Dreamthief

by Tamara Grantham

  ***

  I felt the pain as soon as I woke up. My left shoulder. Possibly dislocated. Lacerated skin on my hands and face.

  Someone screamed. Heidel?

  I opened my eyes to find thick smoke obscuring the landscape. Hunks of metal sat atop me, and I pushed them away, wincing when I moved my arm. I sat up. Through the haze, I saw Kull’s silhouette hunched over his sister.

  I pulled myself out of the debris. Snow burned my raw skin, so I pulled the cloak close and kept my hands inside as I stumbled toward Kull.

  Pain shot through my shoulder, and I bit my tongue to stay distracted. As I drew closer, I saw that the remains of our carriage pinned Heidel’s legs. She screamed as Kull attempted to move the wreckage away.

  “Stop!” She grabbed his hands. “It hurts. Gods, it hurts.”

  “But I have to move it.”

  “Please, don’t.”

  “But I have to—”

  I placed my hand on Kull’s shoulder. He turned to me with a stoic face, though I saw fear in his eyes. “Can I try?” I asked.

  He seemed to think for a moment, then nodded and stepped away.

  I bent and inspected the metal. Blood streamed down Heidel’s leg, and when I gently pushed the debris, she winced. She reached for Kull, and he grabbed her hands.

  As I looked closer, I pushed the tattered fabric of her pants aside and saw the metal embedded in her thigh. Awfully close to the femoral. That wasn’t good.

  Kull must’ve seen the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s not bad,” I lied.

  “It’s in her life vein, isn’t it?”

  I swallowed. “I’m not sure. But if we remove the metal, she could bleed to death.”

  Kull’s face paled. He squeezed his sister’s hands. “Can’t we do anything?” he asked me.

  The pain in my shoulder clawed at my mind, making it hard for me to concentrate.

  “A tourniquet,” Kull suggested. He pulled a strip of fabric from his pack. I moved away as he tied the fabric around her leg just above the wound. “On three?” He looked at me.

  “Yeah,” I said and grabbed the metal, although I knew I wouldn’t be much help with a dislocated shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asked me.

  I steadied my breathing. “I’m fine. Just my shoulder, but I’m fine.”

  He studied me. “Your shoulder?”

  “It’s fine.”

  He nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced. “On three?” he repeated.

  “Yes, on three.”

  “One, two—”

  “Wait!” Heidel cut in. “There has to be… another way.” She turned to me with an ashen face. “Use your magic.”

  “I don’t think—”

  She grabbed my collar. “Use your magic!”

  I hesitated. I’d never been much of a healer, not for physical injuries. I could mess her up worse than she already was.

  Kull glanced at me. “Can you remove the metal?”

  “I can try.” I tried to concentrate, but thinking through pain is never as easy as it seems. I shut my eyes and focused on the symbol for metal. An image of a mountain formed in my mind. Iron ore—the base element the carriage would have been created from.

  “Hold still,” I told Heidel. She nodded. I reached for the broken scrap. Magic swelled inside me. I focused on the image of the mountain, concentrating on keeping my hand steady.

  Magic burst from my fingertips and into the metal. I imagined the shard disintegrating. The carriage burned under my hands, but I held steady. Seconds passed, though they felt like minutes. The metal grew hotter. Heidel gasped for air. Why wasn’t the metal doing anything? It should have been a pile of ash by now.

  A strange magic fog pushed against my own. I felt darkness in the magic, as if I were running my fingers through slime.

  I pulled away. Shivers ran down my spine. I stared at the carriage’s remains in a new light. Dark magic clung to it. The same sort of magic I’d felt in Jeremiah’s dream.

  “Why can’t you move it?” Heidel whispered before she slumped. Her head fell into the snow.

  “Heidel?” Kull cradled his sister’s head. He turned to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Dark magic.”

  Kull raised an eyebrow. “Coming from the carriage?”

  I nodded. He remained silent, though I saw his hesitation. He knew this wasn’t good.

  “I can’t remove the debris. We’ll have to pull it free without magic.”

  Kull nodded, his face emotionless as he held his sister in his arms. I supposed he’d been through this sort of thing before. But it still seemed strange that he remained so calm. Perhaps he wasn’t. Maybe he’d learned to put on a brave face.

  He rested his sister’s head on the snow and moved to the carriage’s remains, gripping the metal on both sides. I stumbled upright and grabbed it with him.

  Kull nodded to me, and we strained against the debris. My shoulder screamed with pain as I wrestled the metal free from Heidel’s leg. We pulled. Then we tried again. When the carriage finally pulled free with a jolt, Kull tossed the piece away and knelt by his sister.

  The metallic scent of blood pervaded the air. Dark crimson liquid pooled from the wound, indicating trauma to the vein. As I knelt beside her, I felt grateful that the blood only trickled free. We still had time.

  “Do you have an extra shirt or something?”

  He didn’t move. It seemed that if he did, he’d break his composure. “In my pack,” he said after a pause. He grabbed his bag and pulled out a dark, tweed-like sweater. It didn’t seem terribly absorbent, but it would be good enough. I took it from him.

  Pushing the shirt to Heidel’s leg, I felt Kull’s hand cover mine. “You’ll have to apply more pressure,” he said. His grip tightened. I watched a tiny spot of blood seep through the layers of fabric. Holding my breath, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. We needed a hospital. She needed blood.

  Although I didn’t have much practice with healing spells, I knew I had to at least try. I inhaled, exhaled, and then closed my eyes.

  “Forge,” I whispered. An image of a blacksmith’s furnace and kiln appeared in my mind. A piece of white-hot metal, representing the scab I would create, rested on the hearth. I imagined holding a hammer as I began to pound the metal.

  My mind’s image of the metal began to cool, and I pounded it with more intensity. Sweat beaded my forehead. I had to try harder. Heat radiated from my hands into the wound. I pounded a piece of cold metal, but still I persisted.

  When I heard Heidel stir, I opened my eyes.

  She stared at the sky, looking disoriented. “My leg hurts.”

  I pulled the shirt off her wound. A thin scab of dark blood covered the gash. She’d be okay. I exhaled.

  “You healed her,” Kull said to me.

  “Yes. I got lucky.”

  Sitting up, Heidel stared at Kull’s shirt soaked with her blood, then turned to the torn remnants of carriage. “We should go,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, and—”

  “We should go,” she repeated. “Now.”

  “Not until you can walk,” Kull said.

  Heidel ground her teeth and caught Kull’s hand. She pulled herself into a sitting position, then limped upright until she stood. A strained smile stretched across her face. She took a tiny step. “Looks like I can.”

  “You’re a fool, Heidel.”

  “Then I must be related to you.”

  Kull stood and wrapped a cloak around his sister. “The Borderlands are nearly an hour away. You’ll never make it.”

  “I will.” The steely determination in her voice kept Kull from arguing.

  Kull turned his gaze to the light-rails. Thick smoke curled from the charred metal.

  I could feel the magic from where I stood. Dark magic, but something else, too. I recognized the spell. Only a few races used it.

  “How did this happen?” he a
sked.

  “Hard to say. But someone spellcasted that carriage. A rending spell—not many creatures possess that sort of magic.”

  Heidel looked at me. “Goblin magic?”

  I glanced at Kull. “Or elf.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Elf?”

  “It’s hard to say for sure.”

  “You think elves did this to their own carriage?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Kull scratched his beard.

  “Why would someone want to harm us?” Heidel asked.

  “There are Wults who consider this place sacred to outsiders. They could have tried to stop us,” Kull offered.

  “But Wults wouldn’t have used magic. The elves may have found out that Kull was missing,” I said.

  “No,” Kull said. “Even if they had found out, they wouldn’t have tried to kill us.”

  Heidel shot her brother a questioning glance. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Wind howled past as I pulled a pair of gloves out of my pack. The wool warmed my hands a little, but my fingers still felt numb. “We should get moving.”

  “The elves will hear about this,” Kull said. “Those cursed carriages are supposed to be the safest way to travel.”

  Our boots sank into the snow as we walked alongside the rail. After what had happened, I didn’t think any of us were anxious to climb inside another carriage.

  The light-rails ended at the foot of the mountains. Just across that range lay goblin country. I could feel it, even if I couldn’t see it. Not many people had traveled through those wastelands. With all the research I’d done on goblins, I realized one thing—we knew next to nothing about them. They were secretive, clannish, and didn’t welcome outsiders.

  Kull pointed at an opening in the base of a mountain. “The caves our ancestors came through. Crossing through them should not take long. The temple ruins are on the other side of those mountains.”

  With a gust of frigid air in our faces, we headed for the caves. I kept my hands in my pockets. Even with my gloves, I feared I’d get frostbite if I took them out.

  My ears stung in the freezing wind. Snowflakes stuck to my eyelashes. I focused on the black dot at the bottom of the mountain. With each step, we drew closer.

  My toes felt frozen to my shoes as we neared the caves. Its mouth rose overhead, black against a white landscape. We climbed a steep incline to reach the entrance.

  Below us, the light-rail shimmered, a barely discernible swath of gold. Far in the distance, the remains of our carriage marred the white snowfields like a cancer spot. Smoke rose into the sky. Whoever had destroyed our carriage wanted us dead. That thought stayed with me as I turned away to enter the cave.