2
A rock slammed into Erebus’s shoulder, narrowly missing my face.
Without warning, the dreamers surged. Some scattered into the woods, while others raced toward the demon-infested dream sea just beyond the castle.
The Nocturne’s powerful waters had receded slightly, no longer threatening to devour the castle whole and lock us in the Dream Realm for eternity, but it was a terrifying reminder of what had almost befallen us.
I felt the blood rush from my face as I was overwhelmed by the dreamers’ conflicting emotions.
They knotted around me like a fearsome net, impossible to untangle.
Fear.
Fury.
Rage.
“Enough!” Erebus roared, shielding me as a second rock bashed his chest. The domain shook with the sheer force of his voice.
Dreamers stopped in their tracks, his command dragging them back to the courtyard.
Erebus’s chest heaved, silver eyes blazing as he beheld our new acolytes.
“I know what it is you feel. Your resentment. Your sorrow. Your rage. I, too, was sacrificed. I, too, suffered, just as you did. We cannot continue in chaos.”
The dreamers’ frustration swelled; they were not sated.
I anxiously considered what any other Weaver might do in our situation.
Would they demand loyalty in a show of power?
Or would they be empathetic, seeking to understand what drove their dreamers to hysteria in the first place?
I bit the inside of my cheek, considering.
Maybe it was pointless to hypothesize. Our situation—as confusing as it might be—was our own.
Erebus and I were in uncharted waters. We had only each other to rely on.
I stepped past Erebus, lowering his arm even as he tried to urge me back.
“Tell us your grievances,” I pleaded, hoping the dreamers would recognize the sincerity in my voice. “I understand you might be angry that I’m a Weaver now, since Erebus has been with you for much longer, but—”
“We are not angry with you, Esmer,” a girl, similar to me in age, supplied. The other dreamers nodded, agreeing. “Our rage belongs to him.”
My stomach dropped.
Him?
Erebus’s lips parted, a hasty retort silenced on his tongue.
“Why?” I pushed, cautious of the dreamers’ rising anger. “What has he done to you?”
“Erebus did not suffer as we did,” the dreamer continued. “His soul was not caged inside the filthy body of a demon.”
“He didn’t experience the horrors of Corruption,” another dreamer, a woman, cried.
“He kept us here against our wills,” a third dreamer, an older man, grated out. The dreamer’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. As though he wasn’t used to even having hands after being locked in the body of a demon for so long. “We begged him to let us out every single day.”
“Our hearts and minds wasted away in the woods, the water, and the halls of your castle,” a fourth snarled, baring his chipped teeth. “You should have freed us. You should have recognized we were more than mere demons.”
A fifth acolyte took a few steps forward, shoulders straight and face raised. Her wrinkled chin trembled; she was struggling to remain upright. “We screamed and begged, and yet he did not listen, he did not see—”
“We all presented as demons! Or have you already forgotten that?” Sorren snapped, interrupting the dreamers’ tirade.
“What would you have had him do? Unleash you upon the Dream Realm simply because you begged? Most of us couldn’t even talk.
Our minds were too fractured.” Sorren shook his head, placing his fingers over his temples.
“I, too, felt as you did. I wanted out; my captive existence was utter hell. But it is not Erebus’s fault that our voices were taken from us. ”
“You’re channeling your rage into a man who does not deserve it,” Ceveon added. “A man who would brave the depths of the Beyond to avenge what was taken from him. Taken from us. This man is your protector now. Not your enemy.”
For a moment, the dreamers were silent. Weighing what they’d been told.
Then one finally spoke, his voice like the crack of a whip. “Then who deserves it? Against whom do we rage?”
Every dreamer looked at Erebus and me, expectant.
I opened my mouth to tell them about the red-eyed demon, but Erebus spoke first. “We should free them,” Erebus said urgently, just to me. “If we cut their threads like we did Somnus’s, we may be able to release their souls to the Maker. It’s the truest liberation we can grant.”
The dreamers’ threads, though invisible to the dreamers themselves, quivered at Erebus’s suggestion.
Each thread vibrated with life. With shadows.
If we were to remove our shadows from the threads, they’d likely weaken and snap.
I shivered, not liking where this was going.
We needed every dreamer—every fighter—we could get.
“They’re hurting, Erebus. Cutting them from our domain won’t heal them in the way you’re imagining.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Erebus mused, mouth set in a grim line.
“Then perhaps we give them a choice. They can stay here and fight with us against the demons or return to the Maker. If they stay, they will help us vanquish the demons. But if they choose to leave, they will likely never be able to return to the Dream Realm.”
“They’ll choose to leave, Erebus. Then we’ll have no one.”
He turned fully to me, eyes blazing. “Then what would you have us do, Esmer? Chain them here indefinitely, deny them the freedom they deserve? Just like what happened to me?” He looked away, jaw clenched.
“I’m sorry, but we cannot hold them against their will.
We would be no better than the Weavers who left me here to rot. ”
“The demons will destroy the world if Corruption continues,” I urged, desperate for him to understand.
I didn’t want dreamers fighting for us against their will, but we couldn’t afford to lose what might be our only chance at destroying Corruption for good.
“Give them a choice but first let them know what is at stake. What it is we must fight. Let me show them.”
“Show them?”
“The demon we saw. I think I can re-create it.”
Erebus slowly nodded, relinquishing control to me.
Very well, then.
He turned to the dreamers, a dark king with the fate of the world on his armored shoulders.
“Since you doubt my intentions and my loyalties, Esmer and I will give you a choice,” he began.
“You can choose to remain here, square your shoulders, and fight with us. Help restore the Dream Realm to its former glory and save the Kingdom of Noctis and what remains of its people for generations to come. And we will do what we can to make this place feel… habitable.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself.
“Or you may choose to leave. We will relinquish your souls for the Maker to determine your fate.”
The dreamers erupted in frenetic, excited murmurings. Ceveon and Sorren, on the other hand, appeared utterly shocked.
“But before you decide, you must witness the enemy we face,” I added. “You asked who it is we should rage against.” I took a steadying breath, mustering my courage for what would come next. “So I will show you.”
Not so long ago, my imagination had freed me from the confines of Erebus’s cell.
I had been angry, bitter, and achingly lonely—and that had led me to crave my family so much that my cell transformed into my home in Norhavellis.
I had first imagined Chester, Elliot’s stuffed cow.
Then a wooden chair Eden had painted with lilacs and daffodils.
A simple linen dress. Untamed plants from Mother’s apothecary.
And the more I remembered, the more I imagined, the richer the space became.
Surely I could do the same conjuring, but with the memory of the demon instead.
I lowered my eyes, focusing on what I could remember.
Bits of imagery. A guttural voice. A flash of sound.
A skull ringed in horns. Red smoking eyes. A mask of swirling darkness. A hunger for the very fabric of a person’s being: the threads that held their soul together.
“You’re doing it,” Erebus breathed. “Incredible.”
The illusion came together in pieces.
First, a cloud appeared over the castle, growing darker and more ferocious by the second.
It burst with erratic curls of lightning, blasts of light so sharp that I flinched.
As thunder rumbled from its core, sounding eerily similar to laughter, it took everything in me not to shy away from the horror I was about to unleash.
“Keep going,” he urged. “You’re almost there.”
It was just enough to steady me.
To inspire me.
A claw-tipped hand parted the storm, followed by a colossal skull.
It lurched from the center, red eyes smoking as if set eternally aflame.
The demon laughed, a hideous mockery of the sound.
It was like the roar of thunder. Overwhelming, endless, and filled with the promise of impending destruction.
Dreamers froze in place, faces twisting in alarm.
“This is the one we must fight. The one that took everything from us,” I announced loudly, voice cracking in disgust. “The one that seeks to rip our world apart.”
The demon’s maw widened, showing rows and rows of sharp fangs. Then it drew back, taking a deep breath, almost as if it was preparing to spit on us. I recoiled, bracing for the worst. But instead of spittle, fire poured from its mouth, falling toward the castle in wide, hissing streams.
I took a step back, horrified. I hadn’t meant to imagine fire.
“Stop the illusion,” Erebus urged, supporting my back before I could stumble. “They’ve seen enough.”
Fire swept across the castle like a river of blood, setting it aflame.
Wrong. It was all wrong. Even the sky was different; previously a silver-flecked sweep of velvety purple, it was now dark crimson.
It reminded me of more blood. A sea of it.
Fire quickly rushed down the castle walls, sliding toward the forest and encircling us in a ring of scorching heat.
“I see you,” the demon rumbled. “I know you.”