Chapter 22
Later that night, if time could even be measured in the Dream Realm, the Shadow Bringer and I stood on his balcony and watched in horror as stars began to fall out of the sky.
Every few breaths, a handful would drop.
And when the stars dropped, so did part of the castle.
Sometimes, the crash of stone would be far away—a distant rumble as a piece of it broke into dust. Other times, it was extraordinarily close and made us flinch.
Part of the balustrade broke away with a crack, nearly catching my boot.
I reeled backward—straight into the Shadow Bringer’s armored chest.
I spun around, glaring at him accusingly, and he scowled as though he wanted to throw me off the balcony just to see what would happen. Another crack rang out as a stained glass window broke from a lower floor.
“So, your castle really is crumbling. And everything else around it,” I said to break the silence.
“It appears that way, yes.”
He sounded almost pleased. It was maddening.
“And you chased away our only hope of ever escaping.” Somnus hadn’t come back; I didn’t think he ever would.
“I did.”
“And if this world, this—”
“Domain,” he completed.
“—crumbles, then we’ll be trapped in the Dream Realm forever.”
“Correct. We will never again wake in reality and will be confined to the Beyond, which is—”
“The Dream Realm equivalent to hell,” I finished.
He crossed his arms as a smirk dusted his lips. “Very good. You’re catching on.”
“You seem awfully calm.” I was livid.
He shrugged. “I have nothing to lose. I’ve lived in damnation for five centuries; perhaps an eternal stay in the Beyond would pale in comparison.”
More stars were released from the sky, glittering as they fell. If the dark purple sky was a tapestry, then the stars were the stitches holding it in place. As it became undone, patches of pure, soul-eating black stared back at us, a steady reminder of what was about to become our world.
“See, that’s where we will never be the same.
Because I do have something to lose.” I glared up at him, trying to ignore how magnificently tall he was and how that height affected me.
His lithe body was built for destruction, but it was also unfairly proportioned.
Unfairly perfect. “I have Elliot. My brother needs me alive and breathing in reality, not stuck in a dream. Surely you have something that you desire enough, too.”
“I didn’t say I never had anything to lose.” His silver eyes swirled with shadow; he was clearly contemplating something. “At Somnus’s suggestion, there is one tactic we might attempt. But it is a gamble since we’re on borrowed time.”
“And? What is it?”
“We can walk through past dreams to get a better sense of how to free ourselves. But we will only have a few tries to get it right.”
“How many dreams? How many tries?”
He stared at his domain, watching as it slowly tore itself apart. “Perhaps only three. One dream per day.”
“Then we have to choose them carefully.” I thumbed my lower lip, considering.
“Surely there’s some clue in your past that will lead to our freedom.
” And there it was. Our freedom. I wondered if he heard it.
“Somnus said that the horned demon might be the key. Can you think of three dreams where it was significant in some way?”
The Shadow Bringer ran a gauntlet through his hair, appearing quite vexed. “One.”
“Then we’ll begin with that one. We need to start somewhere.” Another shattered window, another crack as part of his castle fell. I wondered how the dream would manifest. If it was anything like the one I’d created, it would consume our immediate surroundings. “Let’s go now.”
“Visiting my past dreams requires more concentration. They are a part of my subconscious,” he said, placing his hands over his armored hips. Maker, he was vexed. “I haven’t dream walked in some time. My body has been too tense to focus.”
“Too tense?”
“Too many demons to be on guard against.”
“So you’re a bit out of practice? What is considered ‘some time’ to you?”
“I haven’t dream walked since before I was locked in here. It could go wrong.”
My eyes widened. “Surely not wrong enough that it would be worse than our current fate.”
“No, but I might send us somewhere useless.” He glanced away, cursing as more stars fell. “My memory is distorted. You’ve been here a few days; can’t you already feel your mind breaking apart? Imagine five hundred years of this.”
I shivered. I knew exactly what he was talking about.
“We don’t have a choice, Shadow Bringer. We need to go—we need to go now.”
“Ah,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders.
He was stalling. Why was he stalling?
“As I said before, past dreams are inextricably connected to the subconscious. I can’t summon a dream on a whim and walk through it as you did.”
“How, then?”
“It’s only possible if we’re both in a relaxed state of sleep.”
I made my way to one of his armchairs as he went to his bed. I curled into the leather, ignoring the chill in the air and how uncomfortable my dress was becoming. “Sleep it is, then. I can handle that.”
“We need to be in closer proximity,” the Shadow Bringer said, clearly irritated. As though I wasn’t understanding him at all. “Stop fidgeting in that chair and join me in my bed.”
I blinked open an eye, instantly wary.
“You say that so easily. Like we’re friends. As if I should listen to you without reason and trust that you won’t devour my soul or strangle me in my sleep.”
He scoffed in exasperation. “I’ve watched you sleep before and have never harmed you, have I?
In fact, when I watched you sleep in my tomb, I felt no malice, even though you had very nearly killed me.
I felt only guilt at leaving you there alone.
” He made a small sound of disbelief, as if he could hardly understand it himself.
“Is that enough to convince you I’m sincere? ”
Three things slammed into me at this admission.
The first was that the Shadow Bringer could, perhaps, feel emotions other than anger and misery. The second was that he watched me sleep and it quite possibly vexed him to do so. The third was that I was physically affected by him, more and more, in ways I wasn’t willing to admit.
My days spent in the Dream Realm must have indeed warped my mind.
“Fine.” I climbed into his canopied bed, trying not to think about how much I wanted to bury my nose in his pillows and breathe in his scent. Instead, I lay atop his blankets and faced away from him. “So, I just need to relax, then? You’ll do the rest?”
“I must,” he murmured.
He shifted so that he faced away from me, but the movement was barely perceptible. His bed was simply too massive; I could have very well been alone and not noticed a difference. Shutting my eyes, I tried to focus on my breathing and not the panic rising in my chest.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “We need to reach a deep state of rest within our subconscious minds. That won’t be possible if you’re shivering.”
He drew a blanket over me—one he likely conjured out of thin air—and promptly removed his arm. But it was no use. Every crash sounded like a demon breaking through the door. I hadn’t been shivering; I had been flinching.
I hated myself for what I was about to ask. “Can you… um.”
“What is it?”
“I used to share a room with my sister,” I murmured. “After she died, it was my brother. Whenever one of us was anxious or fearful, we’d sometimes sleep with our backs to each other. To feel like we were less alone.”
The Shadow Bringer went unnaturally silent; I thought he didn’t hear me.
“The sounds of your castle breaking apart are too similar to…”
“The demons?” he supplied.
“Yes,” I admitted, my voice a low whisper.
The bed shifted as he drew near me, gingerly placing his back against mine.
I hated craving this shred of simple comfort after everything I’d been through.
Hated that it had to be him. But if escaping this castle required me to successfully dream walk, I’d do whatever it took.
Even if that meant pretending this monster’s back was Elliot’s or Eden’s.
But the more I tried to get used to the feel of him, the more uncomfortable I became.
He was too cold, and his armor was far too sharp and rigid.
One of his overlapping metal feathers bit into my shoulder blade, making me readjust to accommodate it.
“Why are you always in armor?”
He laughed dryly. “I’ve slept in my armor for as long as I can remember. There’s no use for comfortable things in a pit of darkness.”
No use for comfort? His bedroom was filled with hundreds of books, elaborate paintings, and plush armchairs. He had a balcony that overlooked a sea of stars. A canopied bed with luxurious pillows, heavy blankets, and silk sheets.
“Your bedchamber is filled with comfortable things. All this velvet and silk.”
“Then I suppose over time the armor has become a part of me.” He shifted again, and I could feel the metal feathers sink until they were smooth against his back. He fit more easily against me now, his shoulders cold but no longer sharp. “I have no reason to wear anything else.”
“Well, now you do. You’re not very comfortable to lie against.”
He sighed through his nose and went silent again. For a moment, I thought he had fallen asleep.
“You’re still shivering.”
“I’m not shivering,” I insisted, flinching as another part of his castle dropped away with a crack.
A curtain of shadow suddenly rose from the floor, cocooning the bed in a sphere of darkness.
It made a low whooshing sound as it swirled around us, perfectly replacing the erratic cracks and bangs from the rest of the castle.
The comfort it brought was immense; my breathing evened out almost immediately.
“Thank you,” I said, burying my nose into his pillows and hoping he didn’t notice.
His breathing hitched. Perhaps I’d struck a nerve.
But then I felt him relaxing, too, stretching his long, armored legs so that they brushed against mine.
“I need to thank you, too,” he murmured. “This is the first time in five hundred years that I haven’t fallen asleep to demons screaming.”
I swallowed hard, uncertain as to what I should say.
“May it be the first of many,” I finally whispered. “I never want to hear their screams again.”
A few soft, slow moments passed, marked by the even whoosh of the cocoon.
“Esmer,” the Shadow Bringer suddenly said, his tone deadly serious. “I will do what I remember, but if this goes awry, we could find ourselves trapped in a deep layer of the Dream Realm. Or some false, incorporeal pocket. It could take us years to escape if a Weaver doesn’t intervene.”
“We don’t have time to consider hypotheticals, Bringer.”
“It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t consider this very possible hypothetical with you. Because if I don’t go deep enough, the dream might be useless, wasting a day and bringing us closer to our ruin. Do you accept that kind of risk?”
I didn’t hesitate to answer. “I do.”
“I could go alone,” he urged. “Even if I became trapped in a deeper level of the Realm, time would function as usual on this layer. You’d wake up after a restful sleep, and I’d wake up, too; only I’d be a few centuries older.”
“Then don’t trap us. Guide us true.”
He made a sound of approval, shifting again so that his spine better aligned with mine.
“Sync your breathing with mine,” he prompted. I could faintly feel the deep rise and fall of his breaths.
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
My mind lifted, guided by the Shadow Bringer’s inexplicable prodding. He urged me to follow.
And so I did.