Chapter 18 #2
A moment later, the lightest touch on my back causes me to jump so hard that I nearly fall over. “Just me,” Chiyo quickly signs. “Just me.”
I nod and put my hands atop my head, still trying to breathe. The world around me blurs and wavers. I close my eyes and force more breaths down. An entire group of people wants to kill me. Countless members. Everywhere.
The ground beneath me seems to shift and warp. A burning presence taps against my mind. Just as it starts to flitter out of my reach, I grab on to it, commanding it to stay. Commanding her to stay.
“Carys,” I mentally grind out.
Her safe place is always on a ship, always in the sunlight.
I bring the images to mind, grounding myself in it.
I feel the floor of the ship materialize beneath my boots, the waves rocking the vessel.
I will the sun to shine, the wind to whip.
Desperately trying to lure her to this place, I send my thoughts out toward Carys.
With all my might, I fight to reach her.
“Carys, find me.” My words are swept out into the ocean air, but I call to her once more. “Carys, please.”
“Durvla?”
I turn, the wind whipping through my curls, and there she is.
But rather than the radiant Carys that I last saw, there’s a sickly thin woman, her skin paler than ever, her once lively amber eyes like rusted gold.
“Durvla!” She lifts her foot as if to step forward, but seems to change her mind and steps backward instead. I feel my own legs gravitate toward her.
But when I touch her, it’s like touching air. Not like before. Her internal flame seems to flicker—to barely be there. Everything feels wrong about her. Like a bird with its wings clipped, longing to soar. Tears stain her sallow face, as well as something that faintly resembles a scar.
“What’s happening?” she asks, staring at her own hands as the image pulses. “This feels different.”
“Maybe because we’re both different. What happened?”
She shakes her head firmly, and everything wavers as though the dreamscape is threatening to disintegrate.
“Alright, alright, you don’t have to tell me!” I shout over the wind as it howls. “It’s alright, Carys. I’m just happy you’re alive. You are alive right?”
“Yes. I’m in Uldarvik.”
Relief weakens my knees. “Uldarvik?”
She nods. “Yes, but I’ve been told that I must return to Erleya. To a place called the Serpent’s Hollow or Siad Nahar. It holds the answers about the prophecy. The same prophecy that the bloody Zenith is trying to find.”
My heart trips. “Do you know where it is? Siad Nahar?”
“Northeastern Erleya. As far as you can go. But apparently it only welcomes a few chosen. Don’t ask what that means; Briony is cryptic. But we’re the ones the prophecy speaks of, so …”
I grimace, my head starting to pound. I press the heel of my hand against my temple as our surroundings wane.
This time, I know it’s me causing it. I’ve created this place out of nothing, and it’s taxing on my body.
“I have to let go now,” I say. “I’m not sure I can hold this dreamscape much longer.
But I will see you again. Somehow. I promise. ”
Does she know I’m her sister? Should I mention it now?
“Durvla …”
But my vision dims, and my limbs tremble.
Everything goes black.
When I wake, I’m in a soft bed, the scent of medicinal herbs filling my nostrils so strongly that I sneeze. Everything aches, my head especially. I peel my eyes open, but even the dim magelight hurts, so I shut them again.
The next time I try to open my eyes, a face hovers above mine. “There you are,” says a familiar, baritone voice, mind to mind.
Immediately, I feel calmer and cast my thoughts toward Tiernan. “Where am I?”
“Alys’s place. We figured you wouldn’t want to wake up in the infirmary, and our house was much farther. We weren’t sure how much we should jostle you. You gave us quite a scare.”
At last, I manage to keep my eyes open. Tiernan’s dark gaze is wrought with concern. My muscles strain as I lift my hands to say something, so I lower them again. “I think I intentionally daywalked … to Carys.” It feels absurd to say it aloud. “Full dreamscape.”
My head pounds painfully with every beat of my heart. Tiernan reaches out to my head, then pauses, “May I?”
I nod, and he places his fingers lightly on my temple. Coolness followed by a comforting warm sensation flows through my head, dulling the ache. Alys must be in the house somewhere.
My body feels as though it’ll sink right through the bed, but I gingerly push myself up to a sitting position and lean back against the headboard.
The room we’re in has a couple of swords on the wall, dark curtains, and dark sheets, and there’s a coat rack in one corner where colorful scarves like Alys’s are on display, but … “This isn’t Alys’s room.”
“Ava’s,” Tiernan says, and my brows shoot up. “I know. I was surprised too, but Alys had been resting in hers.”
The odd conversation with the Purist comes flooding back to me, making the room seem smaller. And smaller. And smaller.
Tiernan is at my side in no time, putting an arm around me. “Deep breaths,” he signs.
For a moment, I just sit there, breathing.
“So, without a doubt, Carys is alive?” Tiernan asks.
“Yes. And she’s been told she needs to go to Siad Nahar. For answers about the prophecy and for a cure. I suppose she’s speaking of that curse of Enidwen.” I shudder at the thought, though I don’t fully understand it. “Have you ever heard of Siad Nahar?”
He shakes his head.
I let out a sigh as the door slowly opens. Wavy salt-and-pepper hair swings into view before Alys’s round face appears.
I sit up straighter as I take in the concern on her face, and I’m struck with warring hurt and relief.
On one hand, Alys is someone I’ve come to trust, but on the other hand, she’s been lying to me.
She knew—or at least suspected it—all along.
Perhaps her motives behind it were valid, but it still aches.
“I understand if you are angry with me,” she motions. “I didn’t know how to bring up such a thing. There seemed to have been no good way.”
“Perhaps there wasn’t,” I admit. Glancing to Tiernan and then back to Alys, I sign, “Is Dayfyd here?”
Curiosity lifts Alys’s brows. “He is. Do you want to speak with him?”
“Yes.” I shift to get off the bed, but the movement is dizzying. Tiernan offers me an arm to lean on, and I hold on to him for support.
We relocate downstairs to the kitchen, where Dayfyd looks up from a book on the table. He gets to his feet so quickly that his legs bump the table. As I sit, he slowly takes his own seat again. Alys and Tiernan stand aside, moving out of the way.
Dayfyd’s eyes are wide. His lips part as if he intends to say something, but he just closes them again. He lifts his hands … only to do the same thing.
“May I ask you some questions?” I ask. “About Morwenna and my bloodline?”
Dayfyd nods, his movements hurried. “Yes, of course.”
I try to keep my leg from bouncing beneath the table and take to fidgeting with my sleeve instead. It doesn’t help. “Did you say Morwenna had foresight?”
Dayfyd nods again. “She was plagued by prophetic dreams. Of the world ending. Of the doom of … her own children.”
My chest tightens, forcing the air out of my lungs. My leg continues bouncing up and down.
“Are you having prophetic dreams?”
I swallow, my gaze wandering over to Alys as she leans against the counter, Tiernan next to her, looking like the guard he used to be. “I think so,” I tell Dayfyd. “How did Morwenna know for sure?”
He exhales heavily. “Sometimes she didn’t.
But often her recurrent dreams were. Sometimes they came to her in song or poetry.
” He smiles as if struck with a pleasant memory in the midst of his words.
With slow precision, he closes the book he’d been reading and slides it across the table.
Dreams and Symbolism. “Oracles and Dreamwalkers aren’t the same, and this book is heavily geared toward Oracles.
But perhaps it can be of some use to you. ”
I smooth my hand over the leather cover. “Thank you.”
“Again, I’m sorry for lying to you. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
I don’t know how to feel about it, so I only nod. I bid him and Alys farewell before leaving with Tiernan.
As we walk away from the O’Hara household, Tiernan turns to me and signs, “So, it seems you have a mission proposal for Ava.”
“It seems so,” I reply. “Now I just need to get more information about Siad Nahar.”
“Indeed,” he says. “Where do you want to start?”