Chapter 58 Durvla
Durvla
One minute, we’re walking, and the next I drop like a stone. I hardly register the pain that flares through my hands, then my cheek, as I try and fail to catch myself before my vision goes white.
I find myself in a dark tunnel with weepy, stone walls. My heart pounds, and I break out in a cold sweat as I seek the end of the burrow. Fear grips my heart, and a voice echoes eerily. “Durvla, dreamwalk to me. Please. Please, Durvla.”
The voice wavers in and out, my surroundings spotting and disintegrating in front of me, only to restructure again. It feels like I’m continually falling. Replaying the same moment over and over again.
I turn left into another part of the tunnel and look around wildly. I’ve been here before … haven’t I?
The voice returns, fragmented. “Durvla, please.” There’s so much pain in that voice.
Carys’s voice.
Sadistic laughter echoes from someone else.
My surroundings collapse again and reform, and I want to scream from this never-ending dreamscape.
“Oh Caaaaaaarys.”
Goddess, am I walking in circles? The voices persist, but I don’t know which direction they’re coming from. There’s no light, no end in sight. I veer toward the right side this time, where the tunnel forks, my boots pounding against the damp ground for what feels like forever.
Dead end after dead end taunts me, and I bite back a scream of frustration.
“Wake up, Princess—”
I wake with a gasp, the scent of blood in my nostrils. Gagging, I roll to the side, dry heaving while my stomach spasms. My heart flutters in my chest, fear pulsing through me.
Someone takes hold of my arm, and I wildly swat them away.
“Garrick, it’s me,” Kilkenny mind-speaks.
I startle, though I force myself to pay attention to my surroundings.
I’m on a riverbank, dirt and patchy grass beneath me.
Kilkenny looms over me, and as I lurch upright, he straightens, sitting back against his heels.
My heart is still racing, and I can’t catch my breath. My legs burn as though I’ve truly been running, but cold trepidation skitters across my skin. Each breath is shallower than the last, and I fear I’ll soon stop breathing all together. I fear my world will cease to exist completely.
I’m going to die. Right here.
My heart is going to give out. I draw in another ragged breath, clutching at my aching chest.
Alys appears beside me. “Describe what you see right now, sweetling,” she signs.
“Grass,” I choke out. “River. Mountains.” I try to make a full sentence, but it’s like I’ve forgotten how to speak properly.
“Good. Keep going.” She places a hand gently on my forehead and a warm sensation flows through my body, soothing and calming me. “What else?”
“Kilkenny.”
He smiles tightly at me. I hate the worry on his face.
In turn, I focus on each of them. “Chiyo … Osheen.” They’re both sitting nearby, concern radiating from them. My cheeks heat up even as I fight the tears filling my eyes. Slowly, my breathing regulates, my heart beginning to steady.
“Welcome back,” Kilkenny motions. “You gave us a scare.”
I can only blink back tears and focus on steeling myself. Chiyo rises from her haunches and brings over my waterskin. She hands it to me, and I thank her before guzzling down the whole thing. The voices from that bizarre tunnel echo in my mind again. I inhale shakily.
“Are you alright?” Chiyo asks. “You just … fell. Out of the blue. Thud.” She shrugs, perplexed. Apparently, we all are.
I face Osheen, who nods in confirmation and signs, “I thought you were having an episode, but then you wouldn’t wake up.” He swallows hard. He wants to say more. I know him, but now he’s guarded, choosing his words carefully.
I frown up at the sky. The sun is setting, fiery orange and dark purples streaking across the navy blue.
“I was in a tunnel,” I say. “There were voices. Carys and … another voice. It was disturbing. Like my life was in danger, but I didn’t know why.
The dream just kept sort of fragmenting or repeating or something. ”
A deep gulch appears between Alys’s brows when I turn to her again. “Has that ever happened before?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve had episodes before—dizzy attacks that make me suddenly fall over or leave me literally unable to move without fainting or vomiting.”
The blood drains from Osheen’s face, giving away just how much those moments affected him as well. Yet, he’d never left my side when they happened.
“It’s been about two months since I’ve had an episode, but this certainly isn’t the same. It wasn’t even the same as the other dreams from Carys I’ve walked into. I didn’t see her, but I heard her.”
Alys makes a thoughtful face. “You were awake when this happened so maybe …” She twists her lips to the side for a moment. “Perhaps, you were pulled into her dreamscape.”
“That can happen?”
“Yes. It could be daywalking—same as dreamwalking, but while you’re awake.”
Great.
“It’s complicated. In your case, it could also be in part because you’re still wearing your dampener, so your powers are sort of fragmented. It means you’re getting stronger, overpowering the runes.”
I glance down at my bracelet, then back up at everyone again.
Chiyo laughs. “Lugda’s hells, Durvla, you’re going to be terrifying once you get some training.”
I wince. Being terrifying is the last thing I want.
Kilkenny and Alys exchange glances, and I want to shake them both because it’s not the first time they’ve done that.
Their expressions speak of a multitude of things.
About me. But I barely have the energy to be annoyed with the very obvious fact that they’re keeping something from me; I certainly don’t have the energy to speak out about it.
“Chiyo is right, you know,” Kilkenny signs. “You’re getting stronger.” Pride crosses his face for a split second before it’s replaced with concern again. Or maybe I’ve even imagined it.
Then the meaning behind their words really hits me. My dampener didn’t work, or only half worked? “I don’t want this to happen again.”
“I understand.” He nods compassionately. “We need to start training more when you’re awake.”
I heave a sigh. Lovely.
Just moments after we begin riding, the onset of a raging headache renders me almost incapacitated.
So, training doesn’t happen. I barely manage to keep myself atop Ghendor, though by the next stop we make further down the river, I can at least make sense of my surroundings.
We’re closer to the larger body of water, as well as the mountains looming ahead beneath the night sky.
Everyone takes their turn relieving themselves and even washing up as quickly as possible in the river.
Afterward, Osheen starts a fire and sits beside it, warming his hands as Chiyo and Kilkenny do a terrible job trying to catch fish. Alys has retired to her bedroll to “rest her eyes.”
I join Osheen in front of the fire and sigh blissfully from the warmth that radiates from it.
I’ve not been able to get the dampness out of my body since that miserable maze of a dreamscape, and my head is steadily pounding, my body exhausted.
I hate that training has again been delayed, this time because of my ailment.
Osheen does a double take when he catches sight of me. He waves, a small, tentative smile on his lips. His blue eyes are dark in the weak light of the flames. “How are you feeling?” he signs.
“Confused.” I fiddle with my dampener and shrug my shoulders. “I just can’t wait to get to the Verge and see Taig again.”
“Same.” He smiles and I believe him. Then his smile drops. “I’m sorry you have to put up with those dreams. They sound awful.”
Awful is an understatement.
“I’m not sorry about you having powers, for the record. I just mean—”
I rest my hand on his arm gently. “Please stop being overly cautious about everything you say. Let’s move past that.”
The tension melts off his body and his shoulders droop. “Thank you.” He smiles warmly as he signs.
For a moment, I stare into the flames. Carys had truly sounded so pained in the dreamscape. The paralyzing fear starts to seep back into my body, and I quickly wrangle my thoughts and redirect them. I turn back to Osheen. “So … you and Chiyo …” I quirk a brow at him.
He makes a face as color rushes into his cheeks. It’s adorable, honestly, but a moment later, he heaves a sigh and says, “No romantic prospect.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s not interested in men.”
“… Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate for you.”
“Indeed.” He shrugs. “It’s fine. Probably not the time for rom—” He stops talking as I glance over his shoulder.
Chiyo and Kilkenny approach again, each of them with a few fish in hand.
They drop the fish beside the fire and Chiyo proudly announces, “Salmon and trout are on the menu tonight, boys!” She beams and pulls a dagger from her belt, tossing it so it lands in front of Osheen’s boot. “Make yourself useful, mate.”
Kilkenny turns to me with a small smile. I can’t resist smiling back at him, but then another dagger lands point first in the dirt in front of me. My heart jumps. “How many daggers do you have?” I ask Chiyo.
She grins. “You don’t want to know.”
I scoff, but a spurt of laughter slips through. “Fine, but maybe stop throwing them at us.”
Chiyo bursts out laughing. “Maybe if you people stop loafing about, I wouldn’t have to throw daggers at you.” A fish comes flying at me, and I barely deflect it from my face. Kilkenny scowls at his sister, but she only grins at him. Honestly, I appreciate that she doesn’t treat me like an invalid.
For the next hour or so, we gut the fish and roast them over the fire, making sure to leave a serving for Alys, who is fast asleep on her bedroll.
“So, what are your thoughts on this prophecy business?” Chiyo asks us.
Kilkenny shrugs and Osheen purses his lips.
“I’m not sure if I believe it,” I say.
“It reminds me of that rhyme … The Land Beyond the Veil?”