Chapter 6
My back was freezing. Still, I clenched my eyes shut. The day could wait.
Yes, it can wait.
But a wind, damp and bitter, wound its way into my dress, demanding otherwise. I tugged on the hem, tucking it around my feet, and settled miserably against the pillows behind me. No, not pillows.
A wall.
My eyes flew open.
I was leaning against an impossibly beautiful castle, its obsidian walls gleaming from a star-flecked sky the color of a dark amethyst. I clawed at my chest, probing the unfamiliar material with too-cold fingers.
Black silk draped from my shoulders, narrowing to tighter sleeves across my forearms. The fabric continued across my chest, coming to a stop just below my jaw and flowing long and full around my legs.
An ornate metal belt, shaped to perfectly conform to my waist, wrapped around my stomach to sit perched atop my hips, and dark tights hugged my legs like a second skin, meandering down my legs to meet knee-high leather boots.
It wasn’t practical, but it was beautiful. Something I’d dreamed up, surely.
Dreaming. I’m dreaming.
My heart thudded violently in my chest. Even after I’d taken the legionnaire’s vial of elixir, the Dream Realm had found me once again.
The carvings on the castle doors, previously blurry, were clear this time: Flowers spiraled into delicate willow tree branches, a young boy rode a cloud shaped like a chariot, and a king and queen happily conversed with winged dreamers.
But the more I looked, the more I didn’t want to see.
The flowers began to burn, shadows bubbled from beneath the willow branches, and the figures’ smiles twisted into gaping screams. The boy’s cloud spun into a surging tempest of shadow, eating him alive.
I cried out in surprise, wheeling back from the carvings, but I had nowhere to go.
Dozens of demons, ugly messes of haphazard body parts, were lurching—or crawling—toward me from the castle’s courtyard, trapping me.
“You can see, you can see!” the first demon cried. It was the one with the tattered cape and wilting gray hair. “Horror, beauty, dreams, life. Oh, but what will you do now? Let us in—let us be with him. Set us free!”
Shadows fell from the grooves in the carvings, forming into grotesque monsters.
They rippled on the surface of the iron doors, moving so quickly that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Hooked claws, serrated horns, lips peeled back into malicious grins—I could feel their hatred as they poured out.
Hundreds of eyes glared at me, seething with malice.
It didn’t look as if they had the power to break free, undulating against the doors as they were, but I didn’t want to find out, either.
The demons were moving more quickly now, stumbling every few paces with their uneven gaits.
“Stay away from me!” I shrieked, edging closer to the monster-infested castle doors.
“Must you stare with such disgust?” The first demon held out its arms, showing off its gray, wrinkled flesh.
“It is because you are disgusting,” I hissed. I couldn’t believe it. I was conversing with a demon, and a deranged one at that. “All demons are disgusting.”
“Cruel girl. My mortal body died during—what do you call it?” It paused, looking at the demons behind it as if they were supposed to know what it was talking about.
“Forgive me. It’s been some time since I walked the true earth or exchanged words with a human.
Does your kind acknowledge you by a name? Or shall I just call you ‘girl’?”
“You will not trick me, demon. I’ve heard many tales of your deception.”
“Well, if you wish to be closed-minded, so be it. Makes it easier for me.” It tossed the cloth that trailed from its shoulders and bent at the waist, mimicking an aristocratic bow.
It stood again, a smile upon its cracked lips.
The light of the stars, looming over the castle’s many spires, glowed in its eyes. “Open the castle or I will devour you.”
“Open it yourself and stay away from me!” I shrieked again. “I won’t help you.”
The demon held up its gray, claw-tipped hands. “It won’t open for these hands, girl. The doors flinch and scream and hide—just as you do.”
“If only we had wings,” groaned a demon with spines protruding from its back.
“If only,” agreed the gray-haired demon. “But alas.”
Then they started walking, steadily closing the gap between us.
Esmer.
Esmer.
Esmer.
It was as though someone—or something—inside the castle was tugging on a single invisible thread fixed tightly around my rib cage and needed me to go beyond the gates of shadows and monsters. The call didn’t feel evil, exactly, but it reeked of hatred and despair.
It felt achingly familiar.
I stretched my hand toward the castle doors, bracing myself in case the monstrous carvings decided to bite it off. But as soon as I reached their snapping jaws, the creatures slid away, leaving just enough room on the metal for two carved handles inlaid with onyx stones.
Behind me, the demons began running, nearly to the base of the castle stairs.
“Let us in!” they shrieked. “Lead us to him!”
As soon as my fingertips grazed the handles, the doors swung inward, sliding quickly and quietly against a marble floor.
The creatures decorating the doors stilled, shifting their eyes to the abysmal darkness that coaxed from within.
It felt similar to standing atop a precipice and staring into the eyes of a mysterious immortal beast that was clearly staring back. But there was no time to ponder.
Move, Esmer.
The demons were climbing the stairs, so I hurried into the castle, flinching as the doors crashed shut behind me. Fortunately, the doors were silent and unmoving once closed; they wouldn’t let the demons in.
“Hello?” I ventured softly.
In response, a snarl sounded in the distance.
The noise hovered in the musty air, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
Inching forward, I finally ran into something solid—a corner.
Not a door, but not a demon, at least. I pressed myself against the stone, legs threatening to give out, but the growl echoed again, low and guttural. Unhurried, even.
As if it knew I couldn’t escape.
I shivered as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
The vestibule was cavernous, adorned with opulent furniture and sprawling, gold-framed paintings and mirrors.
And the colors—the colors within the space, slowly emerging—were unlike any I’d seen before in Norhavellis: indigo like the sweeping night sky, emerald like a forest floor at dusk, burgundy like a bruised plum left to settle in red wine.
I gritted my teeth, attempting to muster some courage. I needed to fight. Whatever came, I had to fight. If I didn’t resist the demons intent on Corrupting me, I’d be just like Mother and Father, festering in a dark room until the Light Bringer came to purge the shadows from my soul.
And Elliot would be left alone in a world that preferred him rotting in an unmarked grave.
But the vestibule, even with its sumptuous decor, was more like a moonlit cavern than a castle, and as I searched for a weapon—preferably something extra sharp for whatever it was that wished to devour me—I found nothing of use.
Apparently, the lord of this miserable castle never thought to invest in a weapon rack.
I was deliberating over a small table, wondering if I could use it as a shield, when a sudden wind ignited a series of hidden candelabras set deep into the walls.
As they burst alive, their ghostly flames appeared in every gilded mirror, casting the paintings in an uncanny glow.
Light filled the space, toward where it grazed—but didn’t quite reach—a haze of darkness atop a staircase cut in the center of the room.
The stairs towered higher than the vestibule’s massive ceiling, winding away into the upper floors.
Then, in a rush, the haze disappeared.
Shadows poured down the stairs in thick tendrils, revealing a wide crack splitting the upper floors.
Just beyond the hole, circling the castle in a suffocating sweep, came a horde of winged demons.
They dipped and dove in front of an armored figure, growing nearer and nearer as if they wanted very much to be seen.
The man raised his gauntlet-covered hands as if in greeting—and then a wild tempest of pitch-black shadow surged from him toward the mob of demons, sweeping out of the castle and into the sky.
As the shadows swept around the demons’ bodies, they were silent.
Silent as if he had sated them.
A strangled sound of fear slipped from my throat. The figure turned, noticing me at last.
He was a serpent poised to strike, a powerful demon sculpted from the shadows themselves.
Ornate black armor clung to his body as if molded to him, marked by epaulettes carved to resemble feathers or scales and a cape that fell like fog past his feet.
His face was fully covered; a pair of horns, protruding from intricate metal panels, curled up from a draconic helm, and a caged structure was set over his cruel mouth and pale jaw.
Save for his mouth, his eyes, and a sweep of moon-white hair that fell just above his shoulders, every inch of his skin was covered, even down to the clawed gauntlets that stretched across his hands.
He took a step forward, moving as if he were a ghost. His cape trailed behind him, hovering like a shroud of thick smoke.
He was painted differently in the history books, more monster than man.
I was used to seeing him with red eyes, a bloody mouth, and a hideous, beast-like body.
He was always devouring souls, fighting Weavers, or dripping with gore.
But even though he looked different, I recognized who stood in front of me.
He was a plague that ripped apart families, destroyed souls, and isolated humanity from their dreams. A nightmare who had ruined my life.