Chapter 9
Deep in the Shadow Bringer’s dungeon, I leaned against my cell’s bed, trying to ignore how revolting it felt against my skin.
Earlier, I hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near the bed, let alone actually touch the thing.
It was a skeletal, flimsy monstrosity draped with blankets and pillows that felt more like cobweb than cloth.
Still, a paltry frame with thin bedding was far better than the ground.
I learned that lesson quickly enough, finding that the crack at the bottom of my door was just large enough to watch slinking, shadowy things pass by.
Things that paused at the door. Scratched at it.
Whispered fragments of sentences in hollow voices.
“Let us out,” one had pleaded.
I’d ignored it and turned away from the door, shivering.
The Shadow Bringer despised me. Wanted me gone.
He had made that clear enough when he nearly beheaded me—his blade had vanished into shadow right before it met my throat—and he made it clearer still when he dragged me down a candlelit hall, conjured a dungeon out of thin air just for me, and stalked away to some other Maker-forsaken part of his castle.
Two days had passed, but I felt no hunger or thirst. Over time, my chilled skin had dried, and my wet, tattered dress had restitched itself.
My ankle had also healed at some point—though when, exactly, I didn’t remember—and it no longer hurt.
Strangely, as a part of this nightmare, the inside of my cell reset itself each night, arranging its innards in some unholy, endless cycle.
My room’s singular candle never fully melted; if I broke something, it was fixed the next morning; and if I tried to remember what I’d done the day before, the memories felt foggier and foggier.
There was nothing to do. Nothing to see.
But the worst part was this: When I slept, I no longer woke up in Norhavellis.
I just kept waking up in this Maker-forsaken dungeon.
I slumped against the wall, a cold slant of stone, and cursed every inch of the leaking, miserable room and the bastard who ruled over it. I cursed until my mind was raw and fraying.
“Let us out,” a demon moaned at the door.
“I won’t!” I yelled back.
I tried everything to escape. I called the shadowed power back to my palms, but it ignored me.
I bargained with the demons in the hall, but they had no understanding of what I was asking.
I tried sleeping, willing myself back into reality with every shred of my soul, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think.
“Let us out,” repeated the demon.
This castle was hell. Not a living nightmare, but hell itself.
No wonder the Shadow Bringer is a raving lunatic.
I stifled a scream into my elbow, crying out until my throat was raw.
On the third day, the demons grew silent. And in their absence came the shadows.
The Shadow Bringer didn’t say a word, but I could feel him. He stood out of sight from the crack under the door, but his shadows crawled in regardless, slinking along the floor and touching my ankles as though they were the muzzle of a lonely dog.
I lurched to my feet.
“How long do you plan to leave me rotting? Until I am so old and resentful that my hair turns white like yours?”
The questions leapt out, angry and bitter, before I could stop them.
My cell door disappeared; in its place stood the Shadow Bringer, emanating a halo of darkness. It slid along the lines of his body, spilling chaotically into the hall and my cell as if he couldn’t control the shadows very well. Either that, or he didn’t care to control them.
“Until you free me,” he answered. His voice was rich and melodic, a smooth mask over his cold rage. “Break my curse, and you will never encounter this place again.”
“It sounds like you’re still asking me to release you from your castle. A castle that conveniently keeps you isolated from the rest of the Dream Realm.”
“I am not asking,” he began, stepping into the cell as his shadows hissed around me. “I am commanding.”
“Well, then…” I paused.
“Then?” he parroted, his lip curling.
“I shall execute your command… never.”
His silver eyes narrowed. A whisper of that cold fury was back. My stomach dropped, clenching in fear. I had been too bold. Too careless.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I choked out. This was the Shadow Bringer, for Maker’s sake. He’d rip my soul from my bones and use them to pick his teeth. “Please spare my soul, I’ll—”
“Just your soul? Not your family’s, your friends’, your lover’s? How selfish to beg for yours alone.”
I swallowed. A lover’s?
I further considered his provocation. It was selfish of me to think only of myself.
Elliot’s soul, and the broken souls of my Corrupt parents, were far more deserving.
And then there was Eden. My beautiful, perfect sister who had loved me with all her heart.
Who had trusted me until the very end, indulging in my obsession with dreams even though it meant she’d lie in a coffin before her sixteenth birthday.
The Light Bringer had purified her, reuniting her soul with the Maker in heaven, but perhaps the Shadow Bringer still had his claws around it. Around her.
“Not just mine,” I began carefully, wary of placing targets on my family members. “There are four others.”
“And what would you give for their safety?” he asked, coiling his shadows around the floor. They slowly began to rise, mimicking the snakes that previously bound me. “Would you let your kingdom’s villain roam free?”
This gave me pause. I didn’t know what it would mean for the Dream Realm if he was released. Another idea flashed through my mind. Frantic and half-formed, but an idea nonetheless.
The Light Bringer.
If I found a way to warn Lord Mithras, perhaps he could travel with his legion into this dream and kill the Shadow Bringer while he was still contained. If I could find and enter his castle, surely the Light Bringer could, too.
I just needed to keep the Shadow Bringer captive long enough for our savior to arrive.
“Perhaps I would set you free,” I finally conceded, taking a step forward.
I needed him to trust me, to believe that I wanted to set him free.
At least until I could lure a legion of predators into his den.
I almost smiled at the idea of it. Lord Mithras, radiant in his power, would burn the Shadow Bringer down to a pile of iron and ash.
“But first I need to go home to Norhavellis. How much time has passed? Does dream time correlate with reality?”
“If there is a correlation, this castle confounds it. When you wake up, it’s possible one hour will have passed.
Or perhaps one year.” He stalked forward, leaning over me.
Maker, he was tall. “But that shouldn’t matter, because I will not grant you the gift of ‘going home.’ This room anchors you; you shall remain contained in this castle until you free me. ”
His snakes jumped forward, bodies rushing to encircle me. I flinched, and they slammed to a stop before they could even touch my dress, spinning instead to face the Shadow Bringer with wide-mouthed screams before dissolving and falling like rain upon the floor.
The Shadow Bringer’s eyes went wide behind his horned mask.
“What are you?” he murmured, almost as if he didn’t intend to be heard.
Before I could answer, he spun on his heels and slammed a newly conjured door into place. I slid to the ground, despair crawling up my throat like an unwelcome sickness, and cried myself to sleep.
I woke up slowly, eyes already swimming with unshed tears.
An image of my brother arose in my head: Elliot curled up in his blanket burrow, hiding from the world and all its monsters under a heap of warm cotton and wool.
How he’d tuck Chester the cow into the crook of his elbow.
His tufted brown fur was always knotted, his button eyes dull from age.
I tried to imagine Eden, but it wasn’t as easy.
My memories were muddled and foggy: a glimpse of her hair, a single chime of her laugh, a graze of her warm hug.
I tried to reach for them, but they kept fading away.
It was like grasping for dozens of small, slippery fish as they tumbled down a waterfall.
I pressed my face into my palms and tried not to hyperventilate.
No, no, no.
I willed my tears to stay where they were—in my head, not running rampant down my face. But they escaped regardless, falling in long, meandering lines down my cold skin.
Curse it all.
After a time, I opened my eyes. It simply hurt too much to keep imagining. Although the memories I could salvage were comforting, they were false. I looked around my cell, noting the dim light, the dirty ground, the stuffed cow in the corner—
A stuffed cow slouched against the corner of my cell, its button eyes staring upward.
I nearly fell out of the bed.
“Chester,” I whispered. The name felt odd on my tongue. Gingerly, I picked him up, thumbing the knots in his fur. “What are you doing here? Where is Elliot?”
Other things appeared. A wooden chair, scuffed and peeling where Eden had painted flowers on it years ago.
The bookshelf from my room. A favorite linen dress, a hand-me-down from Eden, its cloth soft and practical despite its fraying edges.
A plant-filled wall from Mother’s apothecary.
Elliot’s favorite book of Dream Weaver tales.
The beamed ceiling from our kitchen. Our front door, its window bright with morning light.
In seconds, my cell doubled, tripled in size, unfurling and shifting.
It was a creature growing into its second set of skin.
The more I saw, the more I felt, and the more I remembered.
The space shifted with my thoughts, readjusting and rearranging its innards until it more closely resembled what I knew to be home. Gone was my cell in the Shadow Bringer’s castle. This was home.
“Elliot?” I called. “Mother? Father?”
I ran from room to room, frantically searching—but found only silence. It looked like home, but there was no one there to fill it. Outside, I collapsed, scarcely feeling the whisper of grass upon my bare legs.
No longer was I wearing the dark, high-necked dress with billowing sleeves.
I was barefoot in one of my favorite cotton nightgowns, and the sensation was glorious.
The morning light pressed its warmth into my neck; birds soared overhead; woodsmoke mingled with pine and lilac bushes; trees swayed in the breeze—but it was still lacking. All of it, lacking.
Where is everyone?
At the familiar clinking of pointed boots and taloned gauntlets, I turned around.
There was the cause of my despair, descending the wooden steps of my family’s front porch. His white hair, horned helmet, and black armor were a stark contrast against the vibrant color around him; he looked unfit for such an ordinary setting.
“What have you done?” he asked. Despite how odd he looked on my family’s property, his eyes were curious, mesmerized by the earth, the trees, and the cloud-covered sky.
Memories of the last few days rose up, cold and terrible. I hated his castle. I hated him.
The ground suddenly cleaved apart at his feet, almost as if I had caused it, sending him sprawling face-first into the grass. I tensed, expecting him to rise in a fit of rage, but he merely rolled to his side, picked a wildflower, and spun it between clawed fingers.
“What you’ve accomplished goes against the laws of my castle.” He tore his eyes from the flower, dropping it. “How did you do this?”
I crossed my arms, distrusting the hint of genuine wonder in his question. “I’m not telling you that.”
Something misshapen and dark formed behind his back: wings.
Two wide, velvet-black wings unfurled from him in a burst of feather and shadow.
He glanced back at them, surprise briefly registering on his face, before taking a powerful leap into the sky.
Within a few beats, he had disappeared into the mist beyond the clearing, leaving gusting, swirling patterns in the air behind him.
“What in the Maker?” I gasped.
The wake he left ruffled my dress, and I felt every sensation sharpen: the tickle of grass beneath my feet, the cool spot of mud pressing into my heel, and the edge of a stone touching my toe.
Small lifelike sensations. Memories of my childhood flashed before me, too.
Lying in the sun with Eden, searching for shapes in the clouds with Elliot, all three of us running barefoot on prickly midsummer grass as we played tag or some other jaunty, mindless game before dinner.
After some time, the Shadow Bringer reappeared through the mist. He fell from the sky, not pausing to catch his balance, and collapsed hard into the grass.
He ripped off one of the metal gloves that armored his hands, trembling as he did so, and clutched at the ground with long, white-knuckled fingers.
It was more unsettling, perhaps, than when he’d nearly beheaded me.
“Little,” I heard him murmur. He placed his helmed brow against the tangle of grass at his knees, pausing to draw in a deep breath, then rose to his knees again, still grasping the ground. “Your world is so little.”
“I don’t have much of a say in the matter,” I responded, eyeing him warily from where I sat. “My parents are Absolvers. We have a duty to the people of Norhavellis. It’s the only place I’ve ever been.”
“So this is truly all you know? You crafted this dream based on your reality, but your reality is limited. A town—no, a village—infested with ruin and rot. That is Norhavellis? And then, five miles at most beyond that, an uneven perimeter around your home. That’s all?”
He paused to look up at the sky, almost as if he was uncertain about saying anything else. But then, as quickly as he had descended into that strange pit of sorrow and contemplation, he shifted, jolting upright as if branded by fire.
“There must be more. If you’re bound to the Light Bringer as one of his followers, there must be more.” He stormed over to me, his lifeless eyes now burning. “Give me your arm.”
I made to move away, to scramble across the porch into my house, but the dream was starting to blur, its colors melding into smeared pools of pastel. I stumbled to my feet, swaying as he grabbed me by the wrist.
“You will not wake up now,” he snarled, forcing me back into focus. “Let me see what you know. Show me your world.”