Chapter Seven #2
“I remember coming here afterward, because my father wanted me to take credit for protecting the Realm so well, as ‘twas not too far from here and these were rogue dragons, fighting on behalf of the false king,” Torsten said softly, as the broken bodies on the forest floor faded.
“He felt it might help me when I eventually fought Blaze, who at that time was working his way up the ranks.”
“And did it?”
“No, because it wasn't me who did this, and I said so,” Torsten replied.
“Then I warned everyone that, though this might look otherwise, it was the work of a dragon who meant to take the Realm and its Keep by any means necessary. A strong, fearless dragon to be sure, but no leader.” He shook his head.
“I was not ready to take over yet. Not until I had actually earned it.”
“And what did your father say to that?” I wondered, my heart aching for how much that moment had affected him.
“As he too suffers from my disorder, I sensed he was both frustrated and proud,” he said. “More than anything, though, he worried over how my personalities seemed to war with each other every bit as much as his once had.”
“Where is he now?” I asked, not recalling from our shared dreams.
“Since the prophecy ignited, he and my mother, and my aunts who possess Valkyrie blood, have had no choice but to remain on the outskirts of the Realm, claiming the gods determined they should have no influence over how things unfold.” He shook his head.
“This prophecy is for their offspring to navigate until our deities say otherwise.”
Imagining that must be difficult for the elders, I was about to ask more about them when our younger ethereal selves, who had been watching the battle unfold, drew our attention.
His darker half pulled her, or me, against him and wrapped his hand more tenderly around the back of my neck than I might have expected.
“What did you think of that, mate?” he wondered, a familiar arrogance in his unmistakably loving gaze, yet hope too, as if my response meant everything.
“Did that impress you? Do you see how well I can protect you? How safe you are with me?” He cocked his head.
“Did I fight like your ancestors? I would think, if nothing else, that would prove I will never let any harm come to you.”
“You fought differently than them,” she replied, saying more, but we couldn’t hear the words, as if caught half in, half out of a dream, immersed in the Keep’s mystery.
What we didn’t miss was the loving way she looked at him in return before he pulled her after him, and we were once more following them up a set of torchlit stairs.
“They seem so in control of this dream,” I said softly, knowing it bothered Torsten to see how happy his darker side seemed with me. How loving, when that normally wasn’t in his nature, so far as anyone but me seemed to know. “It’s as if they're lucid dreaming.”
Torsten frowned. “What is that?”
“It means they’re, we’re, aware we’re dreaming and able to control it.”
“Do you think this side of me was able to do that with you, as well?”
“I couldn’t say.” I squeezed his hand, meaning it. “I hope so.”
He said nothing else about it as we followed them, but I sensed his conflicting emotions. How helpless he felt that so much of this was out of his control. How he hoped we shared this added connection across time, too.
“His arrogance is endless,” Torsten muttered under his breath when he seemed to recognize where we were heading. “But of course he would take you here.”
“Where is here?” I asked, yet even as I voiced it, I remembered, recalling how my heart had pounded in anticipation at the promise in his darker side’s eyes when he opened the door.
“A secret entrance to the Liege of the Keep’s private chamber at the top of our castle,” he replied gruffly.
“A place my other half would only have had access to in the time betwixt my parents and Blaze’s reign.
A place he and I were allowed to go because we were related to a former Liege.
” He shook his head. “No one else would be able to enter, even if they tried, until they had earned it and the Realm, or better yet, the gods approved.”
“So he found a window of opportunity,” I realized, stopping before we reached the door and shaking my head, not wanting Torsten to witness what was about to happen inside because it was flooding back to me with arousing clarity.
“It seems he did,” Torsten said, still assuming we merely spoke of his darker side going somewhere he should not have. “Even if only in a dream.”
“Right,” I replied, reminding him that’s all this really was. “Just a dream.”
“Yet if he did it in a dream, there can be no doubt he accessed it while awake.” His gaze grew more troubled. “Why have you stopped?” He looked from the door to me again. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
Yet what to say? How to keep him from seeing what was behind that door?
“You’re lying,” he said. “’Tis clear enough.”
“I am,” I confessed, choosing honesty. It was the right thing to do, and this side of him deserved nothing less.
I gazed into his eyes, seeing all of him, even as his kinder half stared back, feeling all of him in a way only I could.
“I lied because I don’t want to hurt you, Torsten.
I lied just now, but I didn’t back then, nor did I ever in any of our dreams. There was nothing to lie about because I thought you were one and the same. ”
He searched my eyes for a long, strained moment, the pain in his gaze palpable when he finally realized what was about to happen on the other side of that door. My heart was in my throat as I awaited his response.
What would he say? How would he ultimately respond?
It turned out that when he did, it spoke to his character in more ways than one.