7
Iwas pulled into a familiar scene that made my blood turn cold. I was on my hands and knees on the checkered marble tile of Donika’s throne room. I froze, unsure if anyone could see me or not. Hadn’t Tyr been able to sense me in the dream when I had taken the grimoire from the laboratory? Was that because he, too, was a dream walker?
Donika sat on her throne with her enormous black wolves at her side. Her face was devoid of all emotion, her endless black eyes fixed on the people before her. I stood slowly, not wanting to draw any attention. No one in the room had noticed my presence yet. Was it possible they didn’t know I was here?
A group of people knelt before her, huddled together. Their eyes were wild with fear, their clothes stained with blood and dirt. I recognized one of them as a Nightshade guard who had been posted outside our cell for weeks in the Stormvault. The other faces were strangers to me, but they didn’t appear to be soldiers.
They were dressed as civilians.
Donika stood, slowly descending the stairs of the dais. Her black stilettos clacking against the tile floor were the only deafening sound reverberating through the silence. Nightshade soldiers lined the walls of the room, one stationed at each window. I watched in silence as Donika approached the Nightshade guard I recognized, using her shadows to turn his chin up to face her.
“Do you deny the charges that have been brought against you today?” she seethed, her shadows leaving a black trail against the man’s skin.
He shrunk back, as if her shadows stung him. Burned him. As they had to us. He tried to cast his eyes downward, afraid to meet her cold glare. Another Nightshade soldier stepped forwards with a long, black whip in his hands. He lashed out quickly, once. The Nightshade soldier screamed, and I stepped forwards, my arm outstretched, before I caught myself.
No eyes moved in my direction.
They couldn’t see me here.
I might be dreaming, but the scene before me was all too real. Somehow, I knew that this was unfolding in real time back in The Stone Palace.
“Did you help those spineless little worms escape the castle?” Donika hissed, her shadows wrapping around the Nightshade’s face tightly enough that he couldn’t breathe, his hands clutching at his throat until the skin there began to purple.
“What was that?” Donika laughed, tossing back her blue and white hair.
The man struggled harder, trying in earnest to answer her through the suffocating shadows that encased him. Donika retracted her shadows all at once and the man fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air.
“I swear to you, My Queen. I had nothing to do with their escape,” the man spat, unable to catch his breath.
“Donika, I tire of this questioning.” A voice sounded from the doorway and my head turned to see Zion standing there in his black leathers, a broadsword at his hip.
“If you won’t answer my question, I have no further use for you,” Donika spoke with a cold threat.
“As I said, my grace. I have answered you. I had nothing to do with the Stormshade’s escape.” The guard's jaw quivered as his eyes met Donika’s, knowing what he would find there.
There would be no mercy for him.
“Pity,” Donika sneered as her shadows encased the man once more.
This time, they did not let up. Her shadows encircled the Nightshade guard until all I could see was darkness, the shadows traveling up his nose, down his throat. In only a few moments, the Nightshade guard fell in a heap to the floor before Donika as she turned away, towards the larger group of Shades gathered in the throne room. Blood trickled from the guard’s eyes and nose onto the floor, his gaze empty.
Lifeless.
“And what of you lot?” she asked as she moved forwards. “I’ve heard murmurings of a resistance, and you have all been accused of partaking in such treason. Are you so unhappy in Istmere that you would support the rise of Stormshades? That you would betray your crown?” she asked.
The men and women before her remained huddled together, holding onto one another, their faces downcast. I didn’t recognize any of them. My gaze shot back to Zion, who wore an unrecognizable grin.
What was he playing at? Was he simply playing his part for Donika? He had orchestrated our escape. How could he sit by and watch Donika torture and murder innocents?
Donika used her shadows to turn the head of the man closest to her. “Speak.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came forth. He shook his head violently, as if trying to speak, his hand clawing at his throat.
“Cat got your tongue?” Donika laughed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“My Queen, we have nothing to do with the resistance. We are loyal to you, and you alone,” another woman spoke from the crowd.
Donika’s gaze turned, her expression cold.
“Was I speaking to you?” she asked, her shadows slithering out, suffocating the woman in a matter of moments.
I staggered forwards and knelt by the woman’s side, my hand across her throat to check for a pulse, but she was already gone. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I wanted, desperately, to intervene, but I was alone in this dream. I hadn’t touched or felt my magic in months, and I wasn’t sure I even could affect this reality from my dreaming state.
“Zion, can you hear me?” My voice sounded small…far away. “Zion! You need to do something!” My voice was cracked and desperate.
Zion blinked hard, once, as if maybe he had heard me, but his face remained unchanged.
“Zion, if you can hear me, you need to do something. She is going to kill these innocent people! You cannot stand by!” my voice was hoarse from screaming.
Zion remained unchanged.
“If you all plan to lie to your queen as Sir Bansent did, you will suffer the same fate.” Donika spoke with a smile on her face.
She was enjoying this. She was an insufferable monster, and I couldn’t watch.
I needed to wake up.
I tried to concentrate on my sleeping form back in my room in Prins, but I still felt the pull to this dream too loudly. I closed my eyes and shook my head back and forth, desperate to sever the link.
Donika’s shadows crawled out of her fingertips and surrounded the crowd of people. Their screams were soft at first, quickly growing into a suffocating cacophony of pain.
“Stop!” I screamed, clawing at the sides of my face with my nails. “Please, make it stop!”
My cries went unanswered. When Donika’s shadows retreated, my eyes fell on the pile of dead bodies, pools of blood gathering on the marble floor. Their lifeless eyes stared back at me.
“You monster!” I cried, moving forwards.
Would Donika feel it if I threw her to the floor along with her innocent victims? Would she feel my boot on her neck as I pressed down, crushing her windpipe…
I woke with a start, shooting up in bed. My hair was plastered to the back of my neck, a fine sheen of sweat coating my arms and chest. I was back in my room in Prins, the bedsheets tangled around my waist. It wasn’t Tess who sat beside me on the bed, but Nik. I immediately recoiled, hitting the glass window behind me with enough force that I thought it might shatter, cracking my head against it painfully. I winced, but the glass did not break.
“Diana, it’s ok. It was just a dream.” Nik’s voice came out as a hushed whisper in the darkness of the room.
Where was Tess? How long had I been asleep? My eyes darted to the doorway wildly, calculating if I could make it around him and out of the room without him catching me. But if Nik had wanted to hurt me, he already would have. What was he doing here?
“What did you see?” he asked, his eyes a glimmering blue in the light of the flickering candles.
“How do you know I saw anything?” I asked tersely.
Nik’s eyes moved to my shaking hands, and he paused before answering. “You were screaming.”
A shudder ran through me.
Despite the sweat coating my skin, I was freezing cold. I pulled the blankets against my chest, digging my fingers into the material.
Should I tell him what I saw? I wasn’t fool enough to think he could be trusted, but he had helped me escape Donika’s prison. There was nothing for him to gain from that. He forever fell from Donika’s good graces when he made the decision to help me and Tess. Whatever his motivations were, he was no longer on her side of this war. That much was abundantly clear.
I stayed curled in the corner of the bed against the windows, as far from him as I could get. I pulled the mess of blankets up to my shoulders to cover my bare skin despite the sweat.
“Where is Tess?” I asked defensively.
“Downstairs with Puck, having her eighth meal of the day. You’ve been asleep a long time,” he replied.
“How long, exactly?”
I was scared to know the answer. The dream felt as if only moments had passed, but my legs were sore as if from disuse, and my hair was mussed beyond simply tangling.
“Three days,” he answered softly.
For the first time, I noticed the trays stacked by the side of the bed with food that had been brought up. I hadn’t been awake to eat them.
I had lost so much time to the Stormvault, I hated the idea of losing even more time to unconsciousness. I know I needed to rest, to regain my strength, but I had already lost three months of my life. I didn’t want to lose a moment more.
“Diana, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You need to rest. To heal. You endured so much in Akra, and it was my fault—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off, my hand out as if I could physically stop his words. “Just…don’t. Please. I can’t hear it right now.”
Nik swallowed hard, his gaze falling to his lap. “I understand.”
I waited to see if he would leave, but he remained on Tess’ side of the bed, his leg curled beneath him. There were bags under his eyes still, as if he hadn’t slept at all since we had arrived at the safe house.
Did his actions haunt him, the way they haunted me?
Finally, his voice broke the silence, and it sent a shiver down my spine. I cursed myself for responding to him at all, involuntary or not.
“Will you tell me what you saw? Why you were screaming?”
I didn’t trust him.
I didn’t forgive him.
But I…needed him.
He was one of the few people who could understand my dream walking and help me make sense of what I had seen, of what was happening to me.
“I was sucked into a dream,” I started. “I didn’t want to. I tried to wake up, but I couldn’t. I was in Donika’s throne room, and she was torturing innocent people. Zion was there, and he did nothing.”
I leaned my head back against the window, closing my eyes as I remembered the horrific screams, the pools of blood.
“What did she do?” he asked. His voice was a soft whisper, as if he were trying to calm a scared animal.
“She killed them. All of them. She accused a Nightshade guard of aiding us in our escape and she murdered him first. Then she murdered an entire group of innocent people. They stood accused of being a part of the resistance. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I will never forget their screams. The blood on the throne room floor. Their lifeless eyes glaring back at me. There was nothing I could do to stop her. This is my fault. They are dead because I escaped—”
“Never be sorry for escaping that hell.” Nik’s voice was ragged in the darkness as he moved closer to me on the bed. “Never. Do you hear me?”
I swallowed hard. It felt impossible to be thankful that I had escaped when those people never would. They would never see their families again. They would never go home. I bit my lip hard as tears stung the back of my eyes and my fist curled around the blankets.
“Her actions are not your fault. Do you understand? You do not need to carry this guilt. You did not kill those people.”
He reached out and clasped my hand that was fisted in the blankets, and I let him. He squeezed it, and I squeezed back.
A hot tear spilled down my cheek and I moved to wipe it away with my other hand. Nik reached out and grabbed that hand as well, his eyes on mine.
“You are allowed to be scared. You are allowed to be upset. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to feel everything you are feeling right now. You don’t need to hide from me,” his voice was a velvety soft whisper.
A humorless laugh escaped my lips as I shook my head back and forth. I had promised myself I would never let him see me cry.
He pulled me to him and despite a voice in my head telling me this was a very, very bad idea, I buried my face in his neck, and I wept. I shed a tear for every person Donika had ever killed. For every day I spent locked in the Stormvault. For every lie I told myself to get through those days. I fisted his shirt in my hands and pulled him closer, and he wrapped his arm around me tightly, his other hand wound in my hair.
He rocked me back and forth as I cried, my tears soaking through his shirt. My breaths came in short, shuddering sobs as I let go of every emotion I had been holding in since escaping, every emotion I was trying to mask as anger. I would let these emotions go until I couldn’t cry anymore. I would let them fall from my eyes in fat wet droplets, and I would never look back.
Donika wasn’t only murdering Stormshades, she was murdering innocents. Shades who had done no wrong against her. Dark magic be damned, I would find a way to finish her dark rule once and for all.
This war would end in blood, but it wouldn’t be mine.