Dreamer (The Dream World Chronicles Book 1)

by Camille Peters

“Don’t waste your breath on feigned innocence; our case against you is irrefutable.”

  Galaxy’s narrowed grey gaze flashed mercilessly; it was hard to believe now that in the past his gaze had ever been filled with kindness and pity towards me.

  “When you first arrived in the Dream World, we offered you an opportunity to prove yourself, but that generous chance has now proven to be our undoing. You and your magic are too dangerous to remain any longer. You are hereby suspended.”

  No! The Dream World was my home, the only place I’d ever belonged, the only place I had friends, where I could be myself and develop my powers…and he was taking all of it away from me.

  “You can’t!” I shouted, no longer able to tolerate remaining silent and submissive. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Galaxy scoffed. “Weren’t you listening to all the evidence against you? You’ve done nothing but wrong, and I will not permit you to remain in the Dream World to tip the balance any further. It’s too precarious to grant you another chance after your continued interference; we cannot risk discovery of our world.”

  “Just because my magic is different doesn’t make it bad,” I said. “I didn’t do any of this on purpose. I don’t belong on Earth; I belong in the Dream World, for I’m a Dreamer.”

  Galaxy shook his head. “As we’ve indisputably proven, you’re a Nightmare, born to the Nightmare Ebony, and like your mother, your powers are too dangerous to condone your presence any longer.”

  “Give me another chance. Please.”

  But he was heartless to my pleas. With three echoing clicks of his staff, my dream dust spilled from my locket. I tried to grasp it, but it slipped through my fingers and flew into the glass orb at the end of Galaxy’s staff. The effect was immediate, as the strength from my dream dust which I’d grown accustomed to vanished; it was as if he’d stolen my air after I’d finally learned to breathe. The world swayed and I slumped to the ground.

  “Suspended?” Stardust gasped. “On what grounds?”

  We hovered above the burnt remains of my old home. Despite Stardust’s repeated demands for an explanation, I couldn’t bear to repeat the Council’s accusations, or worse, their conclusions about what they believed me to be. My broken heart stung, raw from the Dream World’s betrayal and the Nightmare I’d foolishly given it to. But worse was the accusation that I wasn’t the Dreamer I’d believed myself to be.

  I wasn’t really a Nightmare, was I?

  I clenched my fists. “They robbed me of my powers. They were frightened by the idea that a stranger to their world possessed powers beyond their own.”

  How dare they eject me from my true home? Their actions hurt as much as the unjust way they’d come about. They’d piled charge after charge against me without even offering me the chance to defend myself. But what argument could have possibly been strong enough to overturn their horrible assumptions?

  Bitterness seeped into my heart like poison, hardening it past feeling. I’d only wanted to belong, but everything had been stolen from me. As my thoughts swirled with the injustice of it, a dark feeling emerged from where it’d been hidden deep inside me. The feeling grew, nourished as I relived every pain, every wrong, until I felt it consume me, a dark and heavy poison pounding through my bloodstream, one that cried for revenge.

  My hands tightened into fists as my hatred flared, searing through me like molten lava. “They. Will. Pay.”

  Stardust eyed me warily. “But how did they find out about your ability to see dreams in the first place?”

  I gritted my teeth. “That Nightmare betrayed me.” I couldn’t bear to say his name, not now. “He handed over all the information the Council needed to suspend me, even after he promised otherwise.” This pain, more than the others, was most unbearable.

  As if my anger was a summons, Darius appeared with a sizzling crack. At the sight of him, the conflicting urge to both hug him and throttle him warred within me.

  “There you are,” he said, his voice weak with relief. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  My eyes narrowed. He had some nerve acting like nothing was wrong after he’d single-handedly pounded the final nail in my coffin.

  False concern lined his eyes. “Are you alright?”

  Stardust morphed into a fence and protectively surrounded me. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Darius reached around her jagged bars to stroke my hair. I flinched away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Ah, my lady finally speaks.” He tried to smile but the edges of his mouth barely curved upwards. “What are you doing here? It’s not a good idea to be on Earth now, not until I finish clearing things up with the Council.”

  “Clearing things up?” I hissed. ”Is that what you call it? How dare you.”

  A frown replaced his attempted good humor as his gaze lowered to my locket. “What happened to your dream dust?”

  “I was suspended, you Nightmare.”

  He staggered back. “You were what? By what evidence?”

  “Plenty. Most provided by you, such as my ability to enter and capture dreams, as well as my relationship with my infamous mother. None of this is a shock for you, so you can stop pretending to be surprised.“

  “But I’m not pretending,” Darius said. “I swear I had nothing to do with it. I wouldn’t turn you in, not after everything. I’ve been trying to help you.” He tried to take my hand but I yanked away from his grip.

  “You call turning in your notebook of suspicions helping? It was all the Council needed to banish me like you’ve always wanted.”

  Darius’s face darkened. “What notebook?”

  I could barely think straight through my hurricane of emotion. “Stop toying with me; its spiderweb style was as good as your signature.”

  His eyes hardened. “I didn’t turn that notebook in, not when I promised I wouldn’t. But since my word evidently means nothing, I’ll prove it.” He looked through his bag, and after a moment of rummaging, he started searching frantically. “Where is it?”

  “Oh, how convenient you’ve suddenly lost it,” Stardust said dryly. “This just proves you handed it over to the Council. It’s as good as a signed confession.”

  Her commentary would only make this already trying confrontation more difficult. I turned to her. “Can you give us a moment alone?”

  She frowned in clear reluctance before slowly floating away, far enough to give us some privacy, but close enough to watch Darius through narrowed, suspicious eyes. He seemed unfazed by her scrutiny as he stepped closer, his gaze imploring.

  “I didn’t give the Council my notebook. Even if they got hold of it somehow, there’s no way they could have read it without me opening it.”

  I glared at him. “Exactly.”

  “But I swear I didn’t, I—”

  “Just stop it.” Didn’t he realize how deeply his pretending hurt me? “This has all been a twisted game to you. All you care about is yourself.”

  “That’s not true,” he said desperately. “I care about you. I could never hurt you considering how I feel towards you.”

  My heart ached to open itself up to his words, but I’d stopped trusting him, the wounds from his betrayal too deep, and the feelings I’d previously yearned to hear from him now felt poisonous. The Darius I’d grown to care for hadn’t been real, and I’d been a fool allowing myself to become caught in his carefully spun web.

  “Eden.”

  He stepped closer and cupped my chin. I shivered at his touch but couldn’t pull away, despite the pain his proximity brought me. Tears burned my eyelids and he gently wiped them away with his thumb. The sweetness of the gesture stabbed my already fragile heart.

  “I’ll go to the Council, explain that my findings were inconclusive and that I lied about everything, whatever it takes. I don’t know how they got my notebook, but I swear to you I’ll find out.”

  I ached to believe him, that the sincerity filling his eyes was real. “Why?” I whispered. “Why would you care wh
at happens to me?”

  He caressed my cheek. “Because I can’t reside in that world without you.”

  A strange warmth surged through me that almost extinguished the hot fury and intense pain raging inside of me.

  “Don’t you sense it?” he whispered. “Can’t you feel the connection between us, drawing us together? Don’t you think of me as often as I think of you? You never leave my thoughts. The only explanation I can think of—the one I’m hoping to be true…” His cheeks darkened and he looked away.

  My heart beat like a supernova in my chest. His implication was one I’d often pondered, even if I’d never put my secret wish into words lest it shatter any possibility of it being true…that we were Paired.

  But it was too late now. He’d squashed whatever emotion had begun between us while it was still a fragile bud, and now whatever sweet feelings may have existed could never blossom. I lowered my gaze, unable to look at him.

  Carefully, as if afraid I’d shatter, Darius wrapped his arms around me and held me close. I stiffened. But while the hardened part of me wanted nothing more than to push him away, the tiny portion of my heart that still beat yearned for him. I melted into his embrace, finding comfort in his warm chest pressing against my cheek.

  His lips grazed my hair. “I’m so sorry, Eden. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen to you. Please believe me.” His voice was pleading, compelling me to trust him.

  I traced my finger across the tattooed spiderweb that threaded his cheek, relishing the way he leaned against my touch, as if it meant something to him. Could it possibly? The desire to believe him filled my entire heart so much it ached, and for a flickering moment, I nearly did.

  But, almost against my will, I felt my heart hardening further, as if it was being encased in ice. Words meant nothing, promises were easily broken. I couldn’t allow myself to become tangled in his deceit anymore. I locked away every sweet feeling I felt towards him so securely that no key could ever open it again. I shook his arms off, even though severing our contact felt like I was carving out my own heart.

  “Eden, please.” He attempted once more to embrace me, but I twisted away.

  “Don’t touch me,” I hissed, and instantly he obeyed. “We can’t be together, not after what you did to me. If you had any remaining sliver of decency, you’d leave me alone.”

  “Eden—”

  “Leave!”

  For a moment he didn’t move, a defiance in his eyes that seemed to dare me to force him to abandon me, but slowly that light flickered and died. Without another word, he disappeared with a crack, leaving me crying silently in the gloom and shadows of the burnt remains of my home, with nothing more than the wounds scarring my heart.

  Yet despite my heartache, the love I felt for Darius didn’t fade. But I couldn’t live with his betrayal that had cost me everything I held dear. And although I locked all my feelings for him deep inside, I secretly hoped the pain would never completely vanish, but instead remain as a constant but welcome reminder of the connection we shared.

  He’d linger in my thoughts with every sharp beat of my heart.

  Stardust floated closer, snuggling against me to provide comfort, but it did little to soothe my pain. In the midst of my grief, a familiar voice I’d never expected to hear again rose from the gravesite of my home.

  "I thought he’d never leave. There’s nothing worse than a betrayer.” Mother slipped out from behind the remains of her garden gate. "Hello, Eden dear.”

  I stared, for a moment unsure whether she was real or a phantom who had risen from the cloudy ashes, but the spell broke the moment she held out her arms.

  “Mother!” I ran into her embrace, and immediately all my previous resentment and anger towards her melted away as her arms healed the wounds she’d left behind when she’d vanished. I burrowed against her chest and inhaled her scent—soil and blossoms, exactly like Mother. She was real. “I missed you so much.”

  She nestled against my head. “I missed you, too.”

  “Where have you been? I thought—”

  “Oh, my dear child.” Mother stroked my hair in her familiar way. “I didn’t want to leave you, but when you inadvertently created that magical fire out in the open, so close to my protective spells keeping me hidden, you left me no choice. If the Council had thought I’d done that magic, they would have found me for sure, something I couldn’t allow.”

  The stinging memories from her abandonment and secrets returned full force. Saving her own skin had been more important than me. I pulled out of her now burning embrace. “Why did you keep everything from me? You were always so insistent that magic doesn’t exist, giving me no opportunity to share my own powers with you.”

  She pursed her lips. ”I was sure I’d be able to tell if you had magic, and if you didn’t, I didn’t want you suspicious of me.” Mother searched my face, her expression calm but her eyes anxious. “I know it seems rather unfair, dear, and I can’t explain it all to you now, but I had to do it. It would have ruined everything if I’d been discovered.”

  That explanation wasn’t nearly good enough to wash away the sting of her abandonment. “But where have you been all this time?”

  “I have powers unknown to the pathetic Dream Council, powers that allowed me to do the impossible and regain the magic they’d stolen from me, and which kept me and any detection of my magic hidden, while always remaining close to you.”

  “No such spell exists,” Stardust said.

  Mother smirked. “Under ordinary magical laws that’s true, but with my enhanced abilities to craft new forms of magic, there are no limits to the spells I can create.” She pressed a gentle but firm finger against my lips to silence my next exclamation. “I was never far,” she said, as if that excused away all my anxieties and worries. “I arranged for my brother and his Pair to assist you where I could not.”

  “Who?“ But the answer suddenly seemed obvious. “You mean Blaze and Trinity?”

  Mother nodded. “My poor dear, you’ve been through so much. First your weaving partner betrayed you and now the Council has rejected you and your unique gift. It grieves me you had to go through such pain to learn the truth.”

  My heart quickened. “What truth?”

  “The truth that the Council and the entire Dream World are corrupt, so consumed with maintaining power that they’ll limit yours to further their own ends, just as they did with me.” She scowled. “They used their ignorance and fear as an excuse to suspend me, pushing me down to raise themselves up under the guise of maintaining the balance. But the balance is a lie. The Dream Council wants all the power for themselves. The Dream Realm rejected my extraordinary flowers that influenced dreams in remarkable ways, so I turned to those who would accept my gift.”

  I swallowed. “Are you really a Nightmare?” The word burned on my tongue.

  Mother didn’t answer immediately, but she couldn’t mask the fire raging in her eyes, one whose flames I still felt sizzling, unquenched, inside me. She slowly nodded, confirming my worst fears.

  “Sometimes in order to achieve our potential we have to break all the rules. The Nightmare Realm isn’t like the Dream Realm—they’re not afraid of unique magic. They’ll not only accept you but help you develop the full extent of your powers, as they did for me.”

  My heart pounded in my ears. What was she proposing? To join the Nightmare Realm? I couldn’t do that. I was a Dreamer.

  But even as I wished with all my heart for that to be true, doubt lapped at my thoughts like waves crashing against the shore. No one had exactly told me I was a Dreamer; I’d simply assumed I was one because I desperately wanted it to be so. Had everything I’d believed about myself been nothing more than a lie? Had what Trinity seen within me whenever she searched my heart been the Nightmare part of me I’d buried? Did I truly belong in the world Mother herself was a part of?

  “The Dream Realm aims to limit you, but you deserve more than to be shackled by such restraints,” Mother said. “We have s
uch plans, Eden, but we need your remarkable powers to accomplish them. If we combine our magic, we’ll be unstoppable.”

  A warning niggled my conscience, but I ignored it and leaned closer, eager to hear more. To never have to hide my unique talent anymore, to be able to explore and capture dreams at will…I stroked my dream locket, which hung limply from my neck. I’d never have an empty locket ever again.

  Stardust frowned as I fiddled with my locket. “Don’t listen to her. She’s trying to make you believe this is the only path available to you, but she’s wrong. Just because she walked it doesn’t mean you have to.”

  Mother glared at her, and for a brief moment, fear rippled over me at the coldness in her eyes, but her hardened expression cleared so quickly I wondered if I’d only imagined it.

  “This is the only path left to you,” Mother said. “The Dream Realm has left you no other choice.”

  It had…and yet I still hesitated, torn from the path I wanted to walk and the only one available to me. Stardust nudged against me, her eyes pleading. “You’re not like her. You don’t have to do this. There has to be another choice.”

  Another pinprick of doubt pierced my mind at her words, like a sliver of sun breaking through a stormy sky. Gentle reminders whispered in my thoughts—my fierce yearning to prove I belonged in the Dream World, the only place that truly felt like home; the sweet joy at seeing Maci sleep peacefully after I’d succeeded in weaving a pleasant dream; and the fear that crept over me when I’d hovered near the border of the Nightmare Realm. Was the Dreamer path still open for me after all?

  I immediately suppressed these doubts, locking them in the same place in my heart I’d reserved for Darius. Mother was right: continuing to try to belong in the Dream World was like forcing a square peg into a round hole. I’d never fit in, no matter how hard I tried. Despite all my efforts, the unjust Council had rejected me and my magic, and now only one world remained open to me, a world which promised to accept me just as I was. There was no other way.

  “You can’t do this.” A fierce desperation filled Stardust’s voice at my continued silence. “We’ll come up with a plan to clear your name with the Council. Please, Eden.”