In the Dark of Dreams

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Jenny gritted her teeth and stepped into the ocean toward the woman. No plan. No idea what to do. Just that if she was going to die, it would be there, defiant, in death’s face—

  Perrin made a low rough sound, and grabbed her arms. With pure raw strength, he lifted her off her feet and placed her in the sand behind him. She glimpsed the forest, and the beach, but it looked different from where they had just been, and the children were gone.

  “Kill me,” she heard Perrin say roughly. “But keep her out of it, and keep her safe.”

  “She does not want safe,” murmured the woman. “Her heart is wild.”

  Perrin growled. “You know why I’m here.”

  “I know,” whispered the woman. “But do you?”

  Jenny turned to face them, feeling as though she were moving through molasses. Heavy, sticky, the taste of the air suddenly too sweet.

  “I’m here to find the kra’a,” Perrin said, his voice hoarse. All Jenny could see was his broad, scarred back, and his long silver hair. Beyond him, the woman—crone, witch, whatever she was—continued to stand in the sea with perfect, inhuman, stillness. Waves broke around her as though she were made of rock, rooted to rock, and the water did not cling. Her hair remained untouched, and her skin glowed dry and heavy with light.

  The woman looked at her. It was just a look, but Jenny felt as though scales slithered against the inside of her skull. She knew what it meant, even though the sensation was colder, and more powerful, than any human’s mental touch. None of her grandfather’s training against telepaths kept the woman out. She slipped past those walls as though they did not exist, and Jenny fought to stay calm, and strong.

  I’m me, she kept thinking. You can’t take that away. I’m me, I’m me, I’m—

  More than you were, said the woman inside her head, her voice carrying a hiss that her speaking voice did not—which Jenny heard, moments later, when she said, “You speak of the kra’a that was taken from you.”

  “Pelena was murdered. Her kra’a is gone, and the beast wakes. It must be found.” Perrin stepped sideways to block Jenny from the woman’s sight—anger in his voice, in every line of his body—cold, restrained hurt and fury.

  “And so you come here, thinking I will help you? You are desperate.” Somehow the woman moved without moving, so that suddenly she was in Jenny’s line of sight again, staring at her with breathtaking intensity. “But are you desperate for yourself, or others? If you find your kra’a, will you kill for it? If it has bonded to another, will you steal it away as it was stolen from you?”

  “No,” Perrin said, with such sharp pain it stopped mattering to Jenny that she was afraid. She heard the words and felt the story behind them, and the grief. Puzzle pieces. Beast. Wakes. Kra’a. Stolen.

  The woman’s gaze left Jenny and settled on Perrin. “Liar.”

  That word was the same as a hammer strike, a physical blow. Perrin slammed down on his knees into the sand—with such force he bounced. He made a strangled sound, twisting and guttural, and Jenny watched in horror as his scars split open and bled. She reached for him, and found herself frozen, her feet rooted in the sand as though she had become part of the beach.

  Helpless. Unable to do anything but watch.

  Memories flashed again. She saw another beach, and a boy being pulled from her—and in her memories she also heard whispers, whispers from adults who meant her family harm—only no one would listen to her. And in her memories she heard a gunshot, and her own screams, and saw blood that would not stop. She saw Maurice thrown overboard. Les with his hands on her. And all she could do then—for her entire life, it seemed—was watch, helpless.

  I will not run. I will not stand idle. I will not be helpless. I will not, I will not—

  “Stop this,” she whispered, hating herself—hating the woman—watching as Perrin’s eyes squeezed shut, and his breath rattled in his throat. “Stop.”

  The woman did not move from the sea, or look at Jenny. “Perrin O’doro, tell me the truth. Tell me what you would do if you found your kra’a.”

  “I would not kill.”

  “Liar,” she said again. “You killed once to survive, and you did so without mercy or regret. Even after eight years, no regret. You would kill again. Again, and again, in rage and in calm. You are stained with blood.”

  Perrin’s expression turned savage, agonized, every muscle straining. His scars bled more freely, mixing with his sweat, dripping into the sand around him. Jenny fought the compulsion holding her, fought with all her strength, and in the base of her skull, the parasite pulsed, once.

  “You would kill all but one,” murmured the woman, almost to herself. “And for that one, you would let the world die.”

  Jenny staggered, suddenly able to move again. Perrin fell forward, bracing himself on his hands, dragging in deep, heaving breaths that sounded as though his lungs were shredding. Jenny flew past him, grabbing a rock. She didn’t throw it, but stood in front of him, staring at the woman.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  “Stop,” echoed the woman, and the light died from her eyes, and her hair stopped moving; and even the waves pushed her forward, just a little. “Some things cannot be stopped.”

  Perrin touched Jenny’s ankle, then let go to slowly stand. Hunched over, blood dripping down his chest and arms. He nudged her aside, staring at the woman in the sea.

  “Kill me, or don’t,” he said quietly. “But you know my reason for coming here is important.”

  “Everyone’s reasons are important. I wish, sometimes, that it was not always so. I am tired of being used.” The woman tilted her head, regarding him and Jenny with new thoughtfulness. “But then, I suspect the both of you will soon feel the same.”

  Jenny frowned, wondering what that meant. Perrin said, “Explain.”

  The woman replied, “You, both. Come to me.”

  He shook his head, grim. “No, this is all wrong. Never mind how you helped my father. You’ve changed. I want your promise the woman will be unharmed.”

  “The children,” Jenny corrected him. “They matter more than me.”

  Again, he hesitated. But when she looked at him, ready to argue, all she found was his steady regard, and somewhere deep, deep in his hard gaze, a flicker of admiration and concern that was there and gone in a heartbeat.

  “The children,” he rumbled, looking again at the woman in the sea. “The children are a puzzle.”

  “Come to me,” replied the woman. “No one has, or will be, harmed.”

  Perrin’s jaw worked. “Harmed in body or mind.”

  The corner of her mouth coiled into a sad smile. “Once, you would have taken me at my word.”

  He said nothing. Just stared, his silence gathering its own power. Pressure gathered in the base of Jenny’s skull, followed by a chill.

  The woman sighed. “It was for the best, Perrin O’doro. There was much you needed to learn, though you are too close to see that—and so many other things.”

  He drew in a deep breath. “Jenny, stay here.”

  She wanted to. She was afraid. But she was certain that if Perrin went out there alone, he would not come back.

  Losing him was not an option. Jenny might not be ready to confront, or even understand, her feelings, but she’d spent sixteen years of her life looking for him. Sixteen years searching for answers to one moment on a beach.

  Like hell she was going to let that go.

  She grabbed his hand. He looked down at her with surprise. “Jenny.”

  “Go on,” she muttered. “You’re stuck with me.”

  Only because Jenny was looking at his eyes did she see them shift with grief. Grief or loneliness, or something born from pain. Whatever it was, she felt her heart answer. Her hand tightened.

  “Jenny,” he said again, but this time h
is voice was low, quiet, almost a caress. Utterly at odds with the hard, brittle mask he wore too well. Bent or broken, she thought. Raw with more scars on the inside than out.

  Perrin walked into the sea, pulling her close against his side as the waves buffeted their bodies. He was big as a mountain against her, and moved with unwavering strength. Jenny tried to do the same. She held her rock in her free hand. The woman watched them, her eyes mere glints of light behind her tangled hair. Up close she seemed even more unreal. A little too perfect. A little too human. As though she were trying too hard to be something she wasn’t.

  “We learn to pretend in order to survive,” said the woman, as if she’d read her mind—and if Jenny hadn’t seen her mouth move, she would have thought those words were inside her head. “Perrin O’doro knows this. As do you, Jennifer Jameson, whose blood flows from the daughters of the Magi—who was born from the blood of the fae and twisted that magic into death.”

  Jenny went very still. The woman whispered, “You are not so ordinary.”

  Perrin tensed. Jenny could not look at him. All she could do was listen to the rumble of his voice as he said, “My lady. The kra’a.”

  “It is with you,” she said shortly, still watching Jenny with unnerving intensity. “And you must go now. Your father is coming. He brings hunters.”

  He stiffened, fingers flexing painfully around her arm. “What do you mean, the kra’a is with me?”

  The woman ignored him, and to Jenny said, “We are not so far apart, in blood. You know this, in your heart. You know what your family is.”

  “I know enough to be wary,” she replied, unnerved. “But you seem to know more than I do.”

  “The kra’a,” interrupted Perrin impatiently, and the woman hissed at him: a rattling sound that rose from deep inside her throat. All that pale white skin wavered, revealing rough scales against her torso, shimmering from green to brown in one strong, muscular ripple—while beneath all that long blond hair, a tangle of glinting golden eyes and dripping fangs.

  Jenny stumbled, swearing. Perrin caught her.

  “Blind fool,” said the woman, her golden eyes glowing. “Look between the two of you for the answers you seek. And do not return here until you have found them.”

  She backed more deeply into the sea, her human illusion falling apart: she did not have legs but balanced on a massive tail that coiled and flopped through the shallows like the body of a giant snake. Her breasts sagged brown and heavy, and her fingers were little better than claws.

  Jenny’s mouth went dry, but she stepped forward, pulling against Perrin’s hand. “The children. Are they illusions, too?”

  The woman slowed, stilled. “Human. Real. Mine.”

  “Yours,” echoed Jenny, terrible fury making it hard to speak even that word. “Now who’s the liar?”

  Perrin’s fingers tightened again. Jenny shrugged him off, and this time he let go. She took another step, swaying as the waves crashed against her legs, and gritted her teeth as she stared unflinchingly into the woman’s golden, inhuman gaze.

  This is nothing, she told herself. You’ve dealt with worse since you were five years old.

  She’d learned to walk in the shadow of men and women who could kill with a thought. But those had been good people. Good hearts. First to be murdered on that bad day, years ago. She could still smell the blood and see it on her hands. Her stomach suffered a ghost ache, and the parasite pulsed, shuddered. Fever stoked Jenny’s skin in one prickly wave.

  The woman tilted her head, and the human mask faded completely, leaving a creature of primal, alien beauty, purely serpentine in every way but her features: nose, mouth, eyes, ears. Black hair fell around her high-boned face, tangled and cut with green strands. She touched her face with surprising tentativeness, as though she had only just realized that others, too, could see her true form. Her clawed hands trembled.

  “The past and future do not lie,” whispered the woman, closing her eyes. “The world is changing, and there will come a time when all that is known now will be torn, and the old days will rise again. Magic, and chaos, and war. It can be delayed, but not stopped. And if humans are to survive . . .”

  The woman paused. All Jenny could do was stare, wavering between horror and fascination. Words, much like the ones spoken by her uncles, aunts, and cousins, who had broken away to form the Consortium. Jenny had listened to the debates for years before the break and family war—and since then. All those precog warnings of the future, and the terrible arguments concerning what to do, if anything.

  “We must all do something,” said the woman, looking away at the sea. “Those children were unwanted, abused, tossed aside. So I took them. Not to hurt, but to save, to train. I will protect as many as I can, teach them what I can, and when the time is right, they will know what to do. They will know how to live in the world to come.”

  Jenny tried to speak, but her voice stuck. Perrin brushed close, something terrible in his eyes. “If the beast wakes, what you’ve seen—”

  The woman turned away, interrupting him. “Go. You have what you need.”

  Perrin snarled. “I have nothing.”

  She glanced over her shoulder—gave him a look of pure, shriveling disdain—and her tail lashed out of the water and smashed against his chest, knocking him backward. Jenny tried to grab his arm. She was taken down with him, and the sea closed over both their heads. They couldn’t have been more than a hand below the surface, but the pressure was immense, crushing, and when she clawed at the water, she could not break the waves. Perrin was not beside her. She had no air.

  You will understand before he does, murmured the woman inside Jenny’s mind, her voice slithering, rubbing, crawling cold. When you are away from here, and those bonds begin to stir. Listen to the voice that comes, the voice that is waking.

  Time is running out.

  Chapter Ten

  In darkness, Perrin fought. He had no weapons, no fists, no bones. He was a ghost, and all he had was rage.

  His father was there.

  “You killed her,” said the old Krackeni. “There are witnesses. You destroyed her mind, then broke her neck.”

  “No, listen to me,” Perrin tried to say, but he had no voice.

  Listen to me, he thought, rage melting into desperation. Listen, please listen. What she did, what she was going to do—

  “I trusted you,” whispered his father, floating above him, pale eyes blazing with grief as each word bore its own spectral light inside his throat. “We all trusted you.”

  You can trust me. Please, don’t say that. Please.

  “But I can taste it now, inside you. I can taste the . . . the contamination . . . in your mind. It goes . . . so deep. Into your dreams. Oh, Gods, it truly is in your dreams. How could you? How could you do this?”

  No, Perrin raged. No, you do not understand. She did not understand. Just listen, please—

  Please, do not—

  Do not—

  DO NOT—

  Perrin woke up, gasping, clawing ineffectually at the air. He could hear his father’s voice, echoing so raw inside him.

  But that presence died when he opened his eyes and found himself sprawled in grass. He stared, numb, taking it in: trimmed, neat, with an edge of color nearby. Roses.

  I’m on a lawn, he thought, knowing that must be wrong.

  As wrong as the scent of smoke, and the strange rat-a-tat-tatting sound that filled the air.

  Gunfire. Then, screams.

  Jenny’s screams.

  Perrin rolled to his feet, but couldn’t stand. No strength. His muscles were made of water. He continued to fight, though, as he had in the darkness—but even wilder, more desperate. He screamed Jenny’s name. He could not see her. He could not see anything but grass. She was sobbing. She was choking on sobs.

 
“Oh, God,” she cried. “Oh, God, no. No, no. No, please.”

  Her despair killed him. Her despair was the most horrific thing he had ever heard in his life. It shredded his soul and spat it out, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing. He was useless.

  I’m useless, whispered Jenny inside his head. I’m useless. It doesn’t matter how hard I fight, there’s nothing I can do.

  Nothing.

  “No!” Perrin shouted at her, digging his fingers into the grass. “Jenny!”

  He thought she said his name. Maybe. From far away. He strained for it, hands buried in grass—

  —grass that was suddenly flesh.

  Perrin’s vision wavered, as did the lawn. He saw sand, rock, driftwood—the crashing roar of waves replacing screams—but not the gasp of the woman he was holding down.

  He threw himself away, horrified. Jenny stared back at him, cheeks flushed. Deep red handprints on both arms.

  “You were dreaming,” he whispered, his voice breaking on every word. He should have known.

  But it was so real.

  Jenny trembled. “Is that how you wake someone?”

  Perrin shook his head, suffering shock, revulsion. “I didn’t know it was you. I was . . .” He stopped, unsure what to tell her, how to explain without making her feel violated. He felt violated. He could still hear her screams.

  “I was inside your dream,” he finally said, unable to quell the tremor that raced through him.

  Jenny didn’t move or speak. Her eyes were huge, and he wanted to kill himself when he saw the marks on her arms. She was so much smaller than he, and he had been crushing grass in the dream, crushing it in his fingers—

  “Your arms,” he choked out, and made a small movement toward her. Jenny flinched, and he froze, cold to the bone.

  “How,” she began, then stopped, wetting her lips. “You can enter dreams.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But this was an accident. Jenny—”

  “What was I dreaming?” Jenny rubbed her right arm and winced. “I don’t remember.”