Chapter 27
Am I dead?
For a time, there was nothing but stark, blinding light.
It surrounded me with its fullness, swallowing my screams. I searched for a shape, a shadow, a movement, anything.
But the light persisted, overwhelming despite its emptiness.
My hair floated to the sides of my face, fluttering along the edge of my cloak.
Slowly, I began to feel weightless. Free, even.
But everything was wrong. It was suffocating, this light. This silence.
I glanced at my hands. They were empty, missing the boy’s brave, reassuring grip.
He had wanted us to escape the pit together.
A terrible thought slammed into me: Maybe I hadn’t made it.
Maybe I was dead or lost, stuck in some eternal Dream Realm afterlife when all I wanted was to be alive on earth and safe with Elliot.
The thought sickened me.
Vaguely, I felt something brush my fingertips. I reached through the ripple of light, grasping for what I had felt. If it was Erebus, I wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone. But as I stretched, the light expanded outward, drowning my face and crawling into my nose. I squeezed my eyes shut.
My throat was full, bubbling over.
I’m dying.
The light stilled, dampening into gray. Just as something—someone—finally reached for me. Their hands were armored and as cold as ice, but they held on. My eyes flew open.
And for a moment, the world stood still.
The Shadow Bringer, more statue than man, was suspended in a pool of silvery water.
His eyes were closed, lashes resting atop frozen cheeks, and his hair pooled about him in a ghostly crown.
Gone was the lifeblood from his skin; he was pallid as a corpse, lips drawn together in a colorless line.
It struck me again how beautiful he was.
Even with a helm drawn over most of his face, his beauty rivaled the moon’s.
But the Shadow Bringer had once been just a child.
A mortal—a boy—with fear, hope, and dreams in his bones. And he had a name.
Erebus.
My eyes drifted to his chest. The demon’s horn had been thrust through his ribs, pinning him to the bottom of the pond.
I shuddered, imagining how it would feel to be impaled like that.
To be left to die, speared to the mud like an insect.
I pulled on the horn, hoping that I could dislodge it from his chest. Death and life in the Realm were mysterious, fickle things.
The Bringer looked dead, but he also never had a heartbeat.
And neither did I. My chest was empty, motionless as his.
It was then I realized I hadn’t been breathing. And I didn’t need to.
When I felt I was drowning in the Shadow Bringer’s cavern, perhaps it was only because I believed I was drowning. Maybe there really was hope after all.
Gritting my teeth, I held the horn and pulled hard. I groaned at the weight of it; bubbles poured from my mouth. But my effort was useless. The horn was too heavy—too slippery under my hands. I couldn’t lift it, even as I tried to imagine it as light, weightless, and brittle.
A large, misshapen body moved through the water. A thing that looked very much like the red-eyed demon.
I wrapped my arms under the Shadow Bringer’s shoulders, moving closer to him than I had ever dared. His hair, silky and ticklish, brushed against my face. If I couldn’t lift the horn, maybe I could lift the Shadow Bringer off it. I just had to angle him correctly, pull him up before the—
I froze, panicking.
The demon was close—too close. It kicked up sediment from the bottom of the pond, clouding the water and obscuring my view of its body. Just a few seconds more and it would be upon us.
Holding the Bringer tight and trying to ignore how cold and empty his body felt, I swam up with all my strength.
The demon lunged toward us, stretching its mouth wide.
Too late—it’s too late.
Its body circled us, breaking through the sediment. I looked on, horrified. We were weak. Powerless.
We’d failed. And the cost was devastating.
Because of this demon, I would be imprisoned in the Dream Realm forever, never able to return home.
Never again would I see a real sunrise, enjoy real food, or watch real people living real lives.
Because of this demon, I’d never get to hug Elliot or watch him grow up.
I’d never even see him again. I buried my face in the Shadow Bringer’s chest, shutting my eyes as the demon’s teeth closed around us.
The Shadow Bringer wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t some creature in the dark worthy of being hated and feared. Not like this demon was.
But just as the demon’s jaws began to squeeze shut, surely sealing our fates, it disintegrated.
And just like that, everything changed.
The pond’s waters shifted into something pure and crystalline.
I could nearly smell it. Taste it. Floral and crisp: mint, wildflowers, and fresh air.
The pond floor, slick with mud and decay, transformed into a slab of dark sapphire.
Any debris—anything other than pure, sparkling water—dissolved.
Golden light, filtering down from above, washed over it all, hinting of a radiant sunrise just beyond the surface.
Though I wasn’t breathing, I wanted to. I wanted to drink it in; I wanted to fill my lungs with this scene.
Even the Shadow Bringer was changing. His skin warmed, lips shifting from deathly gray to a pale pink. The demon’s horn disappeared, too. Though the Bringer’s armor had a hole in it, his chest was smooth and intact.
With the horn no longer pinning him down, we began to rise.
As soon as we broke the surface, the change in the dream was evident.
The cottage was gone, as were the scum-lined cattails and perpetual haze.
Instead, a field of wildflowers swept as far as the eye could see, each glowing as if it held a candle within its petals.
Trees curled over the field, immensely tall and impossibly magnificent; their bark was iridescent and their leaves glittered like precious jewels.
A sunrise shimmered above, glowing plum and gold.
And in the middle of it all, shadow and starlight spinning from his hands, was young Erebus.
He was smiling—beaming—as he worked, forming rolling hills and emerald rivers, clouds of silver dust, and a million stars to rest within his golden sky.
From the ashes of his family’s cottage grew an obsidian tree, its many branches filled with the same glowing flowers in the field.
I had never seen a boy so happy, so free.
Even Elliot, ever the sweet, brave optimist, never truly looked the way Erebus did now.
Without demons or Corruption, was this what dreams had the power to be?
It left me longing for something I didn’t quite understand. Like I had missed something important my entire life, something critically significant to my happiness and purpose. Carefree joy. Endless possibility.
Still damp from the pond water, I scarcely noticed as tears slid down my face.
I pulled the Shadow Bringer to the bank, setting him in the flowers.
They fluttered against his body, an array of glowing colors swaying gently in the breeze, and their light, mingling with the sunrise, softened his edges and hollows.
He looked as though he was one breath away from opening his eyes.
And surely he was breathing. Right?
The Bringer had said that breathing was a habit—that dreamers did it regardless, despite not having true heartbeats. I knelt over his chest, waiting for a breath’s telltale rise and fall. I gave it a moment, then another, counting my own breaths in the meantime.
Thirty seconds passed. Sixty. One hundred.
His chest remained motionless.
Strangely, I felt irritated. He was the almighty Shadow Bringer, for Maker’s sake. Yet here he was, drowned, freezing, and powerless, defeated by the very monster we needed to overcome.
“You’re not dead, and the demon is gone,” I said, wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “You’re going to miss the rest of the dream, Bringer. Wake up.”
Beyond us, Erebus continued to weave beautiful new creations.
A great bird, its wings a blanket of midnight.
A cloak of stardust, onyx, and velvet, which he threw over his shoulders to trail along the ground.
Sometimes he flew; sometimes he jumped; sometimes he simply stood within his flowers and smiled.
For a moment, I thought he looked my way.
“Erebus!” I waved my arms, straining so that he could see me. The flowered meadow was wide, and its iridescent trees partially obscured the Bringer and me. Erebus started to move toward us, but another moment passed, and he turned, walking away. “Erebus, I made it out! You did it—we—”
A hand grabbed me by the sleeve, pulling me down to land half-draped across an armored chest.
“Don’t say that name,” the Shadow Bringer thundered. And then he coughed, struggling to find his voice again as his hand dropped from my sleeve to my thigh. He didn’t seem aware of the touch; his shadowed eyes weren’t fully focused. “I am no longer that man. His name shouldn’t be spoken.”
Before I could think, I threw my arms around his shoulders.
A laugh slipped out, then it turned into a sob before I could stop it.
I didn’t know why I was crying, but it felt good.
It felt freeing. Surprisingly, the Bringer leaned into my touch.
He wrapped his arms around my back, holding my hips with one forearm and my shoulders with the other.
Though his arms were armored, they weren’t uncomfortable.
In fact, I was surprised by how comfortable they felt.
“You’re crying.” He slowly brought his hands to my jaw, pressing against the line of tears that still slipped down my skin. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, leaning back so that I could see him. Shadows slowly spun in his eyes; they were more beautiful than I’d ever seen them. “I thought you died.”