“Kesh?”
Kesh, Kesh, Kesh… There’s no Kesh here. I giggled and lifted my hand. So pale and thin, it didn’t look like my hand. But it must be mine. I waved it. Yes, definitely mine. He had taken my hands from me. I couldn’t remember when. But they were back now. This dream was confusing. Was I supposed to do something? And I knew these males, didn’t I? Or were they dreams too?
“I think she sees us.” The man ran his hand through his shaggy hair. He had claws, though they weren’t out now. I remembered those claws piercing his throat. Was this man my friend? He looked a lot like a man who had died in many of my dreams. His blood had painted me. So much blood.
I looked at my hands, seeing blood there. I blinked. Gone. Not the hands. They were still there. I laughed again or maybe cried. It was all the same.
The fae male hissed, and I shot him a silent glare.
“Maybe you should leave,” the man suggested. Vakaru. That’s right. He was like me, maybe. Created to serve the fae.
“I am not going anywhere,” the fae replied stiffly.
The man sighed. I often dreamed of that one. I’d lived a few lifetimes with him inside my head. In one, we’d had a family. The Dreamweaver had killed them. In another, I’d killed them. In so many dreams, the Dreamweaver had cut him open again and again. And there was something about a fish in a glass bowl, but I couldn’t remember.
I pressed the balls of my hands to my eyes. I wanted to go away again. It was cold here and dark, and these two… I didn’t want them here. Their being here was wrong. It was all wrong. If they were here, and I was here, then something terrible had happened and I didn’t want to know it.
“You killed her.”
I opened my eyes and found the violet-eyed fae crouched in front of me.
“Do you remember that?” he asked.
My face crumpled and fell away. Beneath it, I was a ghost.
“I’m not real.” The words tumbled. “Not real, not real. Everything is a lie.”
Violet-eyes moved away. “It’s hopeless. He always broke them. Every time. They used to throw his used ones in the pit for the sluagh. It’s all they were good for.”
I was broken?
“Stop,” the man growled.
“You don’t want to hear it, but it’s the truth. She’s too far gone. He breaks human minds. It’s what he does, and he’s been doing it for thousands of years. We can’t save her.”
Save from what?
“You should have left her there,” he added, driving the words in like spikes into a steel coffin. “This is… this is cruel.”
“I couldn’t leave her,” the man snapped, making me jump. I hugged my knees closer. “She saved my life.”
“And it cost her hers.”
The man pushed the fae’s comments away with a growl.
I liked this dream. I didn’t have to do much. Just watch them fight. The Dreamweaver would probably take them away soon, but I could enjoy them for now. The man, he was pretty looking. Dark hair, too long. But it would be nice to run my hands through it. And his green eyes, there was an intensity to them that I hadn’t seen before. Rage lurked inside, making his eyes piercing. He was a dangerous one. But the fae, he was the opposite. Ridiculously long hair—pin straight because they never could stand a single strand out of place. Its ends were a bit ragged. This one had let himself go compared to other fae, but I liked his rough edges. He was wary too, holding back, deferring to the man. A curious pairing.
“She hears us,” the man said, coming forward.
“But she doesn’t believe any of it,” the fae dismissed.
“Do you remember me?” the man asked me.
I closed my eyes and buried my face against my knees. The Dreamweaver would take him from me, and I didn’t want him to go. If I hid, maybe he wouldn’t come.
“Kesh, please. I want to help you. Just… just let me know you’re in there.”
I peeked over my knees. “He’ll find you.”
“No. He can’t find us here. You’re safe.”
I whipped my head from side to side and touched my temple. “Up here.” Tears filled my eyes, making him all blurry. “He’s up here.”
“No, Kesh…” His hand touched mine. “He’s not.”
I stared at the contact, panic clutching my heart. He felt real. But I had been here before, and every time he came to take it all away.
A suffocating pressure pushed down. I smelled the fresh scent of lemons. I looked up, straight into the eyes of the Dreamweaver, and screamed.
They came again, the pair of them. Violet-eyes and the pretty one. I couldn’t talk to them. If I did, he would come. I shut down, made myself small, and hid. If I didn’t talk, he didn’t come, and so I listened and watched and studied.
We appeared to be in a cavern. Many corners harbored shadows. The Dreamweaver might be in any of them, so I avoided staring too long into their darkness.
I wanted to believe the pair were real. I wanted it so much that my heart ached. Tears fell when they weren’t looking, and when they left me, I rocked back and forth, pushing the bad thoughts away.
But when I closed my eyes, the dreams came. I danced in the rain. I danced with the Dreamweaver. And then I carved out his heart.
My gut heaved, throwing up nothing, but it woke me from the nightmare. My arm stung. I reached for the pain, noticing the black tattoos, and found Marshal Kellee kneeling on the bed, looking at me with hopeful eyes, an empty syringe in his hand.
“Kellee?” I croaked.
“Kesh…?” His eyes frantically searched mine. His lips parted. “Do you…?”
Wait, wait… This was a lie. I shot from the bed, but my legs turned to jelly beneath me, and I collapsed, dropping to my knees. He was coming—it was coming. The truth was barreling forward, about to roll right over me. I clutched my hands to my head to squeeze out the horror of knowing. “Oh Kellee…”
His arms came around me, pulling me against his chest. I locked my fists into his shirt and twisted my grip, tearing the fabric. His strength and warmth were too much, too real. “Please, make it stop…”
His chin brushed the top of my head. “It’s all right. We have you.”
He smelled masculine, like soap and something woody that made me think of earth and the outdoors on a world far away. He smelled real. But if I opened my eyes, I’d be clutching the Dreamweaver.
I couldn’t stand this.
I pushed him away, my eyes squeezed closed. “No, no… don’t.”
“Kesh, please. It’s me.”
“NO, NO, IT’S NOT!”
An arm hooked around my neck and yanked me up and off Kellee. Another arm hooked around my waist, pulling me back against a lean, hard body. I writhed and kicked and bucked, but every twist tightened the hold.
“Open your eyes,” Violet-eyes said. Talen. It had always been Talen beside Kellee. The fae and the marshal. The pair. But Talen being free didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense anymore. I was surrounded by lies. I was the biggest lie of all.
I sobbed and sucked in the air the useless noise had cost me. I would open my eyes. I would be in the Dreamweaver’s arms. But it was okay. I knew that now. I fluttered my eyes open and blinked at Kellee.
He rubbed his jaw where my heel had caught him. “Hey.”
I blinked, breathing hard through my nose. Another blink. Still Kellee. “Hey.”
He lifted the syringe. “It looks as though this helped,” he said to Talen.
Talen, who had me trapped in his arms. Talen, who was too much like Eledan. Saliva pooled in my mouth. “Put. Me. Down.”
“Your muscles suffered a great deal of atrophy—”
“Put her down, Talen,” Kellee ordered.
The fae let me go. I hobbled away from them and fell against the wall. The wall was good. The wall was real. Okay, they were still here. Kellee had given me a drug to ground me. I was here. This was the now. But for how long…?
I swallowed, still feeling sick, but I was upright and thinking. I looked down at myself, at the oversized white shirt someone had dressed me in. One of theirs, probably. My legs poked out, knees and ankles jutting. The fae marks were so dark against my skin that they appeared to glow.