Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
T alan and I sit on soft blankets by the fire, and its golden glow flickers over the cottage’s walls. Moonlight streams through mullioned windows, casting silver diamond shapes on the floor. I’m letting my thick wool dress dry by the fire, clad instead in a yellow silk gown Talan packed for me.
I glance over at him as he stares at the fire and tries to concentrate on his magic. He’s close enough that I can feel the alluring pull of his power against my skin—a sensual, sultry stroke on my skin that makes my spine straighten and goosebumps rise on my arms.
Talan closes his eyes, and the firelight shifts over his beautiful features.
“He’s already dreaming,” he says quietly. “I can sense it now. Are you ready?”
I take a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
He opens his eyes, and his dark gaze slides to me. “Remember, even if dreams aren’t reality, they can still hurt you. The rules are never the same, and I have no idea what we may find in Kahedin’s sick and fevered mind.” He leans in closer, and the warm light sculpts his cheekbones. His lips curl faintly. “Do you think you can handle a nightmare with me?”
“I’ll be fine.” I know firsthand how dangerous Talan can be.
Months ago, when I was still a cadet in Avalon Tower, he’d trapped me in a waking nightmare. He hadn’t seen me, but he could sense my mind. He knew that I’d stolen a map from him, and he locked me in a nightmarish world, demanding the map back from me. He’d nearly drowned me. Little telepath , he’d called me, while he dragged me under the icy sea into a whirlpool.
Little telepath. I will drown you, and you’ll wish you were dead, but you’ll keep drowning, unable to breathe, water filling your lungs. In dreams, death cannot save you.
A shiver runs down my spine. He still has no idea I was the map thief, the telepath he’d been searching for. I’ve been shielding my mind against him ever since.
“While I take you into his dream with me,” Talan says quietly, “I won’t be able to control the dream as well as I normally can. We’ll have to blend into his dream and adapt to whatever is happening in it. We can’t disrupt his own narrative too much. Every action you make is like a stone tossed in a placid lake, making eddies and ripples. If it causes too much disturbance, the dream can become unstable. Don’t fight against the dream current. Try to move with it. If Kahedin dreams that he’s a bird, we’ll also become birds. If Kahedin dreams that he is riding a horse through a meadow, we might ride horses, too.”
“What if it’s a sex dream?” I whisper.
A smile whispers over his lips. “Then I will make sure you enjoy it.”
“And what if we end up separated?”
“I will find you, little wife, wherever you go. But when we reach Kahedin, I need you to enter his mind and force him to agree to the letter I sent him. Can you do that?”
“I can do that in the dream,” I say, “but I can’t be sure he’ll follow through in real life when he wakes up. My power usually works only so long as I maintain connection.”
“It should work,” Talan says. “Dreams are powerful. As long as you really imprint the notion in his mind that he must do it, he’ll do it when he wakes up. Trust me.”
I nod. “Okay. I can do that.”
“Good. Take my hand.”
I take his hand in mine, my heart quickening.
“Watch the flames.” Talan’s voice is low and hypnotic. “Imagine your body becoming lighter. You are drifting into mist, floating along with the clouds above Lake Avalon.”
I stare at the fire, an ember floating up. I follow it with my eyes, and the world grows dimmer as Talan’s magic whispers around me, kissing my skin. Even now, I intuitively try to maintain the veil in my mind, but he doesn’t try to intrude. Instead, he gently leads me away from my body and into the dream world.
The world around me swims into focus. I’m in a garden, and warm sun spreads over my skin. It’s clearly summer here, and enormous roses are in full bloom around me. Rue and marigolds blossom, and hawthorns and mulberry trees line the path leading up to a white palace. Fish swim in a little pond, and the water glitters under the summer sky. Bees hum in the air, and blackbirds warble in the boughs. A warm breeze whispers over my bare thighs.
Talan stands next to me, taking in the scene. “I didn’t imagine Kahedin would dream of beauty like this. He always seems like such a soulless twat.”
Talan is dressed more simply than usual in a tightly fitted charcoal shirt with short sleeves that shows off his tattoos and black trousers. No rings, no crown, no earring.
“This garden is beautiful,” I say. “I’ve been desperate for the sun and warmth.”
Talan’s gaze slowly rakes over me, the copper in his eyes smoldering with heat. He takes a slow step closer, his eyes burning into mine. “Well,” he says in a low voice, “this is interesting.”
“What?” I look down at myself. I’m dressed in a short yellow summer dress that stops high up on my thighs. It’s the type of thing I would have worn back at home in the summer heat—a short style never worn in Brocéliande.
My heart races. “What’s interesting? My dress?”
He drags his gaze from my thighs to my face. He goes strangely still, and shadows slide through his eyes. As his dark gaze pierces me, I feel as if he’s uncovering my secrets right here.
“When entering a dream, we reflexively shape our appearance in the way we see ourselves,” Talan says. “You’re wearing a dress that looks like something from the human realm. And it’s not just the dress.”
I inhale shapely, and he takes a step closer, stroking a fingertip over my earlobe, and a hot shiver trails in his wake.
He’s staring at me with utter fascination as it dawns on me exactly what has his attention.
Oh. Fuck.
My glamour doesn’t exist in the dream world. My breath speeds up, my pulse roaring.
When I stepped into Talan’s dreams all those days ago, he never actually saw me. He sensed me, but he never found me, but now he sees me as I see myself—as human.
“Well, well, well.” The rich velvet of his voice has a sharp edge. “That’s certainly interesting.”
My heart is racing out of control. “It’s probably because of what you said earlier—that I’m as breakable as a human. It got in my head. It’s probably?—”
“It would be nice,” he says, “if you stopped fucking lying.”
I snap my mouth shut, my brain scrambling for an exit. He can kill me in the dream.
Talan tilts his head, studying me. “The glamour is impressive, I’ll give you that. Who wove it? Someone with incredible skill.”
I’m breathing so hard and fast, I’m not sure I can remember how to speak. “I…”
His eyes gleam with something I can’t quite read. “You’re demi-Fey. I’ve been wondering about your lungs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, turning to face him, acting offended. “Demi-Fey are mongrels. They’re filth. I’m nothing like them. You know that. You’ve spent enough time around me. Do I really strike you as?—”
“You strike me as someone with secrets.” His voice is controlled and quiet, but an edge slides under it. “Secrets you’re keen to hide at all times. I met your father, who seemed Fey. But I’ve never seen your mother.”
My blood roars in my ears. “I can’t exactly introduce you to her if she’s dead.”
“You don’t need to. I can see what you are for myself.”
I swallow. The jig is up. Trying to deny it will just make him more suspicious of me. He still needs me, doesn’t he? And as long as he doesn’t know who I work for, maybe he won’t kill me. “The midwife glamoured me. I have been glamoured since I was young.”
He shrugs slowly. “There are numerous hidden demi-Fey in Brocéliande. I don’t share my father’s beliefs about them. I doubt he even believes what he says. The demi-Fey are a scapegoat for his own failures. Nothing more. Are your taxes too high? Is your income too low? Are the roads crumbling and crime keeping you trapped in your home? It’s not the king’s fault. Never the king’s fault. It’s those insidious enemies of the kingdom, the demi-Fey, whom we’ve let live among us too long, rotting us from within. It’s a very convenient deflection for him, the first propaganda tactic of a tyrannical ruler. But is any of it real? No.”
I let out a long, slow breath, staring at him. “Okay.”
“However,” Talan says, “given how effective the propaganda is, I doubt Kahedin will find a demi-Fey in his dream reassuring.”
He lifts a hand, slowly stroking his fingertips over my earlobes again, his heat skimming against my skin. I shiver at his light touch, and tingles bloom at the contact.
He smiles faintly as he admires his work.
I touch them, feeling the pointy tips that weren’t there a second ago.
“When we return to the palace, I expect you to fill in some more details about your mother.” He tilts his head, watching me. He’s scrutinizing me too closely, and I feel self-conscious under the heat of his gaze, the way his magic strokes against mine, the way his smooth voice intoxicates me like warm, honeyed mead. “And the truth about everything. I want to uncover everything about you, Nia.”
I swallow hard. “Let’s get Kahedin. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”