Suddenly, her body spun in a fluid twirl, white skirts blooming out in a circle around her ankles. She moved as if she wanted to spoil his shot—yet somehow, he had already accounted for it. The arrow cut through the air and knocked the object clean from her head.
I watched in awe.
She stopped moving.
Her eyes locked with his, and in that heartbeat, sadness flickered across her face. It was fleeting, vanishing when her lips stretched into a wide, brilliant smile.
I shifted, uneasy, as he started walking to where she stood in the clearing. Because his dark hair fell across one side, the rest tied back in a rough ponytail, I couldn’t see his face. His whole frame was cloaked in black.
She beamed at him, and when he reached her, she leapt into his arms, making my stomach twist because it felt like I was intruding.
The archer’s hand circled her in a careful and respectful embrace, before pressing her back a step. Her smile returned instantly, and I watched her lips move, whispering something only he could hear.
This wasn’t my dream.
It didn’t belong to me.
I was intruding, I was an unwanted guest forced to stand on the sidelines while lovers touched and laughed and moved together like the world had shrunk to only them.
But why am I here?
They started walking north, and she grabbed his free hand, holding it as she leaned into him.
And then he stopped.
Every nerve in my body tensed.
As if my mind knew his next move, I began to back into the tree, sliding behind the trunk just as he turned his head.
I didn’t know why I hid. I just knew I had to.
My instincts told me to.
The soft press of my mattress against my back brought me to reality. My eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the pale slant of morning light as I stared up at the ceiling.
What was that again?
Why was I seeing someone else’s dream? Why had I hidden when the archer turned his head, like some primal instinct had screamed at me to stay unseen?
Usually, dreams slipped through my fingers by the time I rinsed my face in the sink. But not this one. It pressed against me as I rose, followed me into the bathroom, slipped its fingers around my thoughts as cold water rushed over my skin. Even as I dressed. Even as I padded downstairs to the sound of knife against cutting board.
The dream loosened only when Thrax took its place.
He stood in the kitchen, his back to me, shoulders broad, one arm moving as he cut something, not even twitching at the sound of my steps behind him.
It had been three days since I’d given him the bracelet, and not once had I seen it on his wrist. Perhaps he’d thrown it away. Our daily routine was pretty much the same—he'd wake up earlier than me, prepare breakfast, watch me eat, and then disappear until evening. By then, he’d find me wherever I’d wandered, his expression sometimes so heavy I thought the weight of the world had been nailed onto his shoulders.
Lately, I’d started going out more often just so I could feel the odd thrill of him finding me, like some silent game only we were playing. In between those evenings, I would bury myself in books and journals, searching, and trying to stitch together research that might become a thesis worth defending. It saddened me that I had to call the research on The Crater quit, but the last time I’d gone near it, it almost took my life, and that had scared the shit out of me. Also, I’dcome to the harsh conclusion that The Crater was a wall I couldn’t get past without offering my life in return.
So I had turned to the Soulless Man. Since the aim of my thesis was to research new things or bring old, forgotten history to light, I’d rolled my dice on him. He was old and— of course, not forgotten. Who would forget the man who made the world the way it was?
It was a widely known thing that once, there was no such thing as darkness on earth. Night didn’t exist. There was just endless daylight.
Until he killed Selvanyra’s offspring. Until her grief bled into the sky, and her wails blackened the world. The stars and moon were said to be proof that she hadn’t vanished entirely, only folded herself into the sky.
What would a world of endless day have looked like? I shook my head.
Yesterday made it two weeks I’d been in Nimorran, and today marked the beginning of another two weeks. I’d wasted the last two weeks on nothing, mostly fighting death every time I went near the hills. The rest of the fourteen days had to be very productive, unless I wanted to prove my mother right.
