Dyna looked away, swallowing the wave of emotion dragging through her. She could never bring herself to get rid of the bed. On the days she was exhausted or distracted, a mirage of her little brother’s sleeping form appeared to fill its space. Sometimes Thane’s laughter echoed on the hills outside, his cheerful voice calling out to his friends. It always sounded so real.
“Was it the dark that frightened you?” Lyra asked, her small voice too laden to belong to a child of nine.
Dyna didn’t know what frightened her more. The dark? The past? Or the future?
Lyra slipped out of her tight hug and hopped off the bed. She hurried to the desk covered in a disarray of books and scrolls, where one lit candle remained. With it, she relit the others one at a time until the room filled with a warm hue. Lyra beamed in satisfaction. She was a small gangly thing, in a white chemise falling past her knees. At her sweet smile, Dyna offered a small one back.
“‘And then there was light,’” Lyra said, quoting the archaic teachings of the Sacred Scrolls. A saying their grandmother used to tell Dyna when her fear of the dark first started.
The light lifted something heavy off her, and she could breathe.
“Thank you,” Dyna murmured. Eighteen was much too old to have such a childish fear, but whenever she found herself alone in the dark, those red eyes always found her.
Lyra tilted her head. “Was it the same nightmare again? About Mother, Father, and Thane, of the night they died?”
Shards of memories cut through Dyna’s eyes, mouth and ears gathering into a broken pile on her lap. “Yes.”
Lyra returned to the bed, curled up beside her, and covered them with a blanket. She yawned, eyes falling heavy. The dawn’s morning light filtered in through the window and graced her cherubic face. Her lashes cast faint patterns on her soft cheeks. “Will you tell me about it?”
Dyna shook her head no. The past had not reached her sister, and she would keep it that way.
“Please?”
“Perhaps one day.”
Lyra mumbled a complaint. She nestled closer and soon drifted off to sleep again. Dyna rested her back against the headboard. She watched the candlelight flicker on the exposed rafters constructing the sloped ceiling, attempting to quiet her mind.
Not all of her dreams were of shadows. Sometimes she dreamed of flying with the warm wind carrying her over a gleaming sea. Invisible wings wove her through the wisps of clouds, where the endless sky waited.
The bedroom door creaked open and Grandmother Leyla peeked inside. Long gray hair cascaded down her shoulders, framing her round timeworn face and soft brown eyes full of worry.
“I heard the screams. Oh blossom, look at the state of you. You’re as pale as cream. Are you all right?”
“It’s nothing, Grandmother,” Dyna whispered. She reached out for her grandmother’s soft hand, catching the comforting trace of clove and lavender, and the strength she bore. It was a miracle her grandmother had survived that night. Dyna may not have been able to recover without her. “I’m fine.”
Grandmother Leyla gave her a sad smile. She glanced around the room at the many candles and at the disorderly desk, its smooth, beveled edges. “It’s been quite a while since you have had those dreams, but this is the fifth occurrence within a fortnight. It has stemmed from your relentless study of The Seven Gates and the dark things we have no business delving into.”
Her petite frame settled on the end of the bed. “Which dream was it this time? The Shadow pursuing you up the mountain? Or the Glass Tree?”
“No.” Dyna glanced at Thane’s bed. “The moment before.”
The creases of her grandmother’s face deepened with sorrow. “Perhaps it is time to store the wee thing away. It only serves to remind you of memories best forgotten.”
Her grandmother had lost many loved ones in her life, and Dyna wondered who she thought of now.
“If I had been taken that night, would you have forgotten me?”
“Oh, no, I would never.” Grandmother gently squeezed her hand. “I thank the God of Urn every day for Zev. No one else could have found you in the snowstorm.”
Beyond the window, the sparse forest climbed up the base of the mountains. A tree stood taller from all the rest; its knotted pewter trunk and gossamer leaves catching the morning light. The Glass Tree the villagers called it, but its proper species name wasHyalus. Its magic had shielded her from the Shadow, but the ice would have claimed her if not for her werewolf cousin. It was his keen sense of smell that tracked her down. Although Zev had recovered her body, her mind had been gone for some time.
Grief was a peculiar thing. It knocked her to the ground, pinned her under its weight, and carved a hole in her chest. It smothered her in a bitterness that fed off her cries until she had no more to give.
Dyna stared blankly out the window. “I was lost when he found me.”
“But you returned,” her grandmother said.
She had to when her emotions gave away to fear. Grief crippled her body, but fear seized her mind. It lived in the corners of her consciousness, a sardonic voice that murmured in her ear each night. It laughed at her failure to protect her family and reveled in her pain.
