by D. Fischer
Erline closes her eyes and breathes deep as though she’s about to spill a secret she doesn’t wish to share with me. “Katriane DuPont.”
“But -” I splutter, my hands falling to my side. “She’s… she’s in the Dream Realm.”
“Correct,” she whispers with more grace than due when talking about a deadly illness. Lifting her head, she ganders out the wide-open door she came in. “The battle is about to begin.”
How can she be so utterly at ease?
I growl and lean toward her, threatening, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that battle. We have one here. How do we reach Kat? How do we get her back here?”
She fans out the towel, taking her time to place it back on Mitus’ head. “We don’t.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “I do.”
DYSON COLEMAN
DREAM REALM
“Over here,” Nally urges in an underground hallway. It’s unoccupied and echoes with the thud of each foot.
The joints in my knees quickly give way, and a wave of heat turns my muscles to jelly. I feel and look like a puppet, pulled by the strings of a quick sweeping illness. I try to command my legs while allowing two dwarves to support my weight, their hands on my arms. But I can’t. I can’t move them. Whatever is happening is swift, and for the first time in a while, I truly fear how long I have left to breathe.
“What is this?” The sandman asks hurriedly, grasping my upper arms from behind me before I can hit the ground. A couple dwarves rush to aid him, and they help support me by wrapping strong arms around my waist. My lanky body must feel like a fish under their grips.
They lay me gently on the floor, and Kat’s frightened expression looms over me, stealing my view of the hallway ceiling. The beautiful curve of her eyebrows is distorted in raised positions, and she runs a shaky hand through the hair above her ears, pulling on the short black hair. The light of the blue fire, reflecting through the hall from the Frankenstein lab we just fled, shimmers against the strands.
I cough again and blood sprays, soaking her jeans around the calves. With much effort, I scratch the hollow of my ear, and shakily pull my hand back. The tips of my fingers are coated with more blood. Not only is it shedding from my eyes and mouth but every exit in my face.
More faces, new and recognizable, arrive and hover over mine. Nally’s, the sandman’s, and a few other dwarves. Nally licks his lips nervously, his tongue darting to each corner. He was successful after all, my mind thinks, the thought irrational in such a dire moment.
The heat seeping from my veins dissipates, and a cold draft shudders through my bones. I grunt, squeeze my eyes shut, and clutch my stomach when my insides feel like a knife cut through my diaphragm.
“I’m dying,” I croak with an exuberant amount of energy. More energy than I feel like I have. It drains quickly as though it travels with the blood pouring from seemingly everywhere. Despite the pain, it feels peaceful, right even. That thought alone should scare me, but it doesn’t.
“It’s The Red Death,” Kat mourns, her hot fingers lifting my eyelids further than I can. I yank away from her to cough once more. The cough roars in my ears, replacing external sounds with the rush of blood. Their voices become mumbled, wavering in and out of audibility.
“How did he get this?” I catch Sandy asking. His long fingers touch my forehead, but I barely feel it. Each blink is difficult to make, my eyes a heavy weight. If I just shut them, if I rest for a moment, I know peace will be delivered.
Peace. I wonder what that truly feels like. Is it as promising as its allure, like a bright warm light at the end of a cold tunnel? Inside me, my wolf sighs with relief at the prospect.
The sandman picks up my hand and cradles it in his. I marvel at the size difference. His is much larger than mine, too large. Alien-like, almost, and the skin is smooth with fresh soft callouses under the knuckles.
Another chilling wave sweeps from my head to my toes, but this time, it doesn’t frighten me. I internally reach for it like a toddler grasping for his favorite blanket. More coughs jar my spine against the ground, and they don’t cease. Blood chokes me, fills my lungs and splutters from my mouth. My eyes widen. I can’t breathe.
A bright light comes from behind those gathered above me, and for a moment, I believe it to be the light I seek. But Kat whips her head around when it illuminates the tunnel and banishes the blue hued reflections of the fire down the way.
“Erline!” she yells.
I choke once more, but it’s half-hearted, an attempt by my body to try for life once more. But my brain has accepted my fate. It knows this is my end, and Erline’s bright light welcomes me. The voices become a blur, my consciousness fading quickly. I mentally grasp the light as it wraps itself around me, thinking it’s my ticket to the void, and snuggle in for a peaceful, eternal sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
KATRIANE DUPONT
GUARDIAN REALM
“He’ll be okay?” I ask Erline while watching Eliza bark orders within the teepee of the infected. It’s quite a remarkable structure, and it battles the chilling breeze and holds strong against the elements.
Pulling at my fingers hovering about my middle, I’m unable to stop the nervous gesture. When my anxiety becomes too much to bear, I pull harder, and the knuckles pop, a jarring audible crack of a twig snapping in two.
I can feel Dyson’s beating heart in a back pocket of my mind, just as the sandman’s. Sandy’s vitals are strong while he hovers at the entrance, and Dyson’s are gaining in strength. The fear I felt on the Dream Realm when he was slipping away was unlike any other. The way his eyes had looked, unseeing, still haunts me. It was close. Too close. But what frightens me most is how he seemed to welcome it.
With a tube tucked at the rim of my eye, the glass ice cold as the wind whistles inside the small ledge, Erline continues to gather my freely falling tears. The salty wetness trickles from my eyes and leaves a chilling trail along my frosty cheeks, freely flowing by my heartbreak for Dyson.
I’ve come to care for him despite my best efforts to deny everything. It’s how the fingers around my heart loosen with every minute he’s near. How I can breathe when he looks at me. How he chases away my darkest thoughts with three little words.
I see you, the memory taunts, his voice just as crisp as the last time he said it, pulling me from the pocket of my mind my conscience hid in.
But my sorrow isn’t the only thing I shed tears for, unable to stop them as they flow at a fast rate. With every step the elves carry Dyson away from me, I can feel the darkness creep back forward, squeezing my heart as a reminder of its presence. I want revenge for Dyson’s state, for almost killing him.
“Yes,” Erline answers. “And so will the others once they receive your tears.”
She sloshes the liquid to accentuate her authorial statement, and the tube brings forth memories of the last time she captured my tears. That day, inside an Earth Realm’s frigid forest, I was the deliverer of a cure, and I wonder idly why she’s taking charge of this moment instead of myself. I am the one, after all, who swiped my tears with quick fingers and dipped them into Dyson’s mouth on the Dream Realm. And not a moment too soon, either.
Behind us, three dwarves, those we were able to gather, Nally among them, quietly rave to one another. Their tones sway in awe, and I’m drawn to it. When I tip my chin to get a better glance at them, to see how they’re fairing, Erline grasps my jaw and forces my face forward again. I sniff my agitation, and the fog from my hot breath obscures the immediate space between us.
I don’t imagine the dwarves have ever been to the Guardian Realm, and the way Nally has spoken about it tells me they hold it in high regard. Perhaps they’ll feel safer here, freer. No doubt they’ll be discussing plans and inventions soon. Without Sureen here to tell them no, they’ll be able to construct anything they want. But right now, they’re in shock over the legendary elves.
With my face frozen in Erline’s firm grip, I angle my eyes and sweep what I can of the village. I
t looks more put together than when we left mere hours ago, or so it feels. But here, it seems to have been a good day or two.
The skin of the teepees, which once smoked with an extinguished fire, are brand new and seemingly more elaborate and larger than before. Instead of the cracked and dry surfaces from battling the drier elements, they’re smooth and flawless and easily bow to accommodate the wind without tipping the structures over. The blood and red specks are covered by fresh prints marking a new layer of snow, and the objects that were skewed in a hasty exit for safety are now back to their original places and pieced back together with what this realm’s nature has to offer.
My eyes sweep past Erline’s shoulder. “How many are infected?” I ask and blink a few more tears when I watch a family weep over their now dead child. Their cries and pleas in their native tongue pierce the agonized moans of the others.
“Almost all who defended the village.”
I frown, flicking my attention to Erline’s concentrated expression. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and her black orbed eyes reflect my concern. My face is smudged with dusty dirt and the already dried blood belonging to Dyson.
“How is that possible?” I whisper. “Isn’t this contagious?”
“The red dust only fell inside the village, daughter.” She lifts an inquisitorial white brow to me. “Did each of your coven fall ill when it swept through the Demi-Lune home?”
“Well, no.” I shift uneasily. I hadn’t fallen ill at all, and there had been a few witches who tended to those who were. They had remained unaffected by The Red Death, too. I had never asked how they contracted it. I was gone when the first fell to the illness, tending to my shop.
She returns her attention to the tube, satisfied with my pondering. “An anomaly. This illness was made by magic, and magic isn’t perfect. It is my hope those in battle remain unaffected and fall by the sword and not The Red Death.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, snapping from the memories of what I once called home. “What battle?”
Standing fully erect, Erline passes my tears to an elf when he hastily approaches. He’s scrawny as though he has yet to come into manhood, but his tall height is foretelling that he soon will. The elf bows and backs away as quickly as he came. He straightens when the cover of the structure casts shadows across his tattooed skin, and he disappears inside, weaving between the grieving, the healers, and the ill.
“The one at the Angel’s Ground.” She tips her head to the side, and a lock of white hair catches in the breeze, whipping like a sleek ribbon under her chin. “Have you forgotten already?”
I stretch my neck and relieve the tension settled at the base of my skull. I had forgotten about that and briefly recall such an update inside my teepee after the first battle. With everything we had witnessed over this short period of time, it had slipped my mind that while some fight for their lives, others are fighting for their homes.
Looking past the triangular structures, I peer into the eerie forest, trying to get a grasp of where I am. The trees were witness to many deaths, and I briefly wonder what else they’ve seen over their long lives. “I can’t see the Angel’s Ground from here. Are they at least winning?”
She averts her gaze, tipping her chin and following the path of an elf’s print. I didn’t miss the glossy film slipping over her black eyes - the telltale sign she’s peering into another part of this realm. My mother would get the same look with her visions.
“I don’t know,” Erline begins, her voice hushed with secrets she’s unwilling to share.
For a second, I wish I had the power to tap into unseen occurrences like this. I’d be able to tell a great many things. But I dismiss the desire quickly. Those who can peer into the future or can see through another’s eyes have a great burden to bear. I don’t need another burden. I have a collection of them to keep me warm.
“Tember is out there,” I declare unnecessarily. A primal instinct to protect her hushes my words as the rush of needing to do so swiftly takes over my thoughts. But the thoughts are swiftly stolen, and a flicker inside the teepee averts my gaze from things I can’t see from here.
With much effort, Evo, Kenna, Bre, and Flint filter out of the structure, concerned looks on their gaunt and bloody faces. I had forgotten how quickly my tears can heal, and memories of my mother’s own miraculous recovery surface. I was almost too late for her, too, just as I had been for Dyson. My tears can’t heal the dead. The soul is always swift to cross realms, and when it does, only a powerful hand can bring it back. Only the cruel would taunt a soul this way, and Kheelan and Corbin’s faces flicker in my mind.
Evo folds Kenna in a loving embrace, the kind only true love blossoms, and she tucks her face into the crook of his arm.
Their clothes are stained with their own blood, and the iron scent fills the air. In this moment, I see them differently than I once did. I think, on some level, I felt superior compared to them, but that feeling is quickly whisked away. They’re survivors, having seen and endured their fair share of disasters. The earlier battle wasn’t the first we’ve fought together. It won’t be the last, either. Fighting alongside each other makes them family.
Sweat still clings to their bodies and spreads the red droplets of blood in odd patterns along the cloth of their shirts. Bre releases Flint’s hand when she sees me, rushes forward with open arms, and wraps them tightly around me. My body sways precariously with the abrupt affection, and I note how her body is still warm to the touch from the fever.
With a deep shuddering sigh, I return the hug, more for greedy comfort than for fear she may crumble under her weakened body.
“Thank you,” she confesses. “For saving Dyson. For saving us.”
I pat her on the back awkwardly, the comfort quickly fleeing, and I busy myself by glaring at Erline whose knowing smile dares to grace her face.
“How are you feeling?” I ask instead of the traditional thank you.
I’ve never been one for such affection. At least, not lately. When my coven banished me from my home, I had to learn to console myself. Gratitude has been rare, even when I had saved the witches. The thanks I had received was to live a lonely life as they kicked me from the only place I called home.
She pulls away, taking her feverish warmth with her. “Better. The antidote worked fast. Even now I can feel my strength returning. It feels like a recharging of batteries.”
I double blink and quickly mask my surprise by smacking my lips once. Were they not told what the antidote was? I look to Erline and she dips her head, answering my unasked question.
She’s preserving the knowledge of my healing abilities to only those who need to know. Trusted people, perhaps? I wonder who the all-mighty Mother Nature classifies as trustworthy. I suppose wolf shifters are a pack species and gossip notoriously as second nature. It is a wise choice to keep it from them, at least for now.
And I suppose it’s for the best. If their gossip would reach the wrong ears and word got out I could cure the incurable, every last tear would be drained from my body. The thought of how they’d acquire those tears makes me shudder and instantly douses any kind notion of curing cancer. There isn’t enough me to go around.
I pull my coat tight around me and eye Bre’s bare arms with a scowl of concern. Erline follows my gaze, and with a flick of her wrist, each shifter’s coats are returned to them, magically zipped. The fabrics crackle with the next immediate breeze.
Jumping in shock, Kenna fists her coat before pinning a glare at Erline’s blonde hair. I don’t believe she likes Mother Nature, and the thought of such a prickly wolf disliking the very thing she’s meant to love tugs at the corners of my lips in a rare show of a smile. She drives home her point with a few choice curses.
I’ve always enjoyed Kenna’s constant sour mood even if the little Queen Alpha frightens me, and this time is no different. Evo and I chuckle together despite our best efforts to squash it.
Bre runs a hand through her blonde hair, seemingly oblivious or immune to her bes
t friend’s attitude. “How can we help? What can we do?”
I raise my eyebrows at her, look to Erline once more, and then to the pack as a whole. I banish the grin, harden my face, and square my shoulders as the wolves wait for my answer. “Prepare for battle.” My sudden mood switch throws them off, and Bre backs up as though my words lashed at her grateful mood.
Turning on my heel, I start to march toward the forest. Tember has been there for me, pulling strings in the background - which often led to trouble - just to keep me safe. The least I can do is show up to have her back even if Erline won’t. I won’t leave them to the odds. I won’t let another die on my watch.
Erline’s voice slices through the silence. “Katriane, you cannot.”
I laugh though it’s anything but humorous. It’s darkness. A darkness I can control. “Oh, but I can. And I will.”
“We need you here,” she barks.
I whip around to face her, sneering, and the prenumbra flanks me. A fierce growl rumbles from the creature’s chest, and quickly after, the pack of green aura creatures fall in line.
“I've sat back long enough,” I snarl. “I won’t stand by while others fight for their freedom, for their home. It's up to me to fix the wrongs you and all of the fee have done. You’ve sealed our fates by ripping our choices from us, and I won’t sit idle and watch you do it again. I’m not your puppet, Erline. Not anymore. Nor will I allow it to continue for the rest of the realms and all those supposedly under the fees’ care.”
Turning and passing a few elves, I mentally pause, startled by the sight before me. Starting with the elf nearest me, they bow one at a time, a wave of bent bodies down the village’s main path. At first, I believe them to be doubling over in pain.
Dwarves abruptly drop gathered logs propped in their beefy arms and beam brilliant smiles at my scouring face. I slow as the wave of bows continues. I stop my determined strides as a hush of a breeze punctuates the gestures of respect, of one displaying such unworthiness to another.
