Chapter 31 Tyche #2
They began walking, weaving their way between the cars and around the confused citizens.
People shouted and cursed, but the most disturbing were those lost in a dream.
They danced, skipped, and meandered in a kind of daze.
All of them were smiling, happy to be wherever their minds had taken them.
But that was the danger of a dream. They were warm, inviting, happy places that a person would never want to leave.
Sometimes, the dream was so subtle that the dreamer wouldn’t even realize they were no longer attached to reality.
“Ty, do we need another weird phrase to pull us out if we get caught up in Cirina’s powers?” Shey asked, following a couple of steps behind Tyche.
“That won’t work this time.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Adrian demanded from the other side of a small blue sedan.
“We were hit with Yesuntei’s nightmare magic, but before it happened, Tyche gave me this weird phrase to remember. As soon as it popped up in the nightmare, I understood what was happening wasn’t real and I woke up,” Shey explained.
“That’s the difference between their two magics.
In Yesuntei’s nightmares, things are scary or heartbreaking, but they stick close to reality.
Insert something absurd, like a green sky, and you know it’s not real.
You wake up. But in Cirina’s dreams, everything is happy and light and fun.
You can have exactly what your heart desires.
” Tyche cut past a car and briefly walked beside Adrian.
“If your king were to walk up and hand you exactly what you dreamed of, would you refuse him?”
Adrian’s brow furrowed and his fingers tightened on the knife he was holding. “But I would know it wasn’t real.”
“That’s not enough. You have to want to leave that dream behind. You need—”
A loud, high-pitched Wheeeee! Sliced through the air near them.
They all stopped and turned just in time to see a man’s large body plunge from the top of a building and slam into a parked car, crumpling it down the center and killing him instantly.
Those people not lost to the dreams screamed and ran in panic in the opposite direction.
“What the fuck!” Adrian shouted, jumping away from the car and the dead man.
Not more than a second later, two more people jumped from the skyscrapers that lined this street. Giggles danced through the air right before another young man died, hitting the sidewalk hard enough to shatter the concrete.
“That’s the other thing. Yesuntei’s nightmares typically left people inert. Frozen. Curled up in a ball. But Cirina’s dreams turn people into sleepwalkers. They walk out into traffic, dive off buildings, attempt to cuddle dangerous animals—all without seeing the real world.”
And Tyche was willingly walking his friends into this.
He ripped his eyes away from the dead and kept his gaze locked straight ahead.
The faster he dealt with Cirina, the more lives he could save.
He was doing this for Yesuntei. She wouldn’t want these innocent humans killed, and she would not want her sister to be suffering like this.
“Is there any way to protect ourselves from her magic?” Haru asked. There was a hardening edge to his voice, and Tyche could imagine he was already contemplating snatching Adrian up and flying him far away. He didn’t blame the dragon. He was probably the smartest of all of them.
“Your magic will act as a buffer, but that won’t be enough.” He stopped and searched the area filled with abandoned cars. “Haru, break that glass!”
Haru turned to the empty SUV next to him and easily smashed his elbow into the window.
The glass shattered loudly, but it was nothing compared to the haunting laughter and the panicked shouts.
Tyche hurried over to the vehicle and picked up shards of jagged glass.
He handed them out to each person while they stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Keep the glass in the palm of your hand. If your head feels fuzzy or you feel less afraid, squeeze it. Pain will wake you up,” he instructed.
“Sort of like pinching yourself,” Shey murmured as he stared at the glass.
Tyche reached out and pressed the glass into his skin. “Yes, but more. It has to hurt. Genuine pain.”
Fear squeezed his throat, threatening to choke him.
He swallowed hard and tightened his fist around his own shard of glass to get control of his emotions.
He wanted to reach for the bones he always kept on him, but there wasn’t time.
The calculations had to be done on the fly.
His sharp eyes jumped from Shey to Adrian to Haru, weighing their individual strength, the power they wielded, experience, and the balance of luck he could sense in them.
“Haru will last the longest,” he murmured, mostly talking to himself. “Followed possibly by Shey. And then…”
Adrian’s expression crumpled. “Gee. Thanks.”
Tyche ignored it. He wasn’t about to deliver false hope to make Adrian feel better. It was most important to keep him alive. He took another look at Haru and did a separate calculation. The dragon was his best option if things turned ugly. Well, uglier.
Fuck it. No amount of planning was going to save them from disaster. He had to jump in before too many people died and hope that he got some good luck to swing things in his favor.
Tyche said nothing else as he spun on the balls of his left foot and marched toward the heart of the chaos.
The closer they got to the big multi-street intersection, the more chaotic things grew.
Instead of it being just a handful of people acting strangely, they all were.
The only ones who weren’t lost to Cirina’s dream magic were dead or running in the opposite direction.
“Will it help if I pull on my tie to Kaes?” Shey asked, sounding as if he were talking through clenched teeth.
Tyche glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of blood already dripping from Shey’s shaking fist. The pressure in Tyche’s head was building, but he was holding strong.
He didn’t know if it had to do with the fact that he was a god or if Yesuntei’s power was giving him a bit of a shield.
“Probably. Go ahead. Use magic.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when an explosion of thunder boomed across the sky.
Lightning darted between black clouds that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
The wind whooshed through the streets, howling as it passed.
Their clothes flapped and danced on their bodies, trying to pull free.
Tyche looked at Adrian, who flashed him a fragile, crooked smile. He couldn’t guess at the connection between Adrian and the very new god Caelan. He prayed this God of Hope had some power he could lend the man.
“Cael knows. He can feel me, and he is sending what he can,” Adrian said, as if reading his mind, or just his worried expression. “He’s also blowing up my phone right now. I hope Drayce can keep him in Stormbreak.”
Yeah. They didn’t need another god sticking his nose into this mess.
After they’d walked what felt like miles but was just a few hundred yards, they reached the intersection where six different roads met to cross.
In the center, surrounded by a cluster of crashed and smoking vehicles, stood a short, slender woman in a wrinkled red floral sundress that waved wildly in the wind.
Her long, blondish-brown hair danced behind her like angry tentacles.
Tears streaked her pale cheeks, and Tyche’s heart broke for her.
There was nothing similar in appearance between Yesuntei and Cirina to make a person think they were sisters other than their slim, almost sickly builds.
“Tyche?” she said. Her voice was soft and confused, almost completely swallowed up by the raging wind and thunder.
“What are you doing here?” She took a step closer to him, and her eyes suddenly widened.
They snapped to his legs—specifically to the pocket where he carried Yesuntei’s power.
“Why do you have that? Did you kill my sister?”
Tyche threw up his hands, palms open. The glass he’d been holding tumbled to the ground and broke again, but he ignored it. “No! Definitely not! I adored her! You know I did. Yesuntei was wonderful, and I would never hurt her.”
Even as he spoke, raw magic slammed into him, and his vision wavered. The buildings started to fade and disappear, replaced by tall trees and old temples. Brightspire…but thousands of years ago. His first home.
“No!” Tyche squeezed his fists, pushing his fingers into the cut that was already in his palm from the glass. Pain ripped through his hand, and the images faded.
“Why is my sister dead? How do you have her powers if you didn’t kill her?” Cirina raged. Her voice shook and cracked.
“She was kidnapped. Taken by bad people who wanted to steal her powers away,” Shey shouted as Tyche struggled to find his voice.
“We killed them,” Haru added.
A fractured sob broke from Cirina’s throat, and she stumbled back two unsteady steps. Her entire body swayed as if it were a struggle to remain standing. She tipped her face to the sky and wailed, sending another wave of raw power slamming into them.
Tyche stumbled, hitting the hood of a luxury sedan with his hip.
A giggle danced on the breeze, and Tyche’s head snapped up to see a serene smile spread across Adrian’s face.
Tyche clawed his way across the car to Adrian’s side.
With as much strength as he could muster, he slapped Adrian, snapping his head around.
The dragon snarled, and every hair on the nape of Tyche’s neck stood up, but he didn’t let himself look away from Adrian. His friend blinked and nodded.
“Thanks,” Adrian muttered, rubbing his now-red cheek.
Tyche glared at Haru and pointed. “Don’t let that happen to him again.”