Dream Keeper

by Amber R. Duell

  My knees gave out, and I plopped to the parched earth with a sob. “I’m sorry,” I said to the emptiness. I wasn’t sure what I was sorry for exactly—maybe everything. Maybe nothing. What did my apology mean to the people who lost their loved ones? Nothing. Another sob wracked my shoulders. I was nothing.

  “That’s her?” snapped a male’s voice. “Look at her. She’s pitiful.”

  I didn’t move. My fate had come, and I was ready for this to end. They would take me to their lord and master where he would repay me for my treachery. In pain and blood and death. The exact things I had planned to repay him in. It was everything I deserved.

  “Shh,” urged a feminine voice.

  I sighed and closed my eyes. Cold palms cupped my cheeks, injecting prickling pain down into my marrow. My eyes flew open again, my jaw hanging open in a silent scream. The agony was too much to muster a real one, stealing my breath, solidifying my body.

  The woman kneeling before me removed her hands from my skin, taking most of the pain with her, and stood. She wore a red silk ball gown with strings of beads that draped off her shoulders. Large black wings jutted from her back like branches from a winter tree, breaking off in a million jagged directions. Her skin was so pale I could practically see through it, and long, pin-straight black hair fell to her waist with a crown of raven beaks perched on her head. Red flecked eyes roamed my face.

  “Hello, child,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly soft. “You do not fear touch, so you must not fear me.”

  The pain her hands caused lingered, but I said nothing about her blatant lie. Instead, I stared at the beautiful woman, feeling as if I were nothing more than a husk, and what did pain matter to an empty thing anyway?

  “I am Rowan.” She motioned behind her. “Kail.”

  A man with golden brown skin stepped forward wearing a white half-mask with a long-pointed beak that curled away from his nose. Black hair fell out of place, skimming just above his left eye, and his lips pressed into a straight line. Black lace-like designs ran over the shoulders and waist of a black trench coat. “Leave her, Ro.”

  “You do not fear the unknown, so you must not fear him,” she continued in a light voice.

  “Rowan.”

  She bent and grabbed the back of my sweater, forcing me to my feet. “She will be fine once she leaves this place.”

  “But we won’t be,” he snarled.

  Rowan nudged my back, the pressure of her hands through my sweater a dull warning, until my feet moved of their own accord. I managed to stumble three feet before stopping dead. Two black horses with clawed feet and spiked tails snorted steam. Behind them stretched a mass of people hidden beneath black cloaks. Red mist coiled around their ankles, hissing against the flowing fabric. A collective moan rose to fill the air, and I scanned the line of nightmares.

  “You do not fear blood,” Rowan said. “So, you must not fear the Blood Army.”

  Kail lifted me onto the smaller horse and swung himself onto the larger. Being hauled away by a horde of nightmares should’ve terrified me, but the edges of fear were dull. As we marched away from the parched ground, part of my brain responded, a spark of something igniting deep in my brain. Feeling crept back into my mind and body, bit by bit. It seemed like it took forever but couldn’t have been more than five minutes before we reached the foot of the mountain. I blinked back my surprise.

  “See?” Rowan walked between the two horses, smug. “She’s coming back already.”

  Kail harrumphed.

  “What—” I clamped my mouth shut. The world slowly came back to me, falling in place like pieces of a puzzle. What happened? I wanted to ask but ignorance was a weakness I couldn’t afford to display. Everything was a weakness here. Everything but me. I wasn’t empty. I wasn’t nothing. This wasn’t my fault, and I would find the Sandman. I would fix things.

  “You fear many things.” Rowan smiled kindly. “All humans do. That was one of your plagues.”

  “The lightning bug,” I said before I could stop myself. “He brought me there.”

  “If you do not fear a thing, it will not see you as other. It likely misread your fear of the Barren as a longing for it when you fled. Not all nightmares are highly intelligent. It thought it was doing you a service, I’m sure.”

  How long had they been watching me? And the Blood Army… The Weaver mentioned them once. Mentioned letting them devour my sister. I shifted in the saddle made of bone—bone—and the horse whipped his head around to nip at my ankle.

  “You fear horses.” A small smirk curled on Kail’s lips. “In case that was unclear.”

  “Do I?” I sneered. I wanted to point out that this wasn’t a horse. Horses had hooves, unlike this beast, but I had bigger problems.

  We fell into silence, the only sound, the sizzling of blood droplets hitting the ground and fueling the mist that traveled around the army. The Barren, she called it. The place that sucked me dry, made me feel worthless and alone, had a name. If that was only one of the things I feared, I had no interest in meeting the others. I needed to escape sooner rather than later, but I was lucky to have survived as long as I had. These people were going to take me right to the Weaver. Why else wouldn’t they hurt me? Another touch from Rowan would be enough to send me tumbling to the ground. I rubbed at my tingling cheeks. There had to be a way out of this.

  Kail whispered to Rowan. She replied, but I couldn’t hear well enough to understand over the surge of wailing from the Blood Army. I took the reins and gave the horse a small, steady tug. His claws dug into the ground, and he wheeled on me. A single fang shot out from his top gums. He arched his head, aiming for my thigh.

  Rowan tsked, and the creature froze. “Do not try to escape, Dream Keeper. This is our realm.” She rubbed the horse’s velvety nose until the fang disappeared. “Even if Poz cooperated in carrying you away from us, there are eyes and ears everywhere. It would do you no good.”

  “Does he know I’m here?” I spat, sure if the Weaver saw everything, he would come to get me himself. Unless he wanted the will tortured out of me before I was dropped at his feet to save himself the trouble

  “The Weaver? He awaits your arrival.”

  Of course, he does. I leapt from the ivory saddle and landed in the middle of the Blood Army. Their crimson mist instantly boiled me, turning the blood in my veins to a river of fire. A scream ripped from my throat, and I flailed, reaching desperately for the stirrup. The horse sidestepped me.

  “Kail,” Rowan ordered.

  He jumped down beside me and lifted me from the ground. A dusting of the mist clung to my clothes. Itching. Burning. I was going to die. I clung to Kail’s neck and gasped for breath. The faint hint of cloves calmed my scream. Called my mind forward. It isn’t real. None of this is real. It’s all happening in my head. But it was real. Terrifyingly real. The truth was like being dunked in an ice bath. I shuddered. I should never have taken those pills. Never.

  Kail tossed me into the saddle of his own horse. “Brainless girl.” He swung up behind me and gathered the reins. “I bet you won’t be trying that again.”

  “Shut it,” I grumbled, my voice scratchy.

  “You...” He smiled wryly down at me. His eyes flashed through an array of colors—blue, yellow, red, green, brown—never settling on one for more than a second. “You are afraid of me. Just a little.”

  “Am not,” I wheezed.

  “Don’t lie.”

  He jabbed his heels into the horse and, with Rowan back on her own steed, we galloped toward a stone tower with flowing blood taking the place of mortar. My breath caught. I would never get out of there. Not with the hundreds of soldiers stoking the mist around the base. I pinched my arm until I broke the skin. The pain was real, as real as it was in the mist, but it did nothing to pull me from sleep.

  Kail chuckled. “Nice try.”

  “No one asked you.”

  He stared down at me, his eye color changing faster. “Better.” He looked over at Rowan. “But n
ot enough.”

  “It will be,” she said, completely confident in her words.

  I pretended to fidget and reached for the knife in the pocket of my fleece. “What will be what?” I asked.

  “You will be.” Rowan slid gracefully from her horse, her skirts puffing around her, and waved the army away. They moved in unison, turning around, seemingly floating along the mist on their way around the tower. “Come. It’s safe to talk inside.”

  I cast another glance at the moving unit of cloaked nightmares. Their moans changed to a dull murmur. “Let me guess.” I motioned to where the cloaked figures disappeared. Kail practically tossed me to the ground. I stumbled and scowled back at him, blowing the hair from my face. “Zombies?”

  “The Blood Army is the Blood Army.” Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “Pray you don’t run into a zombie.”

  Kail landed on his feet beside me, too close. He grinned. “After you.”

  Rowan opened the door and disappeared inside. I planted my feet. No way. I wasn’t going in there. Not in a million years. No.

  “Problem?” Kail asked.

  I jumped sideways away from him, but his hand shot out and gripped my upper arm. I glowered at him, anger replacing the fear, and brought my knee up, hard, between his legs. With my free hand, I flicked opened one of the attachments on the knife. “I don’t know, Kail. Is there?”

  He groaned, his teeth bared under the hooked nose of his mask and tightened his grip on my arm. I would have a bruise later.

  “You…”

  My pulse throbbed in my temples, the rest of his sentence lost to the ringing in my ears. Sweat beaded on my upper lip, and I swung my arm up in an arch, driving the corkscrew into his left eye with a pop. There was no blood, but his remaining eye flashed so fast I couldn’t catch any single color. The world slowed. I forgot how to breathe. To move.

  He released my arm and staggered back, his steps uneven. “I will gut you,” he howled. There wasn’t time to decide if it was a legitimate threat before razor sharp agony blasted through my skull.

  I knew nothing then. Only the spinning darkness of the fall.

  23

  The Sandman

  Fire exploded from the mouth of the cave where Nora’s sister was tortured. The heat from my magic curled over my shoulders and blew my hood around my face. Flames snapped and popped, spreading over the thorny brush, drowning out the screech from the serpent inside. I strode through it untouched. One person’s dream was another person’s nightmare, after all, and I was the sand’s master no matter what form it took.

  I had hoped Nora would return to the only place that was familiar to look for a way into my realm, but there was no trace of her. Cold dread filled my veins. If I had to draw the attention of every nightmare in this realm to find someone who knew her whereabouts, I would do it. Let the Weaver come for me. I had the power of a thousand dreams while he had broken threads.

  Three of the scaled creatures living in the lake broke the surface, watching the blaze with hungry black eyes.

  “Where is she?” I roared.

  Two dove back into the depths. The third smiled.

  Smiled.

  Fury rumbled in my chest. The crack in my heart widened, the fissures racing throughout my body. If this creature wouldn’t tell me where Nora was, it was of no use to me.

  I flung a handful of sand at the water’s surface and bubbles emerged from the bottom. Boiling. Scalding. I drew in a steady, satisfied breath. The scent of charred meat from behind me mingled with the wave of rancid seafood in front of me. I held my breath. The bodies of two dozen hidden nightmares bobbed to the surface, rocking between bubbles.

  I turned my back on the pond, on the destruction, and walked away, my shoulders squared, with another handful of sand in my fist.

  24

  Nora

  When I regained consciousness, it was in a bed of heavy silks. Sweeping sheer curtains rustled around the wooden bedposts in a nonexistent breeze. A dozen candles glowed on scrolled stands inside a corner fireplace. Their light flickered across deep red walls—the color of freshly dried blood—and danced across the dark wooden floor. Through the window, the grey skies had turned charcoal.

  How long had I been out? More importantly, how long did I have left?

  I flung back the warm blankets and pain seared its way through my skull. I pressed the heels of my hands against my temples with a hiss. Rowan. I took a steadying breath and pieced together what happened. The Barren already felt like a distant memory, but the blistering misery of the red mist was clear as day. So was what happened just before my head exploded.

  I lowered my hands, flexing the one I used to stab Kail in the eye. It was a small consolation considering I was now trapped in enemy territory without a way to defend myself. I shifted to the edge of the mattress and peered over it. Cliché or not, I wasn’t willing to bet on there being a literal monster under the bed. I snagged one of the six feather pillows and tossed it on the ground. When nothing lunged out to attack, I eased my feet down to the ground, my sneakers still tied tight, and leapt across the room to the single window.

  My heart struck the ground. The Blood Army that followed Rowan and Kail wasn’t the entire army; it was a mere fraction. A single drop of water in a deep well. There were thousands of them. Their mist coiled and rose, the steady hiss reaching me three stories up. Luckily their moaning had stopped.

  “Crap.” My breath fogged the window pane.

  I was doomed. There was no way I was sneaking out. Not with so many of those things out there waiting. My blood pulsed in my ears, warning me. Telling me to remember what the mist could do and not to do anything stupid, but I didn’t need a reminder. Still... If Rowan and Kail were handing me to the Weaver, I had to be in one piece. They couldn’t allow me to boil alive if they heard my escape attempt end in agonizing screams. I swallowed hard. Either way, if I was going down, I would do it fighting. I ripped a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders, knotting the fabric. Maybe it would help shield me from the mist once I got outside. The cloaks seemed to work for the nightmares anyway.

  There was no door to the room, simply an archway into a hall lit with wall torches that burned green fire. The brown and black wallpaper boasted large medallions and between wide planks of hardwood floor oozed a bit of black sludge. “Crap,” I muttered again, and gingerly eased onto my tip-toes.

  My fingers skimmed the wall to keep my balance and the wallpaper shifted beneath my touch. I froze, squinting. It moved again. Bile rose to the back of my throat. The medallions weren’t a design at all, but black tarantulas with their legs pressed tightly against their bodies. What I thought to be an off-white design at the center turned out to be a single unblinking eye on their abdomen. “Crap, crap, crap.”

  Something cool licked my ankle. I leapt back, leaving tiny strands of the sludge reaching up from the floor, patting the ground in search of the foot they just touched.

  A door swung open behind me and the goo darted back below the floor. Kail stood in the doorway, dangling my knife between his index finger and thumb. “Hello, again.”

  I ran as fast and hard as I could. My heartbeat drummed against the lingering pain in my temples, nearly blinding me. I swerved right, following the green lights, and thundered down a set of stairs. Three identical doors appeared at the landing where a moment ago there was another hallway. My knife whizzed past my head, pinning a tarantula to the wall with a tiny squeal.

  “Perhaps I was wrong about you being completely pathetic,” Kail said, sauntering down the last few steps. He smelled of rich spices with an undercurrent of cedar now instead of cloves. He approached slowly, carefully, like a tiger stalking its prey, and my feet slid back. He chuckled. “Perhaps not.”

  I spun to rip the knife from the wall, but he got there first. The arachnid hit the floor with a tiny plop. Another morphed from the wall, and my stomach flopped. “That’s mine,” I said, determined not to let him see how he affected me.

  “No
t anymore, Dream Keeper.” His eyes were cold behind his mask. The one I stabbed had healed but remained steady on blue while his right eye flashed between colors.

  I grabbed the long-pointed beak and tugged. The mask didn’t budge. Curiosity prodded against a flash of fear. Was the mask actually part of his face or was it well secured? What did he look like underneath?

  He swatted my hands away. “Excuse you.”

  “Let me out of here,” I growled, refusing to acknowledge the blush that swept up the back of my neck.

  “Oh, of course,” he drawled. “Since you asked so nicely, let me show you the front door. Never mind all the trouble we went through to find you first. Never mind the risk we took bringing you here. That’s all irrelevant.”

  I balled my hands into fists, ready to strike. More than ready.

  “Save your strength, human. You’ll need it.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but all the strength in my body wouldn’t do me any good if I was forever trapped here. So, I swung. My fist met only air, the momentum nearly throwing my body to the ground. I pressed my lips together and straightened myself. He was on guard against me now. My next attack would have to be subtle and well-timed.

  “Rowan is waiting.” He flicked the knotted sheet at my throat, and his top lip lifted into a sneer. “She has a tonic for your head. If you behave, I won’t smash the cup before you have a chance to drink it.”

  I snorted. “Like I’d drink anything either of you offered me.”

  His lips turned down into a sarcastic frown. He raised a calloused brown hand up to my ear. And snapped his fingers. The sound crashed through my head. My stomach bottomed out, and every drop of blood drained from my face. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of collapsing to the floor. I wouldn’t.

  He smirked. “Follow me.” He started up the stairs, his black trench coat flaring with each step, but I stayed firmly planted in front of the three doors. “Pick the middle one,” he drawled over his shoulder. “The endless free-fall is a particular favorite of mine, although the other two aren’t half bad.”