My lungs forget how to work.
Her knees are drawn tight to her chest. Her hair is a pale spill across the stone. One arm is wrapped over her head, as if she’s trying to protect herself from sound.
She’s not bound, or chained. This is… worse.
She’ssmall.
My vision tunnels. Blood rushes in my ears, roaring.
“What,” I say, and my voice is too quiet, “thefuckis going on?”
Valcor’s eyes widen as they both whirl. “Veyr.”
Nythen only clenches his jaw, refusing to look at me. But he doesn’t look at her either. “She wouldn’t answer. We needed information.”
I take one step forward. The shadows along the walls deepen in response.
Not Kaelen’s shadows, butmine.The erevas that lives in the cracks between waking and sleeping, the power that knows how to slip inside a skull and lock the door behind them. The erevas that I try not to use.
Both of them take a step back. Nythen summons his own erevas. He has his torture skills, but he can cast, too. “Don’t be a fool.”
He’s wrong to think I’m listening. Her chest rises in shallow breaths. She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t react to my voice or my presence at all, even though her eyes are open.
That emptiness inside me snaps.
“You were told,” I say softly, and my gaze lifts to Valcor first, then Nythen. “Not totouchher.”
Dreamwalker erevas doesn’t feel like the rest, or so I’ve been told. It’s notpleasurable. It’s a cold pressure behind my eyes, a door unlatching.
Valcor and Nythen stiffen at the same time.
“I didn’t touch her,” Nythen says sharply. “She’s unharmed.”
I smile without warmth. “Like this?”
The air between us ripples. Both of their pupils blow wide before shifting and becoming unfocused, glassy.
I pour my worst nightmares into their minds like ink into water. Not images I choose carefully, but the worst ones. The ones that choose themselves, that have lived in me since I was a scared child who didn’t understand that touching skin brought memories I didn’t want inside my head.
Valcor’s breath catches in a strangled gasp. His hands fly up, clawing at the air as if something invisible is crawling over him. His knees buckle, and he stumbles into the wall, a sob already catching in his throat.
Nythen makes a choking sound. His jaw clenches, as if he’s trying to resist. His eyes squeeze shut.
I always wondered who was stronger. When he turns and vomits onto the stone, Iknow. Valcor groans, head jerking as if he’s trying to shake the horrors loose. Nythen’s fingers curl into fists, trembling, his face pale under the lantern light.
They break so easily under what I see every moment of everyday.
I hold them there, pinned in their own minds. I could break them. I could leave them lost in it until their hearts give up, until they expire from pure fear and nothing else. And for a long, drawn-out moment, I think I’m going to.
But Lyra makes a small sound. A soft, broken inhale, and every part of me turns toward that sound. Even the nightmares.
“Lyra,” I whisper. I kneel beside her, ignoring the choked sounds behind me. “Lyra, it’s me.”
Her gaze shifts sluggishly toward me, unfocused.
Behind me, Valcor whimpers. Nythen’s breath comes in sharp, ragged pulls. They’re still trapped, still blind, still drowning in what I’ve given them.
I keep them there, and I wait.
