I sit up, leaning across to the side table where a helpful servant has left a carafe and an empty glass. The surface of the water glints in the moonlight peeking between the curtains, and I pour myself some, lifting it to my lips.
A bitter iron tang fills my mouth, and I cough, spitting the horrible taste back out into the glass. When I lift it to the light, I see it’s not water at all but dark, purplish blood.
I lose control of my hand, and the glass slips from my fingers. It hits the floor, the crimson liquid spilling across the rug, except it fizzes like acid. Heart thudding, I watch the floor crumble away under the bite of its touch, revealing a black night full of stars.
What in the gods?
It dawns on me then. I’m dreaming.
Why didn’t I realize it before? I’ve seen other people’s dreams. I know how often their minds trick them into thinking the visions surrounding them are real.
But that never happens to me. I’ve always been in command of my unconscious self, able to shape the dream around me as I please. Is this lack of control a side effect after my encounter with the scythe?
Waking myself in the dream world is always easy enough. I just create a door and walk through it. The bedroom is still mostly intact, so I stand to exit, glancing down at the dream version of Ana.
See you on the other side, my love.
I open the door and walk through it…
…into a field of flowers.
I blink at the bright sunshine and curse. This definitely isn’t the waking world. So where am I? Or more precisely—whose mind am I in?People’s dreamscapes are always unique to them. They’ll have a certain scent that keeps cropping up, or a color that always looks brighter than the others. This person has a fixation with yellow. The flowers are so vividly yellow they’re almost hard to look at.
I see him then, moving through the field, hands outstretched to touch the petals. The half-dryad, Mal.
Strange. How would I have stumbled into his mind? I’ve never visited his dreams before, nor have I ever wanted to. We get along well enough, but I wouldn’t say we’re close.
I’m likely invisible to him. Most people can’t see me in their dreams unless I make myself known or they’re expecting me. Ilook around for a subtle spot to make a door. I don’t want to spend all night watching the rebel count flowers, after all.
But just as I turn my back on the dryad, he screams.
I whip around and see him cradling his hand, now bright with blood. The flowers crowd in around him, only now they’re dark, malicious blooms jagged with thorns. As he tries to run from them, they tear and bite at his body, ripping gashes in his flesh. Frantically, he passes his hand over his wounds. He’s trying to heal himself, but the cuts simply split open again.
Even if none of it’s real, it’s a depressing scene. I want to put him out of his misery, so I reach for my sensic magic, imagining the field of flowers returning to its friendly state, picturing Mal healed and happy…
Nothing. The rebel’s still struggling under the thorns, bellowing in pain.
Damn it. It seems my magic is malfunctioning in more ways than one. Well, if I can’t change the dream, I might as well leave it. With a wave of my hand, I conjure a door out of the field.
And walk straight into a library.
For Classitus’s sake.
I move quickly through the bookshelves, stopping when I find the owner of the dream. It’s Lafia this time, her face buried in a book. I’m not watching her more than a few moments when she gasps, a flame bursting out of the pages of the book she’s reading. She stares at it in shock and horror as the fire spreads until it’s engulfed the whole book. With a shriek, she drops it, but the flames are on her hands, searing her skin. She franticallytries to pat them out, but the blaze continues to grow, climbing across the bookshelves and her clothes.
I turn away, not wanting to witness the rest of it unfold. People have nightmares all the time, but this is too like Mal’s dream: a peaceful place turned violent and terrifying moments after my arrival. No, this isn’t coincidence. Something about my presence here has turned the dream into a nightmare.
And why can’t I wake myself up?
A rare sensation—powerlessness—starts to creep up on me. A gnawing fear comes with it.
I sprint to the next door, pushing myself through it, willing myself to wake up. I find myself in Fairon’s head next, my brother sitting by a fireplace, drinking tea with my grandfather. I don’t stop to witness the scene, already predicting the kind of direction it will take. Still, out the corner of my eye, I see Fairon choke, clutching his throat as if poisoned. He starts to spew black liquid onto the carpet as my grandfather watches on, doing nothing.
I hurry on, through another mind, and another. Every time, it’s the same, each dream quickly turning foul and dark. The gnawing fear starts to turn to panic. What if I can’teverleave? What if this is the punishment for escaping whatever void the scythe sent me to—an endless wheel of nightmares, trapping me for eternity?
Then a door appears beside me, one I know I haven’t made myself. There’s a voice calling through it, clear as a bell.
“Leon, Leon, wake up.”
