Between

Thirty-one


Disoriented and cold, save for the heat burning up through the soles of her naked feet, Vivian stood in her own human form atop a massive wreck of scales and broken wings. She was naked, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Grief choked her. No victory, this.

The Warlord dead. Mellisande slain, and for what? She, Vivian, had allowed herself to turn into a dragon, and in that form had killed not Jehenna, not her true enemy, but instead this pitiful creature long enslaved in the dark and so newly freed.

From somewhere below, a shriek of rage and grief reached her ears, distant and nearly irrelevant.

Through a heavy torpor that enveloped both limbs and brain, Vivian walked over the dead dragon’s side, careful not to cut her feet on the sharp edges of scales, and looked down to see Jehenna kneeling in the blackened grass, both hands on Mellisande’s head as though she could somehow restore life with her touch.

Something was wrong about those hands. Bony, blue veined, the skin spotted with age. The face that had been young and so dangerously beautiful was withered and wrinkled; the hair hung lank and gray over a bent and crooked spine.

Jehenna looked up at Vivian and shrieked, “Look what you have done!”

Words were still far away, and Vivian could only stare as Jehenna held out her hands, turned them one way and then the other, and shrieked again, “Look what you have done!”

The Sorceress got to her feet and hobbled up the dead dragon’s neck, reaching out with bony fingers to scratch at Vivian’s face.

“You’ve grown old,” Vivian said in wonder. “And weak.”

An easy thing now to trap those wrists, thin and frail, and hold Jehenna off like a fractious child. To shove her backward and away. The Sorceress stumbled, collapsed to her hands and knees. Clumps of hair drifted from her scalp. A dry racking cough shook her, and she spat teeth out into the palm of her hand.

“You’ve killed me,” she gasped. “So close to the Forever, and now it’s lost, all lost.”

A deep rumbling groan rose out of the depths beneath them, and the earth shook. Vivian kept her feet with difficulty. Jehenna fell onto her belly and began to slide backward over the sharp-edged scales, feet first, hands scrabbling for a hold. When she hit the ground she rolled, labored onto her hands and knees, remaining crouched in the black ashes. Her face was a grinning skull, wrinkled skin stretched over bone, gums toothless, her eyes filming with the white of cataracts. The royal robes hung loose and shredded over a skeletal frame. Her hands bled, cut by dragon scales during the long slide down.

Vivian walked carefully across the swell of Mellisande’s belly, down the slope of the shoulder and onto the neck, and from there down onto the ground. She looked around for Gareth, but he seemed to have vanished.

“You were connected to Mellisande somehow. Tell me.” She used the Voice, saw Jehenna stiffen against it, then shrug and acquiesce.

“An ancient blood rite. We share a death, Mellisande and I.” Her mouth stretched into a toothless grin. “And Surmise. You have killed everybody in this kingdom.”

The earth rumbled and shook. A section of the stadium wall cracked and collapsed into the arena with a crash and rattle of cascading fragments of stone. The seats warped and buckled as though they had grown liquid, then began to break under the stress, sharp retorts ringing out like machine-gun fire.

The few remaining people screamed and struggled toward the stairs. Some of the wounded crawled on their bellies. Vivian had been staring blankly into the chaos for several minutes before she noticed the bloody figure swaying on its feet at the center of the field. It lurched toward her, dragging its right leg. One arm hung limp. The body was blackened with dragon fire, the face covered in blood. It seemed impossible that he should be moving, but moving he was, one slow step after another. He wavered and almost fell, then caught himself and took another step.

The Warlord.

Vivian realized she was stretching her arms out toward him, uselessly, willing him on. She got her feet moving in his direction, saw his face change and heard his warning shout. “Behind you!”

Vivian spun to see Jehenna still crouched, but with the stone knife clutched in her hand. Her arm was drawn back, her face twisted with malice.

“It is too late for me, now, Dreamshifter. Even if you had the key I would be dead before we reached the Way. If I must die, so must you.”

Vivian thought to run, but the dead dragon blocked her. Legs as big as tree trunks fenced her in on either side. She could scrabble up and over, but it would take too long.

The knife left Jehenna’s hand in a slow and lethal arc.

All the world slowed.

Vivian had more than enough time to watch the blade fly arrow-straight toward her heart, but not enough time to duck. Her scream stuck in her throat.

And then, with an impossible leap that carried him into the air, arms spread wide, the Warlord flung his broken body between her and the knife.

A small, wet sound as the blade entered his body. A grunt as he struck the earth.

Time returned to normal and he lay at Vivian’s feet, the hilt protruding from his chest.

With a wordless wail of grief and denial, Vivian sank to her knees by his side, eyes locked on his, so beautiful still in a face burned black by dragon fire. His lips moved, as if to speak, but he only sighed and did not breathe again.

Vivian placed both hands on his face, gentle on the damaged skin. Even as her medical training kicked in, as she listened for breath, felt for a pulse, denial ran through her, like a litany of grief.

This is the part of the story where the fallen hero appears to be dead, but really isn’t. This is the part where he looks at the heroine and proclaims his love for her at last, where she saves him from the wound that is not quite fatal. This is the part where unsuspecting magical powers kick in and the hero is snatched from the jaws of death.

But he lay as he had fallen and did not move. The strong heart no longer beat. No breath moved in and out of his lungs. His open eyes stared straight upward at the sun.

The power that Vivian had, to open and close doors, to shift into a dragon, could do nothing to save him.

Jehenna’s cackling laughter coiled around her like bitter, choking smoke. “Enjoy your life, little one. May it be long, and lonely.”

Vivian withdrew the knife from the Warlord’s chest. Closed his eyes. Stroked the blood-matted hair back from his burned forehead.

“It all ends with me,” Jehenna said. “You are the Dreamshifter. Walk through one of your doors, and live to remember that you killed thousands in order to get to me.”

Vivian felt like she was choking. She shook her head, unable to find her voice.

“Think, little girl. Surmise is my weaving. It dies with me. And with it, every single soul who has found their way here.”

Her heart felt flat and cold inside her chest. A small thing, beating out the rhythm of a small life.

Jehenna’s voice was faint, little more than a breath of wind. “You amuse me. Deny as you will; you will see the truth.” She was still laughing when her body began to disintegrate. Feet first, fraying into particles of dust so that she fell to her knees. And all the while the laughter spewed from her throat until she had no throat to laugh with, and even then her mouth remained open in soundless, evil mirth, her white-filmed eyes bulging in a face coming apart at the seams.

And then it was over, a gust of wind scattering a heap of dust across the stadium floor. A new shock wave, greater than the last, shook the arena, throwing Vivian to the ground. Another section of the wall caved in. Seats dissolved into a cloud of dust. Voices screamed.

As Vivian stared, numb with horror and grief, half of the field simply vanished.

It wasn’t due to something comprehensible like a giant sinkhole or a crater sucking matter down into the earth. Instead, grass, soil, and a huge section of the restraining wall disappeared. No sound, no fury. No wind rushing into the vacuum.

Just Nothing.

Vivian shook her head and blinked, attempting to grasp the concept of matter that did not follow the laws of physics. But dreams were another story, and Surmise had been built Between. All of the people of Surmise would not only die, they would just Not Be.

She bent to kiss the Warlord’s lips, already cold, soulless, and then the lips vanished along with everything else.

One heartbeat.

Then nothing.


no air

no sound

no light

no dark

no body.

A faint memory of arms and legs, hands and feet. An echo of breath and heartbeat, cold and warmth, pleasure and pain.

All that existed now was mind and spirit. Memories. Ideas.

And emotions. A deep and encompassing regret. Grief. Despair. So many dead because of her failures, and now she was beyond hope of putting things right.

Fear came next. An eternity of existence only as consciousness. Memories and thoughts—guilt, loss, regret—and nothing else. No future. No escape. Only the unquiet mind, forever and ever and always, and it was amazing how sharp the pain of this could be.

And then even the pain began to fade, the last thing, slipping away no matter how she tried to hold on.

An odd tug, a little jerk, and…


Vivian lay flat on her back. Something soft was beneath her, and the scent of fresh grass and flowers filled her nostrils. Opening her eyes she saw, high and far away, three dragons dancing on the wind.

She pushed herself up on her elbows and her head throbbed with the change of position, a familiar and oddly comforting thing in a world altered beyond comprehension.

Across a wide field of grass and flowers towered a pure-white castle, as unlike Surmise as a castle could ever be. Slender turrets sprang upward toward the sky, graceful and light.

No fallen Warlord lay at her feet. No dead dragon, no little heap of ashes.

An emptiness of grief and loss took her breath and doubled her over with both arms clasped around her belly. Alone in all the worlds.

Tears would have been a mercy, but her eyes were dry and there was no way to ease the relentless pain at her center. Unless she were to change, to fly with the dragons.

Not now, not yet. She still had work to do. Massive failure on her part didn’t justify sitting around bemoaning her fate. Doors still stood open into Wakeworld, dragons running loose. Her mother and the Prince were still trapped. She needed to find the dreams that Jehenna had stolen. Recover the key.

Something soft brushed against her arm. She jerked away, startled, turning to see the most penguiny-looking penguin she had ever seen. Too big for an Adélie, too small for a King, with a breast a little too white and a beak a little too yellow and obsidian eyes that glittered with unnatural intelligence.

“Poe?”

The penguin squawked and flopped into her lap.

She flung her arms around him, pressed her cheek against his head, even as she murmured, “You’re not real, you can’t be.” Her hand went to the chain at her throat and found the pendant. Not a dream, then. Still somewhere in the vastness of Between.

One tear escaped her and fell on the penguin’s head, a small crystal drop repelled by waterproof feathers, gleaming diamond bright in the sun. Poe was dead, and this couldn’t really be him.

A line of crimson feathers on his white breast caught her attention. She ran her fingers over them, feeling a scar marring the skin beneath. There was another scar, smaller, on his back.

“It can’t be,” she whispered.

Poe quawrked, then hopped down and waddled off to explore.

Following him with her eyes, Vivian noticed for the first time the people clustered across the meadow in groups of two and three. Something about their behavior was—not wrong, exactly, but different. Old people and young, disheveled and ragged, some of them bloodstained, all speaking in hushed voices and looking around them as if waiting for something. A woman sobbed softly against the shoulder of a man whose own shoulders were shaking, his face buried in her matted hair. Children stood or sat in the grass, eyes vivid and taking in everything, but too serious, too quiet.

Refugees, Vivian thought. Unsure what is expected of them, waiting for instruction. One of the faces looked familiar, and then another. Prisoners, faces she had last seen blank and aimless in the dungeons.

As she scanned the scene again, things made more sense. Where there was now this field of grass and flowers, there had once been a stadium. The castle had changed in form but stood in the same relative location. This was still Surmise, only drastically changed.

A guard stood at a cautious distance, trying to maintain his dignity while evading Poe’s investigation of his bootlaces. When her eyes fell on him, he sank to his knees and bowed his forehead to the grass. “My Lady, I meant no insolence by standing in your presence…”

“Get up,” she said.

“Yes, My Lady.” He got to his feet but kept his eyes averted. A muscle bunched and twitched in his jaw. As she searched for words to put him at ease, he removed his belt and sword and laid them in the grass before pulling his tunic off over his head.

Vivian took a step backward, thinking he had lost his sanity. “You need to put your clothes back on.”

His face turned ashen, but his jaw tightened stubbornly. Keeping his eyes on the ground, he held the tunic out toward her in a trembling hand. “My Lady, you are naked.”

A profound act of courage, she realized, as she took the garment from his hands. It was roughly woven and smelled of sweat, but she pulled it on, accepting both gift and giver. As far as she knew, the man had risked his life in concern for her comfort. She could trust him.

“Thank you,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened just now?”

He blinked rapidly, then opened and closed his mouth before answering, “Forgive me, My Lady, but surely you are the one who knows the answer to that question.”

“Humor me.”

Again the rapid blinking. He swallowed hard. “Well—Surmise was here, and then it wasn’t, My Lady. After you destroyed the dragon and the Queen.” If possible, he paled even further, dropping back to his knees. “Of course, she is—was—not the Queen. You are, My Queen, I meant to say. Please forgive me, My Queen, it all happened so suddenly, I lost track of the protocols.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a queen, and I mean to find Prince Landon and put him in charge straightaway. Seriously—get up. No more bowing to me.”

Again he scrambled to his feet. He stood a little straighter, shoulders square, and met her eyes.

Vivian managed a brief smile. “You served the Warlord—I remember. Tell me your name.”

“Tellar, My Lady.”

“All right, Tellar. I owe the Warlord a debt. You have my word that I mean no harm to you. Now—take me to the Chancellor.”

“I—don’t know where to look for him, My Lady. The castle is gone.”

The man had a point. “All right, then. Do a couple of things for me, will you? Find some of the men you trust. Have them hunt for the Chancellor, and find out what has happened to all of the prisoners. Make sure nobody is trapped in the dungeons, all right? And have your men keep their eyes out for an object—this size—carved from black stone.”

His face brightened, hope flaring in his eyes. A quick salute of genuine respect, and he headed off with a steady, measured tread.

Vivian turned her back to him. She drew a deep breath, and then another. Grounded herself, and then thought her way through a tangle of doors and dreams without moving her body at all. When at last she found the door she sought, it opened at her command.

In an empty white room, the Prince sat in the corner, stroking Isobel’s hair. She lay motionless with her head in his lap, eyes closed, her face smooth and unlined, flushed a little in sleep. Vivian had never seen her look so serene. Landon did not look up, did not stop stroking Isobel’s hair.

“Jehenna is dead. You need to come out here and be the King,” Vivian said. “Do you hear me, Landon? You’re needed.”

His eyes turned toward the door. He saw her but didn’t move, and Vivian remembered that he couldn’t hear her, that there was no sound in that chamber.

Isobel stirred and opened her eyes. For a moment they were confused, far away, and then they cleared and focused. She smiled, then sat up and turned to Landon. Placing a hand on his cheek, she looked long into his eyes, and at last he nodded. He kissed her, very gently, and the two of them got up and walked to the door, hand in hand. Both hesitated, then stepped through the doorway together.

“You’ve killed Jehenna,” Isobel said. It was a calm statement of fact without a hint of question.

Vivian nodded. “And Mellisande.”

“Poor old dragon,” Isobel said. “But you couldn’t have killed Jehenna if you hadn’t.”

“You knew?”

“I remember—bits. The ceremony, when I was a child. She made me watch. Made me drink—” Her face twisted.

Landon put an arm around her shoulder, drew her against him, a protective gesture. As though the two of them were under threat. His eyes were bleak, his face drawn.

Vivian looked at him, bewildered, and then began to understand. Another grief, another loss.

“I didn’t really kill Jehenna,” she said, hearing her own voice speak what she didn’t want to acknowledge. “After the dragon died, she just—disintegrated.”

Isobel nodded. Vivian thought already her mother’s face looked older, that there were lines under her eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Threads of silver in her dark hair.

“I’m over a hundred years old, darling. She bound me to Mellisande’s life, as well. My age will catch up with me now.”

“We could stay in the room of nothingness,” Landon said. “There is no time there.”

Isobel smiled at him, shook her head. “No, my love. All my life I have been locked up one way or another. I’m free—Mellisande has given me back my sanity. And the people of Surmise need you.”

Vivian couldn’t catch her breath. She would watch these two age and die, just when she had found them. The mother she had never truly known. This man she believed might be her father. They needed time to be together. It was one more wrong that Jehenna had done, another evil.

And one that maybe didn’t need to be.

“Wait,” Vivian said. “I have an idea. There are other places outside time. Like Landon’s room in the dungeon. I know a certain fountain…”

Isobel’s face brightened. “We couldn’t stay there always, but it would slow the process.”

“Are you certain?” Landon asked her.

She smiled. “We need to live, Landon, not just exist. And the kingdom has suffered enough.”

Landon drew her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. “My love.”

“Stay here until it’s set,” Vivian said. “I’ll come back for you.”

Isobel smiled, and the two of them stepped back across a threshold no longer spitting green fire. Vivian left the door open, that they should never be imprisoned again.

For a moment she found herself disoriented and lost, unable to remember how to get back through the maze. But then she felt the faint tug, the tide of dream that always pulled toward Surmise. Even as she followed this, she added it to her list of things she needed to put right. Nobody lost in dream should be drawn into Surmise unless that was where they wanted to be.

Standing again in the field of flowers, she blinked, grounding herself with her bare feet planted in the grass and one hand on the pendant. Poe presented himself, standing at military attention with his best penguin stare. Time had passed. The sun hung low on the horizon.

Tellar stood waiting. When her gaze turned to him, he stepped forward and saluted sharply. No more bowing and cowering. He spoke with confidence.

“We have searched the castle, My Lady. No sign of the Chancellor. But we found this where his chambers should have been.” He held in his hands a box, big enough for secrets, small enough to carry with you. Carved on the lid, two dragons intertwined.

Vivian took it from his hands, opened it.

It was empty.

“My Lady?”

She realized she had been staring at the empty box for far too long. Well. Time was one thing she had plenty of. She would find Gareth; she would find the dreamspheres.

“You found nothing else in his chambers?” she asked, thinking of the key. Perhaps it had simply vanished with the old Surmise, but she didn’t think it could be that simple. She remembered the glow in Gareth’s eyes and that he had been standing behind Jehenna when she threw the key to the ground.

“Nothing, My Lady.”

“All right. And are there prisoners in the dungeons still?”

“The dungeons are missing, My Lady. We can find no doors, no tunnels, no trace of anything leading below the earth, either here or in the castle.”

Vivian blinked. “And the prisoners?”

His jaw hardened. “They were all standing about in the field. We’ve released them, My Lady. Told them they were free to go wherever they please.”

Watching him, she saw that he feared her anger, had anticipated it, but had done this thing anyway.

Which pleased her immensely. “One thing wrong with that plan, Tellar. They will have nowhere to go. Make sure they are all safe in the castle by dark. Fed, bathed, and clothed.”

“Yes, My Lady. There’s one other thing.”

“Yes?”

He shuffled his feet and she saw his jaw tighten again. Still, he met her eyes and spoke in a clear and steady voice. “We discovered a man among the prisoners…” His eyes flickered away. “He is…” Again he broke off. “Perhaps you should just see him, My Lady?”

“Fine. Where is he?”

“We’ve been watching him.” He raised his arm in a beckoning gesture, and a small group across the meadow began to move in Vivian’s direction with purpose and military precision. Chain mail clinked. A tall man walked at the center, not in step with the rest. Instead of chain mail and breeches he wore blue jeans and a T-shirt. Long dark hair fell to his shoulders. His face was bloodstained, but familiar.

Vivian was on her feet and running before they’d taken more than a few steps. Over the grass, never feeling the stones on her bare feet, focused on one goal and one only. The guards parted before she collided with them, and she flung herself against Zee’s broad chest. His arms circled her, tight, tight, so that she could barely catch her breath. She could hear his heart beating, feel his cheek pressed against her hair.

“Vivian,” he gasped. “Thank God.”

Behind her, somebody cleared his throat. “My Lady, I’m not sure this is wise. We all watched the Warlord die. This appearance of a double can mean nothing good—”

Vivian looked back up at Zee and her heart lurched. “You’re hurt.” The right side of his face was caked with dried blood; his hair was matted, his clothes torn. But his eyes were the same clear agate, light filled, and his lips curved into a crooked smile, half mischief.

“Bear attack,” he said. “Not quite the same scope as a dragon, but it was a big bear.”

“Your wounds need attention.”

“My Lady—”

“What?” She whirled around to face the speaker, annoyed now. One look at the expression on her face and every one of the guards dropped into a deep obeisance.

Vivian took a deep breath, forced herself to speak calmly. “I am not going to hurt anybody, and you don’t have to bow. Get up; tell me what you need to say.”

“My Lady, he had this on him.”

Tellar held out a crystal sphere. It was larger than the others, the size of a golf ball, swirling with a play of color and emitting an audible vibration. Vivian touched the shining thing with the tip of one finger. Then she looked up at the changed landscape and began to understand.

“Where did you get this?”

“George left it. With a note that said, ‘Open only at the end.’”

“I think—it’s like he created his own version of Surmise. But I don’t understand how that is possible with the intersection of all of the other dreams…”

“I wasn’t sure when the end would be. So I waited. And then I thought I was too late.” His voice was raw, his breath uneven. He didn’t take his eyes from hers, those beautiful eyes.

She swallowed hard, steeling herself against another loss, the hardest of them all. “Zee…Things have happened.”

“I can see that.” His lips quirked in a half smile, but his eyes burned, and the way they looked at her, the way he breathed—

Hope, that most dangerous of emotions, flared within her as his hand, strong and warm, closed around hers. She pushed the hope away, remembering a thirst for blood, an enormous clumsy body, all scales and claws and wings.

“You don’t know what I have become.”

“Tell me.”

She shuddered. “A thing. Part sorceress, part Dreamshifter. Part dragon.”

“You’re still Vivian.”

The words undid her fragile control and she buried her face in her hands to hide the rush of tears. The Warlord had named her so when she was first transforming into the dragon, had called her back from the edge with a kiss.

Zee cupped her chin in both hands and turned her face up to his. “I know what you are, Vivian Maylor. A closer of doors, a dreamer of dreams. And yes, a dragon shifter. I knew before I met you. I’ve been there with you, in every Dreamworld…”

“Don’t,” she said, placing one hand over his lips. “I can’t go back, Zee. I can’t be with you…”

He kissed her palm and moved her hand so that it rested against his chest, over his heart. “My sword and my soul belong to the Dreamshifter, and my heart was yours before I met you. Where else should I be, if not beside you?”

“But, Zee—”

“You have been the focus of my life. Would you truly send me away?”

And she steeled herself, then, to do what must be done. Put aside the possibility of joy. Took a step back and away from him and made her voice ring clear and certain, so there would be no mistake. “I am not free to follow my heart,” she said, watching the light fade from his eyes. “I must find the key and destroy it. Recover the spheres and restore the balance between Dreamworld and Wakeworld.”

Zee dropped to his knees at her feet. “Then permit me to go with you. To protect, to serve.”

Looking down into his upturned face, Vivian knew two things.

First, that granting this request would bring great heartache to them both. And second, that this was the one thing she could not deny him.

They came through the doorway onto Finger Beach just as the sun was setting. All the sky to the west burned red, and the river reflected it back. A dead bear lay not far away, white fur stained black with drying blood, twice as big as a grizzly.

Vivian held her breath, letting it out in a slow sigh. “You killed that?”

“It was a near thing.”

His ravaged face was proof enough of that. He was already changed, Vivian saw with some grief. More warrior than artist. Scarred and hardened by what he had been through, and they were only at the beginning of this journey.

Still, he laughed with pure glee as Poe waddled across the beach and flung himself headfirst into the river and began to play.

Above, somewhere in the sky, a dragon flew. Vivian couldn’t see him, but she could feel his thoughts like a distant wordless hum. Another task, to coax the creature back through the doorway and into the Between, away from this world where he did not belong.

“Where will we go?” Zee asked. “I’m wanted—the cops will pick me up on sight.”

“The cabin, I think. There is a room there—”

“I know.”

“How—”

He grinned. “A long story, but we will have time enough for tales. Now we should go, before the authorities show up. I drove his van here—still up in the parking lot, I’d guess. Shall we?”

Vivian looked at the hand he held out to her—the hand of a warrior, cuticles still stained with paint, defining all the contradictions of who this man was and could be. This much, at least, was permitted. She put her own hand in his, so small in comparison, and let him lead her away from the beach toward whatever would come next.