The Echoed Realm

by A. J. Vrana

  “How would you even know? You killed your own brother!”

  “And do you know what I did after I killed my brother?” He reeled her in and ran his fingers through her hair, soothing her fury, then brought his words a breath away from her lips. “I grieved.”

  Silent, Kali stared past the harsh lines of his face. He suddenly appeared worn and broken. She swallowed, then asked quietly, “What’s under the shell?”

  He eased himself against the willow and wrapped both arms around her. Gently lulling her against his chest, he sighed and stared up at the cerulean dawn. “Hurt.”

  41

  Lying on the forest floor, Kali stared up at the ancient willow’s soothing canopy. She breathed in, leaves crunching under her weight as she shifted against the ground.

  This time, she would sink into the dreamscape of her own volition.

  She closed her eyes and tuned out the song of birds, the scuttle of squirrels, and the curious rustle of foxes.

  I will descend.

  The words echoed in her mind, and sound fell away.

  I will descend, as only I can.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Kali felt herself dipping into the earth. The crisp breeze grew muffled in her ears as the waking world faded. Only the whisper of the willow’s meadow-green blades and the hypnotic melody of its swaying stems remained.

  The earth tilted on its axis, and Kali found herself standing where she’d been lying moments earlier. Emerald leaves now shimmered like rubies as a viscous, pink nectar dripped from their tips.

  She had stumbled into another nightmare.

  Kali groaned in frustration. She’d wanted to go to the dreamscape, yes, but on her own terms. She’d failed again. It was difficult carving her own path when her spirit was drawn to the minds consumed by her absence.

  “There’s no need for you to stay,” a throaty voice croaked at her.

  Kali glanced up to find a raven—the raven—perched on the crooked arm of a dead oak. “I wouldn’t if I could figure out how to leave. The dreamers keep me trapped here.”

  The bird chortled, laughing at her. “Petty mortals needn’t dictate your path. Go where you please. Be whomever you please.”

  “How?”

  “Focus,” he said, then spread his wings and dove for her shoulder. Kali straightened her arm, offering him a roost. “I help.”

  “What am I to focus on?”

  The bird thrust his beak towards the red-tinged willow. “Bend the world,” he cackled. “Make it your own.”

  Kali remained unconvinced, but she reckoned it was worth a try. She reached out and touched the sanguine leaves.

  “This is the Emerald Shade,” she said. “I want it restored.” Her heart squeezed, grief rising to her lips. “I want to be restored.”

  The wind howled, and the coppery pall that covered the sky peeled away to reveal a sprawling sunset of azalea, lavender, and marigold radiating from a great white star. As the blood drained from the expanse above, the willow’s ruby petals dazzled with green life. It was as Kali remembered it. She was no longer in the nightmare but stood in the unfettered dreamscape.

  She had only one thing left to remake: herself.

  “What do you want to be?” asked the raven.

  Kali thought for a moment, then replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Close your eyes,” the raven instructed, and she did. “Imagine the Hollow’s fear. What do you see?”

  “A shadow,” she said. “Black as death, formless as vapour.”

  “Do you know who the shadow is?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, “it’s Velizar.”

  “Now imagine the thing the shadow fears.” He waited a moment, then asked excitedly, “Do you see it?”

  “Yes,” said Kali, her voice soft.

  “What is it?” asked the raven.

  “It’s me.”

  The raven’s crow rattled low. “And how do you appear to the great king who fears you?”

  Kali’s eyes snapped open, revelation coursing through her veins and sparking a fire in her soul. The word left her as a wondrous breath.

  “Magnificent.”

  Velizar’s vision of the Dreamwalker erupted from Kali’s fingertips. Violet and black spiralled up her arms, devouring her with ravenous fervour. Shadow and light danced around her shoulders in an impossible union as feathery tendrils cascaded down her back, forming an iridescent shroud that resembled her companion’s plumage. It enveloped her like a protective skin, slithering up her neck and over her scalp. As the magic passed over her face, it hardened into bone, tapering to a sharp point that curled over her chin. Although she couldn’t see it, she knew the mask shimmered with lustrous swirls of amethyst and midnight skies. They coalesced like oil and water, separate yet never apart. She knew because she’d seen it in Velizar’s terror.

  “Now,” said the raven, “you are true chaos.”

  He lifted a talon from her shoulder and curled it against his belly. When he eased it back down, he was clasping a fang-shaped stone. It glinted with colours that melded into one another like shifting puzzle pieces—meadow greens, sunset golds, and vibrant purples pierced by black veins that snaked throughout the rock.

  Kali held out her hand, and the raven dropped the stone. “With this, you will never lose your way again.”

  It hummed against her palm, steady and powerful. “What is it?”

  “A piece of the dreamscape,” he said. “And now, a piece of you.”

  Kali closed her fingers over the dream stone. She was ready to return.

  “What’s your name, raven?”

  The bird canted his head, his beady eyes dulling as he replied, “I have no name.”

  “Everyone has a name.”

  The bird tutted, “Good names are given. Those frivolously taken are flatulent. Meaningless.”

  “All right,” Kali smiled. “Why don’t I give you a name?”

  The inky shine returned to the raven’s eye, and he waited.

  “Gavran.” Kali worked her fingers through his soft, silky feathers, and he purred contently in response. “Your name is Gavran.”

  42

  It started with the snap of twigs and the stomping of leather boots. By the time Kali realized what was to befall her, it was too late to run.

  They’d found her. In a miracle of the most vicious sort, the men raided the copse, hewing through the foliage. And they weren’t alone. The shadow was there—a death-like miasma swirling in their midst, guiding them with a sinister tongue.

  Cold yellow eyes pierced Kali with a malicious stare. She had nowhere to flee, no way to fight back.

  Sendoa was off hunting, leaving her with her newfound friend, Gavran. After she’d pulled him from the dreamscape in a stubborn test of power, the two had become inseparable, much to Sendoa’s displeasure. He’d told her the raven had no business passing between realms, but she insisted it was a feat—a testament to her mastery. Besides, he could only pass into the physical plane by her will. She was his anchor, and with her permission alone was he able to stay.

  She was glad she had him. As the Hollow hunters snatched her up, it took but a glance to send Gavran to find the wolf.

  They dragged Kali back towards the Hollow, their blades striking the trees as though the boles would morph into ghouls, and their eyes glistened with fright whenever a coyote skittered by.

  The men wasted no time when they returned. With wide, blood-shot eyes and shaking hands, they hauled Kali to the Viyest, still charred from Lana’s execution. Yet before they could tie her to the gnarled trunk, a scream rattled the clearing.

  The villagers spun towards the forest.

  A black wolf with eyes made of blood and rage bounded from the green sea, his teeth dripping red with the watchman’s life. Halting at the foot of the warren, he stalked the perimeter and snarled like an impending storm.

  Sendoa had come for her, and he wasn’t alone.

  From behind him, howls ruptured the evening sky as dozens of smaller
wolves descended upon the Hollow. They were led by a raven, his body a blur as he glided from the canopy and landed on the black wolf’s hackles, raised like blades. Throwing his head back, Gavran spread his midnight wings and released a resounding death rattle, his beak unhinging as though trying to swallow the moon.

  It was a war cry, and every man, beast, and god understood it.

  Kali saw Velizar’s shadow quaver with delight as it blanketed the clearing. It weaved among the villagers, invading them, controlling them. Their eyes glazed over, and their jaws hung slack. Thick obsidian smoke rushed out in time with guttural screams—a response to the raven.

  Sendoa huffed, his coal-coloured lips pulled back. He sneered, daring the hunters to come for him.

  And they did.

  Crazed under Velizar’s influence, they tripped over themselves to reach their prey. But Sendoa was ready. As Gavran took off, the black wolf lunged, pinning a man’s shoulders to the ground. He tore out his throat, savaging him with a ferocious roar. When the swords swung at him, he leapt gracefully from their arcs, then smothered his next target—an insect waiting to be squashed.

  The other wolves followed suit. Gavran dove for the hunters’ faces, latched his talons into their lips, and plunged his beak into their eyes. Their shrieks filled the night, and Gavran gurgled with glee, pink yolk oozing from his bill while he feasted. As his victim fought to dislodge him, two of the smaller wolves gored the man’s sides, sawing their way through his midsection.

  Yet their brutal onslaught was short-lived. Wisps of smoke guided axes and spears; as the wolves dodged one blade, Velizar’s poisonous brume guided another to their bellies. The hunters fought long after they should have died—some flailing even as the wolves wrenched out their innards. The felled villagers rose again and again. The more frenzied they became, the more inhuman their strength. Single swipes removed entire limbs and heads—and not just those of wolves. Women and children running for safety were caught in the mayhem, murdered by their own. Some took up torches, setting fire to homes and trees indiscriminately.

  Then, from somewhere within the maelstrom, Kali glimpsed a glint of silver burrow into Sendoa’s side. A dark mist in the shape of a hand rested on the sabre’s hilt. She heard the whimper—the heartrending squeal—as the black wolf collapsed, blood pouring from his wound.

  Kali begged for it all to stop.

  Gavran swooped down and clawed at the hand, only to be whipped away like a pebble. He crashed to the ground with a stuttering cry, his wing bent and his leg curled in.

  Smouldering heat crawled up Kali’s spine as rage prickled her skin. Breaths ragged, eyes ablaze, she pulled her bruised and beaten body from the ground and grasped the Viyest’s dappled skull. She remembered Sendoa’s words:

  You’re shredding the boundary between realms.

  Every creature that’d been hunted to hallow this ground was chosen by the Dreamwalker. Kali was the last of them—the only one to refuse the rite.

  Mooring herself to the Viyest, she pulled on the thread of its spirit. The force of her will seeped into the soil, stirring ancient roots that pierced the waking world and penetrated the dreamscape.

  If this was a battle between gods, she was yet to make her entrance.

  The Hollow would live its own nightmare. Not in dreams, but on the blood-soaked earth upon which it stood.

  She would cut the seams of reality and let chaos spill out.

  Roars echoed from the crumbling border between worlds as Kali drew from the Viyest’s anguish. Every creature killed to slake the Hollow’s bloodlust was now hers as she harnessed what her predecessors had wrought.

  A scorching scream ripped from Kali’s chest as a cloak of violet and black feathers erupted down her back. The bone-beak mask swallowed her face, and her muddy green eyes found the shadow’s. For a brief moment, she saw Velizar’s fear behind the fumes.

  The spirits of the fallen wolves burst from their mangled corpses. At Kali’s command, they resumed their assault, and this time, they couldn’t be cut down. The hunters’ blades whirled through thin air in retaliation, but the dreamscape had come to the Hollow, and no mortal weapon bore strength in the realm of spirits. Some gathered around the wounded Sendoa, protecting him from further harm.

  Velizar’s shadow darted towards the black wolf, but Kali was faster. Thrusting her arms back, she propelled forward, her shroud billowing at her heels. Her iridescent touch infected the phantom, dispersing it into a cloud of shimmering dust.

  She was chaos, and she was here to erode Velizar’s order.

  The miasma unleashed a cacophonous shriek as it reeled back, undulating in a disordered attempt to flee. Howls echoed through the clearing as the wolves sang, each of them clamouring for the honour to be called Viyest by their Dreamwalker.

  Suddenly, pain shot through Kali’s chest. Her breath hitched, and the hand she’d parted the darkness with flew to her heart. She felt wetness against her fingers and something sharp between her ribs.

  A sword.

  The blade disappeared as it was pulled back. Crumpling next to the wolf, Kali scrabbled at her robes. She turned to find Darya—face tear-streaked and cheeks rouged—as she held Decebal’s blade with tremoring hands.

  “For Lana!” she cried, her voice breaking with grief.

  Kali opened her mouth to speak, but the words knotted in her throat.

  Did you really think you could best me, witch? Velizar’s laughter rumbled in her ear—layered and discordant.

  “I already…have…” she managed. Her feathery cloak had vanished along with the dreamscape. The wolves’ spirits had disappeared, and Sendoa lay motionless on the tainted ground.

  Obstinate little bitch. Look at yourself. You are but a girl in rags, and you are dying.

  Kali ignored him, her fingers closing over the three pointed edges of her favourite stone. “Not quite,” she wheezed.

  Gavran had told her the stone was a piece of the dreamscape. A piece of her. With her last breath and the power of the luminous fang humming against her palm, she willed the Dreamwalker’s spirit from her body, then looked upon the black wolf. She wouldn’t let him go so easily.

  Kali faced Velizar’s shadow. “The wolf and I, the witch,” she spat the word, “will always find each other. We are bound, as the sky and sea are bound by the horizon.”

  Her declaration was a spell—or perhaps a hex. Bolstered by the stone’s power, Kali reached into the dreamscape and tethered Sendoa’s spirit to her own. The black wolf was her familiar, her love; this would be their promise and their curse.

  With her last ounce of strength, she broke past Velizar’s umbral shield and grabbed his spirit by the throat. Through the haze, she saw him—cold aurous eyes, wild sable hair, and a face just like his brother’s. Before he could spew venom at her, she tightened her grip, snuffing the words from the tip of his tongue.

  “You will never be rid of me,” she seethed. “Your control…is meaningless.” Dragging herself up in a final act of defiance, she loomed close enough to feel his sour, rotting breath. “And I will return.”

  Releasing him, she whipped the stone the other way. “Gavran!” she called before her knees buckled, and she fell to the ground. The last thing Kali saw as her vision faded was the raven scrambling to fetch the dream stone.

  Then, the world went black.

  43

  GAVRAN

  Wing…broken. Leg…crushed.

  Gavran struggled through the pain. He was a young spirit—a child, really—but what did that matter when his mother lay dead?

  Take the stone, her spirit whispered. Keep it safe until the time is right.

  And so he would. None of them had much of that vile thing called time—not him, and certainly not Velizar. The menacing spectre had roamed long enough, resisting the pull of rebirth. The god of creation was strong, but the raven was clever.

  Gavran hobbled to the stone before Velizar could reach it. Taking the fang in his beak, he tilted his head back and gobbled it
down. He twisted his head towards Velizar, squawked one final time, then hopped towards the prettiest corpse littering the land.

  He’d been eyeing it for some time now.

  It was a boy with pristine, doll-like skin and hair like a starless night. Crawling onto the child’s torso, Gavran wasted no time pecking through the boy’s stomach. He tunnelled his way inside, melding with the cadaver until the strings tugged and the boy’s fingers twitched. Flesh rippled and ribs bulged as the raven wrested control. With a jerk and a kick, the body sat up. The neck twisted too far, so Gavran clasped the chin and click…click…clicked it into place. This shell was stiff and bereft of wings, but it would do.

  The mouth twitched, then slithered open, revealing jagged, bloodied teeth. They’d been broken in the frenzy. The tongue ran over each pointed end—too sharp for the meat. The flesh sliced open, but the body obeyed.

  The boy named Gavran opened his depthless eyes, shining like wet ink.

  44

  VELIZAR

  The witch was dead, but she wasn’t gone. Though Velizar detected no trace of her spirit, her memory hung in the air like a threat.

  After the dust settled, the Hollow wasn’t the same. All that remained were cinders and ash. Dark smoke pooled in the crevice where the village once stood. The earth was charred, reminding the survivors of the stygian wolf that’d laid siege to their home. They no longer called it the Hollow; it was now Black Hollow.

  The name immortalized Sendoa, and the villagers’ fear etched the Dreamwalker into the very stone of the land. Neither would be forgotten.

  Despite having ended them both, Velizar had lost control. He was fading, pulled to his next life, but he resisted. His revenge was incomplete.

  He’d spent his kingship villainizing the young woman who would become a god, but instead of fading into obscurity, her legend outgrew his designs. He’d even lost his brother. His pathetic little brother had chosen chaos over him.