Four men slapped their horses at Jarovid’s count.
I cried, throwing myself upon her once more, but this time I was not spared the violence.
I held her body against mine as she screamed, clutching her as arms and legs were pulled in four different directions, sobbing into her hair, promising her it was okay, that I had her, that I would save her, as she was ripped in quarters.
I cried into the bloodied stump of her torso before it evaporated.
A single light illuminated an infant at the center of the room.
I stopped short.
I turned away from the infant only to see it appear in the opposite direction under the same spotlight.
“This isn’t real,” I said, first to myself, then to the room. I closed my eyes but knew it wouldn’t be enough. Nightmares didn’t work by closing your eyes. Not when your vile bitch of a sister came from the Court of Nightmares.
“Izi,” I seethed, “You are almost clever.”
I knew what was happening, but I was still losing.
She’d never outrank me in the Royal Court. Only the heir to the throne would inherit the king’s powers. Her royal blood was useless while I lived. Even if she could take me in battle, she wasn’t a god-killer. A thousand years of perfectly honed skill, and even my beheading would see me knitted together to return and seek vengeance. She couldn’t best me on mortal soil, nor in Hell.
The air left my lungs.
A crushing weight suffocated me.
I scrambled for reason, for a foothold in logic, as I searched for my assailant.
A cough, a gag, and my knees hit the cobblestones. I braced myself, hands clutching rock as I choked on something horrible. A rope? No, it was moving. I heaved, puking the head of a cobra as it twisted backward, its body still invading my throat, fangs dripping as it poised to strike.
I grabbed just behind its jaw and ripped it out, esophagus raw as the scope of our battle seeped into me with horrifying clarity.
The Nightmare Realm, however…I was ready for swords. Give me fire, fists, warriors. Roll me in storms, drown me, burn me alive. But I’d spent so much time with my human that I was nearly mortal, myself. My nightmare was singular. And this…this was a trap I didn’t know how to escape, unless…
The infinitely black room.
The single light.
A helpless infant in a life I hadn’t gone to the mortal realm to protect.
I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t rage. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t break.
I looked toward the ceiling and tried the only thing I had left.
“If she dies,” I said, letting my voice quake, “I’ll still love her.”
The light reappeared on the ceiling, the baby upside down as the nightmare tried to force me to look at it. But terrors fed on panic, on urgency, on suffering.
I looked down, hands clenched, and said, “She’ll die. She always dies. She’s mortal. Sometimes she dies of old age, happy, loved, and safe. Sometimes she dies because you’re a cunt. Sometimes I feel guilty…but do you know what I learned about those times?”
The infant again, this time deep underground, as if through a translucent floor. The single spotlight flickered. The infant itself wobbled, struggling to keep its form.
“I felt really fucking guilty when you convinced me to stay in Hell,” I said. “Turns out, I had nothing to feel guilty for. Her deaths are onyou. I didn’t intervene because I trusted you. Briefly. You’re an absolute disappointment. You know why you never earned father’s favor?”
The light flickered until it strobed in and out of visibility.
The baby appeared inches from me, but the unstable dream had no face as the lighting disintegrated.
“You enjoy your jaunts on the surface? It was fine, the same way we let cows graze in the fields, Izi. It’s fine when the cow stays in the pasture. But you’re a cow who’s broken out of the fence. You’re incompetent. You’re an embarrassment. You became a fucking liability.”
