Lucille
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Where is Melanie?
I held the question in mind, hoping it would lead to something positive, and let my mind flow into the soft hum of Somnivado.
Bone-chilling black greeted me. The thick darkness overwhelmed my senses. There was no purple ring, not even fuzzy outlines of objects. No sight.
I took a steadying breath, remembering another time when suffocating darkness surrounded me, and smelled decay.
Not the rotten kind, but the scent of thawing dead plants.
I swallowed and dared to open my mouth, attempting to speak.
My hello never came out. I touched my throat, trying again.
My mouth formed the words, but my throat didn’t vibrate. I couldn’t speak.
My ears strained and throbbed against the quiet.
Not complete quiet.
Barely perceptible hisses and whispers scraped against my eardrums, following the frigid air that stabbed my face, freezing what little moisture lingered in my nose. It wormed through my pants and long sleeves, wrapped around my limbs, and… pulled.
I walked a few steps, letting the air drag me along, feeling some kind of solid ground beneath my feet. I held out my arms, waiting to hit something, hoping to see or hear anything besides the eerie whispers, but I never did.
The cold clawed deeper, tugging harder as if desperate.
Was it some kind of cry for help?
I swallowed, attempting to stay calm in the suffocating darkness.
The cold both grounded me and dragged me toward thoughts of packed earth.
Dirt pressing in from all sides. Seven feet under.
If the book hadn’t mentioned not being able to Somnivado to the dead, I would’ve sworn I’d dream-walked into a corpse.
With each passing second, the darkness pressed tighter around me, oppressive and vile, while the cold air twisted around my body like a fearful child begging for help. My skin began to numb. Panic teased my mind. Unease twisted my stomach.
Unable to take it anymore, I forced myself out.
I woke up, feeling the unease sift off me as something hot and comforting pressed against me. Moving, I noticed I was no longer on the couch I had dragged to the end of Aspen’s bed. For obvious reasons, I assumed Aspen rested at my back, but when I turned, I found Rune.
I smiled. She was curled into a cute little ball, her head near mine, body snuggled as close as she could while still giving me comfort. Shadows slowly moved back and forth in a languid sway that suggested she was out cold.
But how did she get in here? How did I get in Aspen’s bed? Did I sleepwalk?
She sighed in her sleep, letting out a plume of breath.
“Oh, Rune,” I murmured, waving away the smell of stale blood. As gross as it was, I was thankful I could smell at all. Hear and see again.
Her ears twitched at my voice, and she sleepily licked my face with her disgusting saliva before falling back to sleep.
I wiped my face, holding back a laugh at how cute and stinky she was, then peeked over her.
The moment I did, I wished I were back on Earth, if only to steal a camera.
Aspen curled around Rune. His head was wedged near her thick neck, and his hand draped over her hip.
Coffee-colored locks splayed over his pillow and tickled his eyelashes.
He looked so boyish and, for once, peaceful.
I found it a little strange that Rune allowed Aspen so close.
But she wasn’t just Ronen’s Soulhound. She was mine too.
Maybe that gave Aspen enough leeway to snuggle her. Or neither one knew about the snuggles.
Ronen didn’t. I couldn’t imagine a world where he’d allow his Soulhound to touch the pet.
I sighed, flopping back onto my pillow, thinking about Melanie.
What did it mean? Was she dead and the book was wrong? Did someone shut her inside an isolation cage? I didn’t understand. Until I did, there was no way I was going to tell Oliver about what I saw. How could I? What would I even say?
Hey, Oli, I dream-walked to your sister, like I told you I would, and either she’s dead or someone sucked out all her life, and she’s just a cold shell now.
No. He needed solid answers.
I wanted to dream-walk again, but my mind wouldn’t turn off.
I waited until an hour before dusk and woke Rune.
She lifted her head slightly at my voice, but not enough to jostle Aspen.
My heart swelled. I knew she knew he was there, resting against her.
I assumed she was allowing his snuggles for my sake, but I didn’t care.
“Thank you,” I whispered, relief stinging my eyes. That made asking what I had to next a lot easier. “Will you stay with him while I go meet Cato?”
She licked my face in answer, imprinting her stinky breath on my cheek. I took that as a yes.
“If he wakes, keep him away from anything… Just keep him alive. Sit on him if you have to.”
She opened her mouth to lick me again, but I stopped her.
“Rune, I love you, but you need the Soulhound version of mouthwash.”
I almost regretted saying that as she plopped her head down, ears bent back as if I’d scolded her.
“Hey, none of that, beastie.” I scratched her muzzle. “I’ll be back before training. Just keep him here and alive. Whatever you need to do.”
Then I slipped out of bed, quickly went to my rooms to change, and luscelered to the library.
Leaving Rune alone with Aspen made me a little uneasy.
Not because I didn’t trust either of them, but because I didn’t trust Ronen not to snoop and find something he didn’t like.
So I only planned to spare the doors a glance and ended up slamming into their mosaic front to stop myself.
They had changed.
The rune was now displayed on the back of my father’s neck. Or so I assumed. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew very few people with an ice crown and hair as white as his. But I’d never seen that rune on his neck.
I stormed into the library with even more questions.
“Cato!”
“Pr—”
I whipped around, cutting off his greeting and snatching his finger before it tapped me. The expression he gave me suggested my actions were completely undignified.
“Have you ever seen a rune on the back of my father’s neck?”
“No.”
“Me either,” I mused, wondering what it all meant.
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
I frowned.
He waited. His silence felt like a quiz, one where he expected me to know the answer.
“A Velatus Rune,” I finally said. That was why we wouldn’t have seen anything.
Cato gave me a single nod, and I held back a smile. Hopefully that nod earned me another answer.
I read what it said in his book. I even read his chicken scratch in the margins. But I still needed to ask. “You write that we can’t Somnivado to the dead because they don’t dream. Why?”
“They don’t sleep. Their soul bodies don’t require restoration and healing like the living.”
“You’re sure?”
He stared at me, not even blinking. It was enough to release a bit of tension around my heart. Melanie was for sure alive.
“Fine, you’re sure. But what would cause me to lose almost all sensation in someone’s dream?”
Cato’s white robes shifted as he straightened to his full height and inhaled like he was preparing either a speech or a verbal lashing.
“There are four instances in which sensations can be dulled in Somnivado. The question you asked either pulled you into a dreamer’s mind who is mentally unstable, whose mind is no longer with their body, who’s in isolation, or the answer to your question couldn’t be provided last night, forcing Somnivado to lead you to a nightmare. ”
“A nightmare.” I thought back to his book. “Without direction, without an answer, a dream-walker’s mind will be pulled into the in-between where nightmares lurk.” I lifted my eyes to his, hoping I had recited it correctly.
Cato gave me another nod, and I swore I saw pride in his intellectual brown eyes.
This time, I couldn’t help but smile.
So Somnivado might’ve pulled me into a nightmare.
The thought had my smile fading. I was glad there was a possibility I hadn’t been in Melanie’s dream, but that meant I still had no answers.
Or it was one of the other three instances, which I would not be sharing with Oliver until I knew for certain.
“Did you practice your Intraverso?” Cato asked.
“No. I didn’t—”
He wacked me on the side of the head, and whatever pride had shone in his eyes vanished.
“What the Heavenly Hell was that for?” I shouted, glaring at the book. He had that hiding the entire time in his billowing sleeve?
“For slacking in your studies.” He skirted around me, his draping robes swishing as he walked back toward the line of dark shelves.
“Slacking in my studies?” I demanded, feeling a twinge in my chest. “You only gave me the book a few days ago! There’s a lot to read!”
His nods, his pride—it felt good to see. To have that taken away so quickly hurt.
“We will continue our lessons this evening. I expect you to have practiced Intraverso by then.”
“What about training? The general won’t let me nap.”
His back faded between the gaps of books and dark wood, but his voice carried. “You don’t need to sleep to dream-walk. Only focus.”
“That would’ve been nice to know from the beginning,” I grumbled.
I luscelered back to Aspen and Rune, slamming into a lanky body standing in the doorway. I glanced up.
“Oliver?”
I had a sudden urge to hug the crap out of him. He was here, cleared, standing tall like a brand-new healthy person. Although he still rocked his patient gown, so he must’ve just come from the healers’ wing.
“Luce, what exactly am I seeing right now?”
I peered around him and forced myself to hold back a burst of laughter.
Rune had actually sat on Aspen. Or more accurately, was lying on him and currently licking him as if he needed a bath. Except now that I thought about it, maybe it was more of a torture device after I insulted her breath. Aspen tried to dodge her, failing miserably.
“Good girl, beastie. You can get off him now.”
She immediately bounded toward me with her tongue lolling out and sat beside my leg.