“Do you want to fight the demon all by yourself, then? Because that reality is imminent.”
Definitelynot. “No, but—”
The door to the cottage swung open, revealing the raven-haired boy. His face was red and splotchy, tears shining silver upon his skin, and the half-formed sounds of a violent argument followed him.
“You wretched beast!” screamed the boy’s father. From the window he had appeared handsome; now his face was skull-like and quickly turning gray. “You are a curse to all who know you. Filthy,filthyboy!”
The boy tried to speak. “I just wanted to help—”
“You are not our son,” the woman joined in, flinging her own words of condemnation into the night. She, too, had been beautiful, with black, flowing hair and fine, feminine features. Now her skin festered, sagging into deep, dripping wrinkles that opened into sores as they melted off her face. “A son would not make his parents choose between their lives and the life of their child.”
“A son would not dream when he should be working to provide.”
“A son would not let his parents die!”
Together they screamed at the boy for stealing their food and leaving them to starve. They blamed him—damned him—foreverything. Their hunger, their poverty, their pain, and even their deaths. It was all the boy’s fault. It would always be his fault.
The Shadow Bringer looked away, cursing low and deep.
This dream was terrible and cruel. It was the kind of dream I was warned about as a child—a dream of unimaginable pain, brought on by a demon who sought nothing but to devour souls.
But this dream of a young Shadow Bringer from over five hundred years ago was all wrong. Dreams like this weren’t supposed to have existed back then. Theycouldn’t. Not before Corruption and the rise of the Shadow Bringer.
“Why are they treating you like this?” I asked, horrified. “They’re your parents, aren’t they?”
“They are.”
“So the dream is distorting them? It’s taking your memories of them and twisting it into something worse.”
He didn’t answer.
“Their food always disappears!” the boy howled into his empty hands. Except they weren’t empty—not exactly. Two ugly red welts bloomed across his skin, wrapping down his palms and up his forearms. “Why? Why does this always happen to me?”
The boy’s parents loomed over him, forcing him to kneel.
“I just want to help you,” the boy sobbed. “I just want you to love me.”
“We will never love you,” his father snarled, spitting at the boy’s hands even as he grasped for their feet. “You’re a pitiful excuse for a son.”
“I miss you both so much,” the boy cried. “Why do I only ever see you in my nightmares?”
“Because only good boys have good dreams. You’re a worm who belongs in the dirt and the dark.”
His mother reached down, and for a moment, it looked as if she might embrace him. The boy looked up, hopeful even through his tears. But just as her nails grazed his cheek, she slapped him. Hard.
Instinctively, I lurched forward, but the Shadow Bringer grabbed my arm, pulling me away.
“You don’t need to see this.”
I dug my heels in. “He needs our help, Bringer.”
“There’s no time,” he said, shaking his head. “And even if there was, it would not change anything.”
“But—”
“It’s coming. The demon is coming.”
From the pond a creature began to emerge, a behemoth of dark, purpled skin. Its skull was distorted, its mouth a mass of long, curling fangs that bent all the way back into its spine. It lacked arms or legs, so it dragged itself to the shoreline in heavy, sliding pulls, and red smokingeyes peered around, searching for something. It looked different from how it had appeared in Elliot’s dream, but I knew in my soul they were one and the same.
