8
Two dreamers had died.
Sorren and Ceveon reported the grim news: The two dreamers who had perished under the Weavers’ demonic “gift” had not, as expected, woken up in their beds earlier that morning.
They had not risen with groggy memories of being flung into a tree or cut down the middle, insides spilling into shadows.
They had not attended breakfast, had not arrived with the other dreamers at our makeshift training grounds.
No, they had not done any of those things.
Because they were gone.
Dead.
“Are you sure?” I asked roughly, resisting the urge to palm my throat. “Isn’t that…”
“Impossible?” Erebus offered darkly. He stormed back and forth, shadows trailing the edges of his cape.
I could tell his control was slipping; his thin mask of decorum was ready to fall.
“Death in the Dream Realm is convoluted; ‘death’ is meant to result in waking—either waking up in a physical plane, in Noctis, or waking up in an assigned domain.” Rage simmered like cold fire beneath his skin, eager to be released.
“But these dreamers were cut from our domain. Uprooted and discarded like weeds.”
And it was true.
There were two fewer threads in our domain.
I could feel their absence from our web, along with other threads seeking to close the gap.
Erebus and I were connected to all the dreamers across our domain.
Their souls were like little pricks of light, tiny silver stars that formed a webbed constellation within our minds.
Their threads vibrated in fear. They were uncertain about their futures and distrustful of Erebus and me as their leaders.
But there were also threads of want, too.
Want for power, revenge, and knowledge. They craved what we had to offer them, even if they didn’t fully revere us. They wanted to know how to fight. How to survive. And we could teach them.
“There are concerns about where the dreamers’ souls went,” Ceveon said, glancing at the crowd of dreamers who were beginning to gather around us in the courtyard, waiting for instruction.
His green eyes, typically so vibrant, were heavy with exhaustion.
“Some believe their souls did not ascend to be with the Maker.”
My brow tensed. “But where else would they go? Our dreamers are no longer…” I trailed off, unexpectedly choked up on that one little word.
Alive. Our dreamers were already dead; they had all passed away in a number of cruel ways, succumbing to Corruption and inhabiting their demons’ bodies until we cleansed them.
Perhaps Eden, Mother, and Father were still in the Dream Realm somewhere, suffocating under the flesh of the demons that claimed them.
Unable to find their way to our domain as the other dreamers had.
“Alive,” I finished quickly, feeling ill.
“No, we aren’t,” Sorren said, thin lips pursed in irritation. As though he wanted to move past this and talk about something else. “Beyond the Dream Realm, we’re all just piles of rot and bones.”
Erebus visibly darkened, shadows falling heavily upon his shoulders. He’d always feel anger and guilt for their entrapment. For not freeing Ceveon and Sorren sooner, even if it wasn’t his sin to repent for. “Where do the dreamers believe the souls went, Ceveon?”
“There are theories that the two souls descended,” Ceveon answered.
“To the Beyond, then,” I noted, recalling what I knew of that hellish place. It was the equivalent to spending an eternity amid chaos, darkness, and demons. In truth, it didn’t sound that far off from Erebus’s castle before he was freed. “Where demons originate. And where Raelion claims he rules.”
Ceveon nodded, expression grim. “They believe the demon was able to drag the dreamers’ souls away from the Dream Realm, away from the Maker—and straight to the Beyond.”
“Thankfully,” Sorren began, twisting one of the many silver rings on his fingers, “it doesn’t appear that anything other than a demon can fully remove a dreamer’s soul from this domain. There was a brawl a few days ago—a dreamer had his neck snapped. But he woke up the next day right as rain.”
Ouch.
I shuddered, trying to distract myself from the visceral horror of a snapping neck. “If a dreamer is taken to the Beyond, can they ever return?”
The three men shared an intense look.
“No,” Erebus finally answered. “No, they cannot.”
Our conversation unraveled as the seven Weavers returned, descending from the sky in an orderly fashion.
Lelantos, Weaver of Air, and Ceres, Weaver of Earth, would lead the day’s training.
Lelantos, his tawny wings spreading behind him in a dramatic sweep, immediately dove into the basics: how to envision wings, and how to move them efficiently.
“Wings,” he declared, “are the most essential form of advanced movement in the Realm. Wings are instinctive to use, provide a grounding sensation to the act of flight itself, and require little mental effort to maintain.”
Ceres supplemented his instruction, explaining how dreamers could manipulate their own minds—and, in turn, their self-imposed limits—to run and jump higher.
The Weavers reminded our dreamers that they weren’t breathing; their hearts, joints, and physical limitations had no effect on their capabilities in the Dream Realm.
For the most part, the dreamers seemed somewhat capable with their shadow-hewn wings, if a little awkward.
Only a few truly floundered, unable to properly reach the new limits of their imaginations.
These dreamers struggled to walk with their wings on; they wobbled around or stumbled to the dirt as if a horse were straddling their backs.
As if a horse were straddling their backs and kicking them.
Sorren glared at these dreamers, delicately biting the tip of his little finger.
Ceveon, meanwhile, seemed impatient for different reasons.
As though he wanted to help Lelantos and Ceres in their instruction.
Only after every dreamer had managed to rise off the ground, taking tentative laps around the domain, were Erebus and I approached by the instructing Weavers.
“Shadow Weavers,” Lelantos greeted, giving us each a nod.
His half mask of bone looked particularly imposing in the twilight of our domain, but his inquisitive, steady energy prevented it from being frightening.
He was wearing close-fitting leathers, and feathers were braided into pieces of his windswept brown hair.
“Thank you for letting Ceres and me take the lead in this day’s instruction.
We hope it will prove fruitful to our efforts to reclaim Evernight. ”
“We hope it proves fruitful, too,” Erebus said darkly, mouth twisted in an almost snarl.
He was trying his best to keep his emotions subdued, but his instinctive hatred for the Weavers, honed for five hundred years in the most brutal of conditions, refused to surrender.
“Because the sooner we can fly to Evernight and kill Raelion and his demons, the sooner we can stop pretending we’re all truly allies. ”
“Are we not?” Ceres questioned, leveling her emerald stare on me in particular.
Today she wore a simple green dress with deep red embroidery.
Bits of moss, cobwebs, and dried flowers stuck up from her horned headpiece, mingling with her brown hair.
“I understand your torment, Erebus, but you’re choosing to overlook both our intentions and our own suffering by condemning us,” she added gently.
“We are Weavers just as you are. We all share the same call: to guide humanity in their dreams and to protect the Dream Realm no matter the cost. We will be allies as long as we live.”
Erebus’s face softened—ever so slightly—as Ceres’s words sank in. He wasn’t as adversarial around Ceres and Lelantos, I’d noticed. Not like he was around Fenrir or Somnus. “That remains to be seen,” he muttered noncommittally.
Ceres nodded solemnly. “Well, perhaps we will all perish before there’s even a chance to be proper allies. Rot back into the earth like felled animals, offering our bodies and souls to the heavens at last.”
Her unexpected morbidity made my stomach churn. I wouldn’t be rotting anytime soon.
Not before I could make it to Elliot, at least.
“Before we discuss the unfortunate possibility of rotting, there needs to be flight.” Lelantos gestured toward a particularly energetic set of dreamers, their hair streaming as they gave small yelps of joy.
“Flight is vital in the Realm. Not all demons possess the affinity for it, and even if they do, they are often sloppy and incapable. Mastering this skill will permit your dreamers a great advantage against them.”
“And your dreamers aren’t utterly without promise,” Ceres noted. “Should we proceed to the movement trial? There we can see how your dreamers will perform under realistic circumstances.”
The trial would be the first of the three. Three trials; three days. A chance for dreamers to demonstrate what they’d been taught.
Lelantos and Ceres urged an image into our minds: a steep cliff overlooking a swath of jagged, broken trees.
The cliff was unfathomably tall; it seemed to teeter on its base, looming over the sharp pinpricks of wood far below.
If a dreamer’s wings failed to open, they’d be impaled.
The Weavers pushed the vision further, showing Erebus and me what would happen when the dreamers—the successful ones—were aloft.
Impossibly wide trees floated over the pit of broken trunks, roots dangling like thousands of intricate blood vessels.
And then, terrifyingly quickly, they dropped.
If a dreamer couldn’t navigate between the roots and scale back up the cliff in time, they’d be gored by the spikes below.
Erebus frowned, wings flaring. “This is an impossible test for such novice dreamers.”