“But I didn’t come here to talk to you about last night. I promised you information, and if you think it will help you stay out of the Crown’s graveyard, then I’m happy to give it, even if you have no interest in our cause.”
She slid the heavy book across the bed to Elysia and tapped it with her fingers. “Tell me what it’s like where you go. When you travel in your sleep.”
Elysia stared past their faces at the plain wall in front of her. Whoever lived here didn’t even have a single painting or piece of art. She’d told Beatriz and Gage about how she left her body and found herself in another land, another place, but she hadn’t divulged what happened once she was there. Right when she thought she’d told everything there was to tell, she found another piece of herself to lay bare.
It was all too easy to conjure up visions of the dream inside her head. After pushing away the images for months, theysprang up and unfolded like a story, waiting to be told. Body tired and aching, she told them her tale.
“I fall asleep the same as anyone and when I wake, it’s in another land—another realm, perhaps.” She paused, eyes lost in her memories. “Kava seems to degrade more and more with each passing year, but this is different. It’s death and decay and yet there’s life.”
Beatriz coughed like an old man, hacking without shame or subtlety. Everyone stared, and the Doorman’s brow pinched with concern, but she waved them off. “What do you mean?”
Elysia let out a soft breath in the back of her throat, wishing her ribs and face would stop throbbing so she could concentrate. She searched for the words to describe this other world she fell into while asleep. The first image that came to mind was her bare feet, planted deep in the loamy dirt, how it oozed and chilled her toes. How the overwhelming expanse of the charcoal atmosphere hung over her with foreboding.
“Death seems natural there, I suppose. The soil is dark and rich—fertile, beneath my feet. The sky is a swirl of black and turquoise with a blood red haze. The trees are like bones. White with needle thin fingers. I’ve never seen anything like them. And there’s a river. I don’t think it’s one you would want to fall into.” She blanched a little, thinking of the dark, oil-slick river. It was beautiful, but so were many deadly things.
Mari struggled to keep the fear and awe from her face. “What happens when you’re there?”
Elysia chewed on her chapped lips that still tasted of blood and gently touched the cool poultice strapped over her swollen shut eye.
“There’s this song. It’s haunting, echoing out from nowhere and everywhere all at once. And I’m drawn to it, but the dream never lasts. The music feels like it’sforme though, which I knowdoesn't make any sense at all.” Her chest ached even at the thought of it.
She ran her hand over her face and regretted it at once, able to feel just how swollen and misshapen she’d become.
Mari paled now and her voice came out a bit choked. “Have you ever seen anyone while you’re there?”
Elysia scratched at the dried blood on her hands. “I always have a strange feeling of someone watching. I even thought there was someone once, but no matter where I look, there’s no one. Like I said, I’m never there very long.”
Beatriz’s face wrinkled in distaste. “Gods, Lys, of all the places—you managed to find somewhere even worse than Kava. Sounds creepy. Like dead people creepy.” Her last words ended in a mutter.
Mari’s face swung hard to Beatriz. “I think that’s exactly where she is. Where death himself lives—they used to call it the realm of death and deals.”
She picked at short, bitten nails and took a deep breath. “Elysia, magic didn’t just suddenly disappear from Kava one day. It was stolen. By the man—the god who rules that land.”
Elysia wanted to scoff and brush the rebel leader aside. They were a godless land. She hadn’t grown up going to temples or making petitions with offerings or flames. Other lands still believed the undead gods were the source of magic, but who was to say? Growing up in Kava, the stories of the gods weren’t even allowed to pass over your lips. The idea that this undead god of death had swooped in like a villain and stolen all their magic felt far-fetched and a little silly. Yet her skin prickled and she felt the weight of Mari’s words. At the very least, Mari believed what she was saying.
Elysia chose her words carefully, keeping her skepticism from her voice. “Let’s say that’s all true. Why would agodneed our magic? Isn’t that where people who believe in the gods saythe magic comes from? Andifit is there, can it be taken back?”
Mari threw up her hands. “I don’t know! All the stories paint the gods as extremely fickle. Maybe he was bored. Maybe someone pissed him off. Maybe he’s just greedy.” Mari closed her eyes, containing her burst of passion. “You don’t know Victoria.”
The small brunette from the night before flashed through Elysia’s mind.
“But she’s never wrong. Her visions are terrifyingly accurate, and I’m telling you she has seen the land you’re describing over and over. If she says that’s where our magic is, then I believe her.”
Beatriz threw Mari an unimpressed look and turned back to her sister. “Sounds like a load of shit to me. Fuck Kava, fuck magic. Get out of here while you can.”
Elysia rolled her eyes, but knew her sister was serious, and frankly, she had a point. Her mind conveniently glossed over the bit about there being a god powerful enough to steal an entire kingdom’s magic. She knew the very thought ought to inspire fear and trepidation. But as seemed to be happening lately, her anger opened its eyes, ready to spit at the idea of someone being so arrogant as to doom an entire people all for a bit more magic. Their kingdom was rotting. Soot falling to the ground and turning people’s blood black, and even though no one would say it, everyone knew it had started after the Fall. Finally, she had someone to blame, and it pleased no small part of her to think of stealing Kava’s magic back.
She spoke darkly to none of them in particular. “It’s hard to even imagine that Kava wasn’t always like this...”
Kava, a dirty stain in their magical world, somehow still standing as the one mundane, godless kingdom in existence. She thought about all those trips with her father to other lands, andnot for the first time, wondered if he had kept her locked away on ships and in carriages for fear of her seeing how beautiful the world could be with magic free.
Mari tapped the book again. “Read the stories. If you’re going to be pulled into enemy land, then you should at least know who you’re dealing with.”
Elysia snorted. Where wasn’t enemy land? She was a woman with undead gifts. She was an enemy of the Crown who had been stupid enough to lay with its prince. Maybe she should just take her chances in this new, unknown enemy land. How bad could this god be?
She finally looked clearly at the book, her heart picking up its pace. She grabbed Beatriz’s arm. “Triz, that’s the book. The book from the library!”
Beatriz’s mouth formed a pinched, flat line of distaste. She snatched up the book, not bothering to ask for permission. Rifling through the pages, she closed the book with a clap. “Of course it is. Right, so magic lady, how do we stop it? Because whatever garbage you were just spewing about my sister trying tosave magicisn’t happening. This kingdom is a shithole and will die a shithole, no use getting taken down with it.” She stared pointedly.
