“I think this god feeds on sound minds. And this room is nothing but images from a very broken one. Or many broken ones. I’m not sure the answers we want are here. At least, not in a way we know how to read.”
He cleared his throat, leaning in close. “Then what we doin’ here?”
I turned, glancing over my shoulder at Dahlia. She was speaking with Meridan, but the way her hand was rested on the hilt of her blade made me pause. Realizing I was distracted, Mullins spun to notice the same peculiar interaction and the two of us slowly began to move closer. The moment Meridan reached toward Dahlia and she recoiled as if bitten by a snake, an alarm bell chimed in my head. I clutched at Lady Mary as Dahlia turned away, pressing her palms to her eyes, and felt a rush of urgency pour through me.
“Dahlia,” I said.
She shuddered as if my voice had cut her. “It’s not real,” she whispered. “You’renot real.”
Meridan stepped forward, her hand extended again as if to touch her. I reached for her, pulling her away.
“Dahlia, look at me.”
“You can’t hear it?” she whimpered.
“Hear what?”
Mullins and Meridan both took a glance around the room as if searching for the source of her suffering.
“Leave,” she said.
“What?”
“Leave. Leave, all of you. Leave!”
“We’re not leaving you,” Meridan insisted, reaching out again, that time too quickly for me to intercede.
Dahlia grasped at her cutlass, sliding it abruptly from its leather sheath, and spun, swinging the blade toward Meridan’s neck as if to slice her head clean off.
“No!” Mullins shouted.
Meridan was quick enough to evade the blow, but she tripped over Mullin’s foot to do so. He rushed to pull her back to her feet.
“Dahlia, stop!” Meridan said.
Once more, Dahlia’s hand was pressed to her head as if fighting a debilitating headache. Then she clutched her chest, her fingers prodding at the little bronze pendant hanging around her neck as she fell to her knees.
“It’s not working,” she gasped. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Whatever you’re hearing, it’s not real,” I said. “No one else can hear it.”
“Then what good is this! He’s already in my head. It cannot shield me from something only I can hear.”
“Get up,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
The moment I stepped toward her, she raised her blade, cutting the air in front of me. Whether it was a warning or an attempt, I couldn’t tell.
“This is what it felt like, isn’t it,” she said, lurching to her feet, her eyes growing dark. “When Reyna commanded you to kill your father.” She winced, her face screwing up with pain. “Every bone in my body doesn’t want me to do it, but… I can’t…”
“You can fight it. Whatever you’re hearing that we are not, you can fight it.”
“Did you?”
“You’re stronger than me.”
“I’m not. I can’t do this.”
“You can.”
