Therefore, I’ll be staying in the mortal realm to hold Maven as much as I can get away with, until the end finds me.
Gently running my hand over Maven’s naked body, I relish the soft, smooth feel of her bare back as her head rests on the pillow beside mine. My beautiful dreamer needed no help from me to fall asleep tonight. Although blessing all those people didn’t seem to affect her, she must still be recovering from the spell that sealed her heart back inside her lovely chest.
My quiet adoration of the woman I love is interrupted when I sense a nightmare unfurling quickly nearby. Even though I’m in the mortal realm, I can sense the acrid heaviness of it. The cold, heart-rending fury.
I’ve sensed this same dream before. Frost used to get it almost every night, after the battle. At the time, I was too numbed and empty to do a thing about it if I ever came across it—instead, I carried on with my murderous plight.
But knowing he’s reliving the moment he lost her, all over again…
With a quiet sigh, I kiss Maven’s forehead and allow myself to fall back into Limbo, allowing her to go on resting comfortably on the bed. Turning, I grasp the tendrils of the raging nightmare beside us and delve into Frost’s nightmare.
He’s holding her as the world plunges into ice and snow. Nearby, Crane is going mad. I’m somewhere in this recollection, and royal blue flames are quickly eating up the battlefield in the distance as Decimus goes feral.
I know this is just a dream of a memory, but I still can’t bring myself to look at Maven’s motionless body again. I recall that moment all too clearly—returning with the head of the one who hurt Frost, only to find her hauntingly beautiful eyes left open as she stared lifelessly at the turbulent sky.
This horrific memory haunted me, too, inside of Syntyche’s punishment.
Frost’s agony is making this dream tremble as he tries to wake himself. His subconscious is doused in the grief and helpless despair I saw in him every day after she was gone. Deciding to be done with it, I ignore the pain in my limbs and the clenching in my lungs as I twist his dream, reframing and re-weaving it.
Finally, Frost is left blinking as he finds us back in the small cabin where he first bonded with our keeper, back when our quintet was on the run.
“Feels like an eternity since we were really here,” I note, flicking one of the branches of the small tree we’d brought inside for Maven’s first Starfall Eve.
I can tell he’s caught up to his new surroundings when he sighs hoarsely, rubbing his scarred face. “Fuck. Thanks.”
I could leave, but then again…I owe him something.
Getting around to it is more difficult than I thought, so I end up sniffing the air and frowning. “You must have a strong memory because your dreams are oddly crisp. Fresh as a mint.”
Frost shoots me a look. “I didn’t ask. Now, are you going to say whatever shit you’re sticking around in my head to say, or what?”
He’s right. Better to get this over with.
I look him in the eye. “If you hadn’t sent me on errant missions to fill my time, I would have made it to the Beyond far sooner to look for her there. So, th…” I trail off and sigh, trying again. “You have my th…”
Frost rolls his eyes. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Let’s just call it even,” I finally decide.
“Even?”
"You once broke Maven’s heart in a woefully misguided attempt to protect her. However, you’re also the reason I get a bitmore time with her. So we’ll call things even, and I’ll retire the idea of slowly driving you mad in your dreams for the next few decades.”
He stares at me. “You were planning on driving me insane?”
“Of course. You hurt her,” I shrug.
Next thing I know, I’ve been kicked out of Frost’s subconscious as he finally rouses himself back into the mortal realm, looking around frantically. When he sees Maven now cuddled up against Decimus, he exhales with relief.
“Fucking incubus,” he mutters, glaring at the exact spot where I’m sitting on the bed in Limbo.
How annoying that the others can tell precisely where I am now.
Crane slips into the room, his attention also going to where I sit in Limbo. “I have something for your curse that may help temporarily.”
Curious, I appear back in the mortal realm. Immediately, pain rips through my body. I choke, swallowing blood back down as my markings light up, searing my skin. When it finally stops, I can feel the familiar, strange coldness on my right arm as I’ve felt other places. One quick glance confirms that another one of my markings has vanished entirely.
Ignoring the lingering pain, I look at Crane. “Onlyreveriumsoothes it.”
