Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Is this how they normally look?” I asked Tiernan as we strode through the gathering hall in the center of the Basty village.
Tiernan was watching me with a strange expression on his face. “No. I don't know why, but the blight has turned them into this.”
“They look malnourished. It's the opposite of what happened to the Licho.” I stopped by a pallet where a Basty woman lay, her bones poking through her flesh.
One of our soldiers knelt beside her, his glowing hands hovering over her body. As I watched, her flesh filled in and color returned to her cheeks.
With a gasp, the woman clutched at the soldier's hand. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome. Rest now.” He got up, inclined his head to Tiernan and me, and moved on to another victim.
I looked across the room at all the healing being done. “I didn't know you brought so many healers.”
“Most of the soldiers I chose to bring have healing magic.” Tiernan followed my gaze. “I thought they'd be more useful, but the last two villages didn't need them.”
“But these fairies do, so it's good you brought them.”
“And you?” He cocked his head at me. “Are you sure you're all right?”
“Yes, I'm fine.” The distrust I'd felt over my calm state had faded while the confidence had grown.
I wasn't numb. My emotions were all present.
Some were merely inactive, allowing others to thrive.
But there was one question that kept nagging me.
Why wasn't I as happy as the Licho? Shouldn't I be joyous without pain weighing me down?
Maybe because the King hadn't taken all my pain. Just the worst of it.
Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I glanced over to see the Basty woman sit up.
Her stare was locked on me. “Your Majesty?”
“Yes?” I turned toward her.
She slowly stood, her long platinum blond hair falling to her feet. Stunningly beautiful, she was also haunting—her eyes deep set and her mouth greedy. She reached for me.
I stepped back.
“Oh, I'm so sorry!” She clutched her hand to her chest as if it had betrayed her. “You . . . you shine.”
“I shine?”
A Basty man came over and put his arm around the woman.
Healed as well, he was nearly as handsome as she was beautiful.
His brown hair hung to his shoulders, but was just as wispy as hers, floating on the slightest breeze.
Lazy-lidded blue eyes stared at me sleepily, but his mouth, full and greedy like the woman's, made those eyes look like a trap.
The combination of their allure and feral menace, magnified by their standing together, made me want to keep my distance.
“Forgive us, Your Majesty,” the man said. “We are drawn to nightmares.”
“Nightmares?” I went still.
“The Basty are bringers of nightmares,” Tiernan said. “They sit on a sleeping human's chest and give them bad dreams.”
Summoned by Tiernan's words, an image came to me—a painting of a woman in a white nightgown, draped across a bed with a goblin creature sitting on her chest. The painting was called The Nightmare, if I remembered correctly.
I think there was a horse head coming out of the shadows too.
Perhaps a play on the word. It had to be based on a Basty.
“We give humans bad dreams to feed upon their fear,” the man said.
I nodded. “My husband, King Daxon, has the Tromlaighe. I'm familiar with nightmare-bringers.”
“But you . . .” The woman looked from me to the Basty man. “Do you feel it, Yusuf?”
“Yes, Aylin. I feel it.” Yusuf's gaze shifted back to me.
“You have the energy of a traumatic dream hovering over you, Your Majesty.
It's as if one of us is straddling your shoulders like a child.
I don't believe it's the Tromlaighe. That's more of an attack, while this is neutral.
And I can't imagine your husband attacking you with his mór.”
“No, he'd never do that.”
“Hold on.” Tiernan leaned in. “Do you sense an entity around her?”
“No, King Tiernan.” Aylin chewed at her lip before continuing. “Not an entity. But it is a presence. Have you been having troubling dreams, Queen Seren?”
King Crybaby must have taken more from me than I thought because the Basty's question didn't bother me as it should have. I answered without hesitation, “Yes. For the last eight months, I've had dreams that I share with the King of Hell.”
Aylin gasped and looked at the man. “Yusuf?”
“Shared dreams are never natural,” Yusuf murmured. “Someone is sending you these dreams, Your Majesty. You say you share them with the King of Hell?”
“Yes. They aren't nightmares exactly, but they aren't good either. They are in fact, romantic in nature.”
“Seren!” Tiernan hissed.
“What? They are dreams, Tiernan. And these are dream experts, are they not?”
He sighed and motioned for me to go on.
“As I said, they are romantic and intimate, but I don't want to be intimate with the King of Hell. Not when I'm awake, at least. When I'm dreaming, I want it very much. The guilt was nearly unbearable before the blight took it from me.”
“He took that guilt?” Tiernan hissed.
“Yes.” I cocked my head at Tiernan, wondering why he sounded upset.
“I see.” Yusuf frowned. “It sounds as if the King of Hell is behind your dreams.”
Dismissing Tiernan's strange reaction, I returned to my conversation with the Basty man. “He is not. I'm almost positive. He doesn't want the dreams either and has, in fact, tried to protect himself from them.”
“Now, that is very interesting. It's difficult to enter someone's dream if you aren't one of us. Even more so to send dreams to two people and stay out of them.”
“My Angel husband said that Angels could do it. Anu gave them an influential magic they can use to form telepathic links with people. They can't influence fairies when we're awake, but he thinks they may be able to do so while we're asleep.”
Tiernan grabbed my hand. “You didn't tell me that.”
“Oh, yes, well, I was upset about Miri.”
Tiernan grunted, but he didn't look happy.
“Angels? Hmmm.” Yusuf swayed.
“Yusuf.” Aylin shook his arm.
He glanced around the room. “The darkness took our nightmares. All that we had to nourish ourselves with. It fed upon us and left us nothing. I'm sorry, Your Majesty. Although my body is whole, I think it will take a while for me to mentally recover.”
“Yes, of course. I'll leave to rest.”
“No, I didn't mean I wouldn't help you. I just wanted to explain why I'm behaving oddly. You saved us. It would be my honor to assist you.” He paused. “Would you allow me to hold your hand?”
“Certainly.” I held out my hand.
Another pause, and then Yusuf took my hand.
I felt a light tingling on my skin. Holding his deep blue stare, I was reminded of Daxon's mesmerizing eyes, and I wondered if Yusuf would hypnotize me.
But then he closed his eyes, and the tingling spread.
It was hesitant. Inquisitive. Touching and withdrawing.
Prodding at my mind without entering. A minute passed, Yusuf's eyes moving rapidly under their lids before they popped open. He just stared at me.
“Well?” Tiernan prompted.
Yusuf shook himself. “I don't understand what I saw. It was not a person.”
“What about a god?” I asked.
“No, Your Majesty. Not unless that god is a glowing, white surface.”
“A surface?”
“I don't know what it was the surface of. It was an expanse so large that I couldn't see the ends of it. I think it was crystal. Clear and translucent, it glowed as bright as the sun, and there were lines of bluish-pink light shimmering through it.”
“Bluish-pink light within a glowing crystal?” I whispered and looked at Tiernan.
“No,” he said. “No, it can't be.”
“Did those lines pulse?” I asked. “Like a heartbeat?”
“Yes!” Yusuf's eyes widened. “You know what I saw?”
“You saw Hell's Light—the source of magic for the planet.”
“Damn it all.” Tiernan rubbed a hand over his face.
“Hell's Light?” Aylin asked. “The power of Hell is giving you nightmares, Your Majesty?”
“It is not power, it is life,” I quoted King Tarelor, the King of the Caverns of Life. “And I believe I know why it's been giving me those dreams. Thank you, Yusuf. Thank you so very much.”
“It was my honor, Your Majesty.”
“Excuse us. I need to speak to my husband privately now.”
As Yusuf and Aylin bowed, I took Tiernan's hand and drew him out of the community house. Once outside, I took him further, under the branches of a bare tree. At least now I knew why the village was so creepy. They liked it that way. Nightmares were their thing. Tim Burton would have loved it there.
“This is a good thing,” I said to Tiernan. “Now we know it's not an Angel or even Anu who has been tormenting me. I can tell Sever to bring Miri home.”
“Yes, but now we have another issue.” Tiernan pulled out his scry phone. “We need to scry the others.”
“Wait. Why are you upset?”
His eyes went wide. “Seren, the Light of Hell is giving you nightmares.”
“It's not, though.”
He lowered the scry phone. “Excuse me?”
“It's not trying to give me nightmares. It's a source of magic, Tiernan.
It's life, pure life, but with a different kind of sentience than we have.
I believe it wants me to return to Hell.
It must sense the connection between Star and me, and so it used him to get to me.
It doesn't know I'm trying to resist Astaroth. It only senses my emotions.”
Tiernan's eyes twitched. “And your emotions tell it that you want to fuck Star?”