Chapter 35
WHILE THE REAL world burned, they dreamed.
Corin learned that this was what dreaming meant: Basking in the softness of grass without worrying about running when dusk came. Letting go of the heaviness of holding everything up. Never having to be resilient again.
She spent her days with Elly making snowballs in winter, picking flowers in spring, tasting new fruits in summer. An excess of activities she once deemed too frivolous to endure the passage of time, now given to her as a second chance. The sun saw them collect wildflower bouquets while meandering along streams, and the moon watched them huddle around crackling fire and wrap themselves in thick, soft blankets.
Corin brushed her fingers through Elly’s hair, which had grown long and thick, curling past her shoulders and tied with daisy stems. The girl looked just like their mother. For so long, Corin had been afraid of their similarities, a paralyzing fear that fate would take Elly away the same way it did their mother. But they were surrounded by parsley-green fields instead of concrete and grime, sunflowers and bees instead of shadows and leering eyes. She helped press flower petals into Elly’s hair, watching the buds painted on her sister’s nails bloom. For all the wasted moments they lost, Corin could make up for them now.
Yet a darkness loomed in the back of her mind, manifesting into an island she watched whenever she stared past the ocean. A lingering fear told her that, if Malicine didn’t return, it would be Corin’s fault. She had been the reason they chased her into Autumnland and lost their amulet, endangering everyone if intruders came into the world.
She wanted to enjoy this second chance, but couldn’t forget the real person she left in peril.
“This doesn’t feel right.”
Her words came out as harsh as the clatter of teacup on porcelain. They had gathered on the porch with Briar, Penny, and Dime, sitting around a circular table set with pastries and tea pots. The attempt at normalcy seemed ridiculous in front of Briar’s collapsed cottage. Broken pieces of wood scattered the grass, while some of the stones had stacked together into a smaller house fit for animals. A lace parasol replaced the collapsed roof, trickling small rays of light for Dime to sunbathe. Without Malicine’s amulet, they couldn’t restore parts of the dreamscape back to pristine condition.
Elly’s brows pinched together. “You still aren’t used to me here. Pretending I’m alive.”
“No! That’s not—” Corin stopped. It was true that Elly’s presence didn’t feel whole yet. Every time Corin wrapped her sister in her arms and felt a beating heart against hers, the gesture seemed incomplete. The sense of peace remained foreign, yet still, she wanted to become familiar with it.
“I need you here, El.” Her hand wrapped around Elly’s fingers and squeezed them, as if her sister were a mirage that could disappear if Corin didn’t hold tightly enough. “But I keep wondering when Malicine will return. Sometimes it feels like they’ve been gone for weeks. Then it’s as if they only left a few hours ago. Time warps itself here.”
Corin’s gaze stretched to the empty chair at the end of the table. Their absence carved a blank space between the others. All the questions without answers, the stories without endings, hovered in the chasm. Briar must have known this, because she stood from the table and walked toward the red poppies sprawled in the field. She held her breath, as if measuring her words next.
“I want to leave and find Malicine.”
Her confession made the animals gasp around the table. “It’s dangerous out there,” Penny protested. “Wouldn’t you rather stay here with us? We can pick chamomile flowers for the lemon cake. I promise Dime won’t eat the flowers this time.”
“I don’t promise that,” Dime said, earning a beady-eyed glare from his rabbit companion. Penny jumped to kick sugar cubes at the cat’s face. The table dissolved into yowling and thrashing paws until Briar broke the playfighting and pulled Dime away by his arms. She laughed as she cradled the cat to her chest, her fingers combing gently through his fur.
“It’s odd. My imaginations have been such a familiar comfort. But the best part about this world was being with people who didn’t come from my imagination.” She looked up to meet eyes with Corin. A breeze carried petals over to her chiffon gown and tugged at the ribbons in her hair until the lace unfurled. “And now, I’m afraid of losing what’s real.”
The lace drifted to Corin’s direction. She snatched the ribbons and watched the string tangled into webs between her fingers. She thought of fleeting conversations, accidental meetings, the unexpected threads of people that traced throughout her life. She should have never met Briar Rose or Malicine. Somehow, in the hazy, watercolor edges that bled into their shared dreams, they found each other in crystal clarity.
“I don’t want to wait anymore, either.” Corin’s lips pressed together in a determined line. “Let’s bring Malicine back.”
? ? ?
PERHAPS IT WAS a reckless decision to go together, Corin thought. Malicine surely would have said so. She stood at the shores of Summerland, watching thunder rumble the island across the ocean like a slumbering beast. Veils of mist clung to the jagged cliffs and obscured any glimpse of the nightmares that lay beyond the desolate landscape. Beside her, she could feel the subtle trembles in Briar’s body, watching the island that manifested everything the princess had been running away from. Corin would have mirrored Briar’s tremors had she not kept her grip on Elly’s shoulder, the only force who could keep herself still.
Her arms pulled Elly into an embrace. She pressed her lips against her sister’s temple and murmured, “I’ll come back.”
“You promise?” Elly’s voice was strained, as if she held back from crying.
Corin said yes, because she wanted it to be true. They needed to be together: Briar Rose, Malicine, Elly, the animals, and Corin. They would retrieve Malicine, and Malicine would open another portal for a new dream. They would keep running and hiding, as long as they could stay together.
A boat pulled up ashore as Corin and Briar said goodbye to Elly. They grabbed two pairs of oars and started rowing. Corin kept her gaze fixed on her sister instead of looking back at the island. She told herself this wouldn’t be the last time they’d see each other. As Elly’s figure turned into a speck in the distance, Corin found a steady rhythm in the waves carrying them to the island, the back-and-forth motion of her oars dipping into the water. Though she wished they had Malicine’s magic to transport to the island faster, she would savor this sense of calm before the inevitable storm at their destination.
Beside her, Briar had also adopted the steady motion of guiding the oars along the water. Corin watched the careful purse of her lips, the small knot on her forehead. The girl was frightened, yet she was willing to travel to the island anyway. As the princess leaned forward, Corin noticed the bow and quiver of arrows strapped to Briar’s back.
A memory of their first meeting floated in her mind, when the girl was hidden in trees and covered in snow. Corin could picture it clearly, the bow in her hands, the bow of her lips. Briar had held a penetrating stare that burrowed under Corin’s skin and lingered like a kiss. Corin had thought Briar would shoot her. She knew now that the girl had only been practicing for another intruder.
“If Ezran arrives,” Corin murmured, “will he hurt you?”
A stinging pain from crescent shaped wounds bloomed in her palms. She’d stopped rowing and let her nails dig into her hands. At first, her hatred of Ezran stemmed from survival instincts. Now it had transformed into something deeper, knowing Ezran would hurt Briar.
And Corin cared about Briar Rose. More than she’d like to admit.
“I don’t know,” Briar said. “A foolish part of me hopes that, maybe, I could convince him to be on my side. Perhaps the real world wouldn’t be so frightening if we worked together.”
Corin’s posture stiffened. She tried to ignore it as she leaned back and continued rowing, though she couldn’t hide the bristle in her don’t you. “You realize that waking up would mean risking everything, right? I told you about the state of the world. Nothing worthwhile exists out there.”
“You existed out there,” Briar said. “You deserved to live a better life, and it was my fault you didn’t. Every time I think about how much I care about you, I think about everyone else who exists on the other side, too. Maybe what’s scarier is not what’s real, but never finding out what could be real.”
Corin’s mouth cracked open to release a wry laugh, but her throat was too dry, and the noise turned strangled. “Don’t use me as an example that the world can be a better place. Everything I touch always breaks.”
The boat cut through the endless expanse of ocean, where sliced water reflected fragmented faces that she ignored. It was easier to leave regrets in the past rather than conjure them in full flesh. Corin could bear the contortions of her half memories, like the ripples of water that drew Harlow’s face. The whispers of trees that sounded like her mother’s voice. The shadows lurking at the bottom of the ocean that made the vague silhouette of her father’s body, drowned and waiting for her next. Small distortions in their environment that could easily be dismissed as nothing more than the sway of the boat or the ebb of the tide. Because if her gaze lingered over these reflections in the water for too long, she would see the truth: that she spent her entire life justifying her selfishness for survival and lost everyone because of it.
She didn’t realize her knuckles had whitened until Briar reached for her. The girl’s fingers tightened around her own.
“I’ve seen the things you make,” Briar murmured, “and your hands are gentler than you think.”
Corin’s ears grew hot as she recalled painting around the dreamworld. It had been a way to pass the time once she accepted living here, but she hadn’t considered Briar’s eyes watching her brushstrokes. Self-conscious, she looked down at her palms, the discolored patches of skin from old scars. Her hands had always been rough like sandpaper. But maybe she could make something soft and beautiful, like a world where even gentleness could survive.
Would it be foolish, she wondered, to dream of such a thing?
Night descended into a shifting sky of milky colors. Their boat passed Winterland, or perhaps the land shifted itself upon the memory of their first meeting. In the distance, glass deer glistened like crystals. Ice-coated fur reflected ribbons of pink and violet pulsing in the air. The aurora wrapped around the darkening sky above their heads, so that when Briar looked up, her eyes shone like magic. Corin would remember her like a painting, with every trace of sadness and joy that flickered in the lights across her face.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Briar whispered, looking at the sky.
“Yes,” Corin replied, looking at her.
They watched the aurora dance across stars and ripple through trees. Briar set aside her bow and stood up. Her arm stretched to the sky, fingers splaying to touch the lights. She reached too far, and her weight toppled over the boat.
Corin jumped to grab her. They fell over the ledge and plunged into water. In the crystal blue, their limbs moved in slow motion, their fingers still grasped between one another. Briar’s gown swelled like a balloon, the fabric enveloping them both in silk. Bubbles spewed from the girl’s lips with silent laughter. Corin’s skin tingled as she felt the brush of Briar’s hands wrap around her body and lift them both to the surface.
They gasped for air, and this time, Corin could hear the chime in Briar’s laughter. Her eyes lingered on the salt stuck to Briar’s cheeks. She wanted to brush her thumb over it and leave her hand there. She would have, if Briar’s touch hadn’t made her jolt first.
Warm skin brushed against her collarbone, fingers hovering inches away from the chain around Corin’s neck. Briar left her hand on Corin’s pulse, too fixated on the necklace to notice the tiny drum beating against her.
“I won’t touch it,” Briar murmured. “I know it’s important to you.”
Instinctively, Corin placed a hand over her chest where the pendant hid beneath her shirt. She felt the weight of it in her palm where every heartbeat thrummed beside it. They climbed back into the boat and attempted to wring water from their clothes. She could still taste the salt on her lips. The air turned quiet, and she waited for her heart to still before deciding to open it.
“It belonged to my grandmother.”
Aurora lights shifted gently in the sky like softly blowing curtains. Beyond it, an endless expanse of stars stretched beyond Corin’s imagination. She thought about how there were miracles that existed in ways she would never comprehend.
“When she was younger, she tried to kill herself. A fortune teller stopped her just in time. She had no idea who this stranger was. The woman was elderly and didn’t appear to have family either. She had insisted my grandmother needed to survive and see a better future ahead. I don’t know if it was a fortune, or a plea. But she saved my grandmother’s life that night and left behind this necklace.”
Corin untucked the chain from her shirt and held the necklace to the sky. Under any other light, it looked incomplete, the pendant’s shape a hollowed ring that didn’t hold gold or any sparkling gem. Yet the aurora’s light glimmered streaks of green and blue around the ring’s edges, so that for a moment, Corin could almost believe she held magic.
Perhaps the fortune teller truly saw the future, or perhaps she made a lucky guess. Corin’s grandmother had lived to have children and buy a farm in Gyldan. She had rescued stray animals, discovered favorite foods, witnessed dozens of sunsets. She’d given the necklace to her daughter, who dreamed of painting the same sunsets that had moved her mother to tears. That daughter met a man whose rough hands made beautiful things, clay pots to hold flowers, misshaped dishes to hold soap that smelled like honey and goat milk. She eventually passed the necklace to her first daughter, an angry girl who wanted to throw it away so many times because she thought the fortune teller was wrong.
So why couldn’t Corin let it go?
“We can’t survive without each other,” Briar said, as if recalling a memory.
The familiarity of the words struck Corin. “Do you really think so?”
“That’s what my stepmother said. She dedicated her life to housing people who were fleeing from war, even if it was dangerous to do so. There’s so much cruelty in the world, perhaps the only thing that made sense to her was helping people in ways she wished she had been helped, too.”
Their boat passed by icy rocks that were chipped into familiar pieces, a flicker of Harlow’s burning gaze. Corin shook her head to ward off the presence. “That’s a noble cause, but it’s not how reality works. We only survive by helping ourselves.”
“Maybe you’re right.” There was a long pause. When Briar spoke again, her voice shook. “Lilith was the most selfless person I knew, and she died because of it. When I tried to help, my father died next.”
Tears spiked her lashes. She pressed a palm over her face and began to cry quietly. The stars blinked into dying lights. The aurora dimmed into silver before vanishing into wisps. Darkness descended on them like a blanket. Corin reached for Briar’s free hand. She focused on the gentle rocking of the boat beneath their bodies as proof that they were still here, and not disappearing as well.
“I keep wondering, does anything we do matter? Am I foolish to wish that it does? When I think about the people that Lilith brought to Gyldan, surely, their lives have changed. There are generations that exist, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, who live and dream and experience wonderful things because someone once helped.”
Briar inhaled deeply, letting the tears subside. A quiet conviction overtook her voice.
“That’s why you keep your necklace, isn’t it? Without a stranger’s kindness, you wouldn’t have existed. And what a terrible world that would have been.”
Corin thought about what would happen if she were to wake up and return to Gyldan, existing once more in reality. Would the time she experienced here no longer matter? She hardly remembered her dreams after waking up. Memories often turned abstract and blurry, disintegrating into wisps. She fixed her sight onto the snowflakes that fell on Briar’s lashes. She counted each one, so that if she forgot, she could still piece together the details of the girl before her. The slope of her ear, the freckles on her cheeks. The truth was that Corin didn’t plan on waking up at all. Not if it meant saying goodbye to Elly, or never seeing Malicine return, or losing her only connection to Briar Rose.
“The only way I can exist is by being here,” Corin said. “If you wake up, I’ll disappear. And for the first time in my life, you make me not want to.”
Corin would rather believe in the existence of forever, where time could freeze in place for love to remain. If she were to wake up in the real world, she wouldn’t survive it. She was sure Briar felt the same way, or their grief wouldn’t have mixed together as one when they’d drowned in the ocean. They didn’t want change. Corin wanted stability, Briar wanted escape. If they were together, they could cling onto that hope.
“Let’s sleep forever,” Corin said. “We’ll never wake up, and we’ll never say goodbye.”
She knew she was being selfish. But in their dreams, it was okay to be, wasn’t it?
Briar’s shoulders lowered with relief, because they both knew it was easier to give in. Better to live in the calm after the storm than turn back and face it again.
A shrill croak erupted their reverie. Their heads snapped to the sky, where a row of stars parted for a flapping shadow. One wing drooped as if it were stuck in the wrong position, while the other wing fought to keep the rest of his body midair. Corin lunged forward and caught Talon before he could plunge in water. His feathers smelled like ash, and when she touched the drooping wing, he screeched in pain.
An item fell from his beak and onto the boat. Briar picked up the cloth, small and torn, barely the size of her palm. Corin held on to the raven, hoping he would stay with them, but his body already turned limp and cold. He had used the last of his remaining strength to carry the torn cloth.
Fear struck Corin at the same time Briar recognized where the fabric came from. The cloth was dark, but under the stars, they still recognized Malicine’s blood.
They were close to reaching Autumnland when a deafening rumble shattered the island and rippled across the ocean. The waves beneath the boat shook violently, as if the sea itself convulsed in agony. Corin held on to Briar as they watched rocks tumble down cliffsides and light shoot through the fog. She imagined a fissure splitting the earth, but knew the sudden earthquake was not an isolated incident.
“We’re too late,” Briar whispered. “He’s here. I can feel him.”
She knelt over, hands wrapped around her skull as a pounding headache took over. Her body trembled, matching the aftershocks ripping through the ocean. Corin seized her by the shoulders.
“You need to go back and hide. Now.”
“But—”
“He will kill you.” Corin remembered the rage in Ezran’s eyes, the trickle of blood from his blade at her throat. He was someone accustomed to violence, readily wielding it in his hands. “I’ll find Malicine and bring the amulet so we can escape. Together. I can’t—I don’t want to live a life without you, Briar Rose.”
Tears sprung from Briar’s eyes as she nodded and grabbed her bow and arrows. Corin handed her the oars and stepped onto the ledge. Ocean waves churned below them like snapping piranhas. As Corin jumped, memories triggered her mind to long unanswered questions. What thoughts had raced in her father’s mind during his own fatal plunge? Did regret course through him in that last breath before the water claimed him?
And had he realized, in that final split second, that he had wanted to live, after all?