru. I’m not capable of all the things you say.”

  His hard lips ticked. “You’ve hidden behind that lie your entire life. You lied and manipulated your way into the court, into Oberon’s affections. You killed the queen. You have killed immortals who’d stood unbroken for thousands of years.” His cheek flickered, a sure sign he was keeping his anger contained. “Lie to me again and I’ll rip your tongue out.”

  He had said all this while staring at the ceiling as if I didn’t warrant his gaze. Breathing hard, I stared into my reflection’s eyes and fought back the urge to do something foolish. Could I kill him and make it look like an accident? If I could get him to the window, I might be able to shove him out… But Oberon would never believe that Sirius had fallen by accident, and Sirius would probably survive the fall. For all I knew, he could sprout russet wings if he wanted.

  Two days.

  I couldn’t renege on my deal with Eledan. I needed to get to sleep and soon. Twenty-four hours. It must have been twenty-four hours already since we’d made the deal. He would be waiting. If I didn’t meet my end of the bargain, he’d never bargain with me again. Arran would die, and the king wouldn’t listen. Sirius would ruin it all. This was ridiculous.

  I marched to the window and threw it open, letting in Faerie’s sweet scents.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  I rested one knee on the sill and gripped the window frame, hauling myself up.

  “Wraithmaker?”

  The palace sparkled, and beyond, crystalline spires reached for the purple sky. Pixies sung somewhere out of sight, their music a whispered symphony that soothed my ragged thoughts.

  Sirius grunted his disgust. “You won’t throw yourself out the window. Not after surviving this long. You do not have it in you.”

  “So sure, are you?” I twisted, clinging to the frame with one hand. Faerie’s whispers beckoned. “You took me from the only free life I’ve ever known. You stole me from my friends, whom I learned to love—real love, not the saru kind.” Unexpected emotion almost choked the words. I gulped it all the way down and stamped on it. “And you made it look as though I betrayed them! If they’re alive, they’ll hate me all over again, like you do. I don’t want to live like that. I can’t. You’re right, everything I touch rots. I’m not the Wraithmaker anymore.” Something cool and dark and dangerous coiled around my will, dragging my emotions down, down, down… exactly where I wanted to go. “I’m just a girl who doesn’t know or understand what’s happening to her. I’m just trying to do good after doing bad for so long. Maybe I can’t wipe that stain off my soul, so why bother trying anymore? If I fall from this window, it’ll solve many, many problems. Oberon will be free of my crimes. Arran will be freed. And all those I’ve killed will be avenged … just like Faerie wants, ju
st like you want.”

  He slowly swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. “Get off the ledge,” he growled.

  It sounded sweet, that voice in my head urging me to jump. I’d never listened to it before, but many saru had. Freedom waited at the bottom of the tower. Freedom from all my choices, from all my mistakes, from the responsibility of making everything right again. I turned my face into the breeze. I understood now why so many saru answered its call.

  “Do not do this.” Sirius reached out his hand and stepped closer. “For your king, don’t do this. It will ruin him.”

  “No, it will save him.”

  “Kesh, step down.” His voice was softer, but it wasn’t enough.

  “If I die, you’ll be free too.” I looked down and down and down to the garden below. My thoughts spun, and Faerie’s whispers grew louder. “You don’t care. You never did.”

  “May the Hunt have you, but you’re wrong… I heard your screams long after you left. Heard them over and over, year after year, because I could not make them stop. I could not move against the king. All I could do was watch and carry you from the torment when he was finished. But it never ended. Not for me.”

  He would say anything to get me off the ledge and keep himself safe…

  But he couldn’t lie.

  His hand found my arm, then his other found my shoulder. His fingers dug in, and he tore me from the window, reeling me into his body. I heard the window slam shut and watched as he bent the latch into a loop so it would never open again. Tucked against his chest, I still heard the voice outside crooning its death song.

  “I…” I looked at my hands, felt the room dip and sway, felt Sirius clutch me closer.

  Had I just been about to jump to my death?

  “It’s the poison,” the guardian whispered, voice rumbling through me. “Should the cu sith fail, as they have, their poisoned arrows would finish you, making you seek your own demise. It will pass.” His words sent curious shivers down my back and deeper into parts that longed to hear those whispers close against my skin. “Until then, I cannot let you leave my sight.”