Vivid images of the bloody woman threaten to replay in my mind. I’ve had nightmares before, but nothing like this. Even after waking it all feels too real, like I am still in that room, gripped by fear and screaming at the carnage surrounding me.
Wrapping my arm around my stomach I heave again, struggling topush my dark thoughts into the farthest reaches of my mind.
You are safe. It was just a dream.
I find the shadow master atop his bedroll, poised to sprint across the fire to my side. Plucking my waterskin from the ground, I empty half of it, rinsing out my mouth as I observe him.
“It must have been something I ate,” I lie.
His face is pale with no hint of the smile he usually graces me with. His mouth forms a thin line as he shakes his head.
I fall back onto my bedroll with a graceless thud. “It was just a bad dream.”
His eyebrows hit his hairline. “Justa bad dream?”
“Yes.Justa bad dream.”
Rolling onto my side, I turn my back to the fire and my friend. I have no interest in going over the gruesome details with him. It takes hours to rid my body of the tremors I woke with, and I don’t find sleep until the night sky begins to grey with the faintest light of the coming dawn.
When I wake, late the next morning, the shadow master looks as if he hasn’t moved since I last laid eyes on him. Still crouched with a deadly scowl, he appears to have at least regained some of his color.
“Why do you look like you're about to end someone?” I huff, trying to lighten his mood as I pull myself to my feet.
He blinks twice, eyes flicking from my bedroll to my face, as if he hadn’t noticed me rise. He loses a small bit of the tension in his body with a deep breath and a shake of his head, his face softening.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Never mind.” I shake my head. “I’ll catch us some breakfast.”
The rest of the week goes by too quickly. I settle into our lazy routine of fishing and laying in the sun. The shadow master even teaches me to forage fresh herbs from the forest and which ones to combine to make the most delicious foods. I imagine this is what a perfect life would be like if it weren’t for one thing. The dreams.
The nightmares persist, and, though I don’t wake violently ill again after the first night, I continue to be thrown from the bloody visions in a full panic during the early hours of each morning after. Every morning isthe same, I wake to find the shadow master watching me, poised to launch across the fire. A thread of something unknown to me lingers deep in his eyes. Eyes that hold dark and weary circles by the time we pack our bags on the last morning. I can’t help but wonder if I look the same.
“Here,” he hands me two obsidian blades as he slings his pack over his shoulder, “Keep these.”
“Why?” I don’t mean to argue, but the daggers are a curious gesture.
I am allowed to have weapons, but the Drakai custom has always been that we earn our blades in battle.
“To fend off the demons.” It’s the only answer he gives me before turning north and starting toward the keep.
I don’t ask what he means as I throw my pack over my shoulders and follow him. I don’t want to know what he observed in our time in The Smudge, or what demons he’s seen that have kept him from his sleep.
I fist their hilts tightly, fearing nothing in the waking world and feeling silly that the cool, smooth stone at my fingertips somehow eases my mind. They may not be suited to fight the darkness that plagues me, but I feel my shoulders relax as I will that darkness into the blades for safe keeping.
CHAPTER 5
OUT AT SEA
Present Day
Iflinch when Vakesh lets himself into my room the next morning, the creak of the door as it swings open landing on my ears like the crack of thunder. My stomach roils and my head pounds as if it will rupture with every heavy step he takes toward me. Moaning my disapproval at his presence, I crack my eyes open in time to see him pick up the empty jug discarded at the end of my bed. He sniffs it to verify its contents, or lack thereof, his head snapping back in clear revulsion.
“What did you do?” he asks, mildly horrified.
“I took your advice.”
“That is a terrible idea. Why would you do such a thing?” he laughs.
