He took the cloth from me and refolded it back into a square.
“It’s strange to say that out loud,” I admitted.
“I envy you.”
“Why?”
He wiped a trickle of blood from my chest, running the linen from my sternum up to the wound. “I’ve never had to explain myself to anyone other than my brothers.” He took my hand and placed my fingers over the cloth. “Keep pressure on it so the bleeding stops.”
I nodded so he would continue.
“My dreams are not pleasant. I’m certainly not flying. I’m preyed upon by my past. I relive things I want to forget. Over and over. Never able to look away. Always seeing the same scenes as vividly as the day they happened. It makes me volatile. I’m going to end up killing someone I care about someday.”
“I’ve never dreamt anything like that.”
“You are a Fae. I’m not,” he pointed out. “My dreams are the result of a side effect.” He eased his sword out of the scabbard and laid it on the floor in front of us. “They began after I acquired this. Ever since, it’s been chaos. Reaching for a sword has always been my first reaction, so when the dreams started, it became a lethal combination. Especially when I can’t wake up quick enough to stop my actions.”
“So, you didn’t know what you were doing?”
“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.”
“And tonight, did you know?”
“Let’s just say you would be dead if I had not managed some form of consciousness. I’ve attacked Bromly and Flint, but they are used to being cautious around me when I start to show signs of exhaustion. Usually I sleep far from the Hovel. That’s why I gave you my room. I can’t use it anyway. I should have warned you how dangerous I am.”
Bromly and Flint were still arguing by the outside fire. I tried to keep my head straight. Time was dwindling; Bromly wouldn’t be able to keep Flint out of the Hovel forever.
“If it’s the sword causing this, why do you have it?” I asked. “Get rid of it.”
“It’s not that simple. I’ve tried to separate myself from it, and things only get worse. I’m bound to it somehow. I must keep the sword in my possession. The responsibility of keeping it out of the wrong hands fell to me. The problem is, I am the wrong hands. I wasn’t supposed to have it, and it punishes me.”
“How did you acquire such a horrific thing?”
He paused, studying the blade. “I’m not ready to tell you that.”
My heart sank, and I felt alone again. “You really aren’t like me.”
“I’m sorry. I know you want answers to your dreams, but I can’t give them to you.”
“Do Bromly and Flint know about this?”
“Yes, and they know more than I’m willing to reveal to you tonight. I just didn’t feel it was in anyone’s interest to leave you in the dark now that I’ve managed to physically harm you.”
Flint’s whimpering grew noticeably louder. Darric turned his gaze to the door, waiting for it to open, but the fur stayed shut. “I don’t need Bromly and Flint knowing you dream. You can imagine the trouble that would cause.”
I sighed. “The consensus is still that Dreamers belong in prison, institutionalized by the Senate.”
“Precisely.” He slid his sword back into the scabbard.
“Great.” More lies to add to my double life. “And yet you are protecting me because I’m a Fae.”
He touched his finger to my bottom lip. “You are eventually going to understand how toxic that word really is. My brothers are right outside the door. This conversation isn’t private anymore.”
I scowled, pushing his finger from my mouth. “I think it’s toxic that you threaten to kill me, yet somewhere behind a dreamlike haze, you were trying to prevent your body from cutting my head off. You aren’t an evil person—difficult and deranged, but not evil.”
He shrugged. “You say that because you don’t know me.”
“Why do you deny saving my life? If it hadn’t been for you, I would have died in a cave, or in the woods from poison, or at the hands of a corrupt bandit. Nothing you have done has been as heinous as what I’ve already had to overcome. I thought my life was over the day I ran away from home, but because of you I’m still alive.”
He shifted closer, lowering his voice to a murmur. “Where are you from? All of your kind are in Medial Alexandria by the age of ten. I didn’t believe there was any place left in Athera out of the reach of the Onyx Guard. I would know. I’ve been around.”
Being so close to him filled my face with heat, and I absentmindedly removed the cloth from my neck. “The Hovel is more exciting.”
“Sure, blood and death. Thrilling.” He tilted my head to expose my open skin, being considerably gentler this time. “The bleeding stopped.” He plucked the linen from my hand and tossed it into the fire. It immediately ignited, adding brief light to the dim room. “Still, I’m not going to keep divulging information without some sort of compensation.”
I furrowed my brows. “What sort of compensation? What do you want?”
Darric lasciviously smirked and opened his mouth to answer, but the fur door swished aside. He rapidly slid to the opposite side of the bench.
Flint crossed the Hovel in a few large steps and knelt before me. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and flooded with unfallen tears. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I replied curtly. My mind burned with curiosity over what Darric had meant by compensation. Flint’s fingers inched towards the laceration. I swatted his hand. “Don’t touch it. It’s sore.”
Bromly hastily came through the door. “Flint, you’re an unbelievable ass. Give him time to explain.”
“He’s had time,” Flint argued. “How much longer can it take for him to explain that he’s a psychopath?”
“Flint!” Bromly warned, but Darric raised his hand to stop him.
“Don’t worry about it.” He joined Bromly by the door. “We’re done.”
“So . . . she knows?” Bromly pressed.
Darric gripped his brother’s shoulder reassuringly. “Enough.” He pushed aside the fur and went into the cavern.
“How’d she handle it? How much did you tell her?” Bromly followed, leaving me uncomfortably alone with Flint.
“I’m so mad at him for hurtin’ ya. It’s unacceptable. He never shoulda come near the Hovel if he was sleepy,” Flint grumbled.
“Let it go.” I groaned. “I’m alive, and it wasn’t his fault.”
Disgust warped his face. “You’re kiddin’, right? He has more control over it than he lets on.” He raised his sleeve, showing me the underside of his forearm. His strikingly pale skin was dotted with little tan freckles, and a long pink scar stretched from his wrist to his inner elbow. “He did this to me the last time I woke him up. He had to stitch me shut afterwards.” He pointed to the tiny holes on either side of the healed gash. “I’m a bowman. I don’t get hurt. I had no scars. I’m not covered in my mistakes like he is.”
I sneered, growing tired of Flint’s constant disparagement of his brother. What was he trying to achieve by continually complaining about Darric’s transgressions?
“Thanks to Darric, I have this reminder that my brother is a—” He stopped midsentence upon seeing my face; my sneer had turned into a scowl. “Okay,” he relented and squeezed the meat on my thigh, “I’ll let it go.”
I softened my expression and shoved his hand off my leg. “Thank you.”
I pulled back on the bowstring. The weight of the draw cut into my fingertips. My muscles ached into a tingling fire across my shoulders and chest and down my back, but I held tight to the grip. I didn’t want to seem weak, even when my arms began shaking from the strain.
Flint explained the draw weight on my bow would be around forty pounds. Forty pounds. I felt every bit of it. The wood made an odd crackling sound as I stretched the cordage to my cheek. The feathers at the arrow’s end tickled my skin.
Darric leaned against the stone arch of the
cavern, brandishing a small knife between his fingers. In his other hand he held a chunk of wood he had been transforming into a currently unrecognizable animal shape, but he lost interest in carving the moment the bow was in my possession. His observation made me unsteady; I had not anticipated him lingering around the Hovel to spectate. He was already smirking in a derogatory fashion.
Bromly sat by the fire, sewing together dozens of various-colored rabbit pelts with a large bone needle and thick leather thread to create a beautiful furry patchwork quilt. The work needing to be done had not stopped him from picking a seat close to the edge of the cavern for the best view of the morning’s entertainment.
The arrow wobbled. For such a light piece of wood, it created an uncanny amount of pressure on my forefinger. My arms trembled, begging for the release of the bowstring.
Fifty feet in the distance, a skinny pine tree had an apple-sized circle drawn on it with a piece of charcoal. The poor target was difficult to see.
I stared into the black dot, taking in its awkward shape that lumped on one side, and struggled to remember Flint’s vague instruction. The position of my feet—apart. Back straight—the immaculate posture of a Divine royal. Both eyes open. I had no idea what I was doing. I had expected more direction before he handed me the bow and blankly told me to “shoot an arrow.”
I exhaled a hard breath and tried to force myself to concentrate, but movement distracted me. Darric’s half-whittled creature hurtled in my direction. It hit me upside the head and landed with a thud by my feet. Startled, I released my grip, and the bow fell downwards, shooting the arrow into the dirt and sending an explosion of soil into the air.
I narrowed a stern look at my stranger. “Was that necessary?”
He cocked his head to the side with a satisfied expression. “Next time it will be a knife.” He spun the blade in his hand for emphasis.
“Ignore him, Aya.” Flint retrieved the fallen arrow and handed it back to me. “He does the same thin’ to me when I’m tryin’ to practice, ’cept he uses rocks.”
I tapped the arrowhead on my shoe to knock off loose dirt and restrung the bow. My arms grew sore, and I struggled to make them cooperate. Searching the tree line, I found the pine bearing the black mark.
I inhaled. Back straight.
My shoulders shook. Both eyes open.
I exhaled. Feet sturdy.
Darric’s knife spun through the air and sliced the stone head clean off my arrow. The knife landed blade-first in the dirt, his impeccable aim leaving me armed with merely a bow and a feathered stick.
“Darric!” I shrieked, lowering the useless weapon. “What are you trying to accomplish?”
He bent his leg back against the rock. “So, take the shot already. Summer only lasts so long in Brisleia.”
Irked, I snatched a new arrow from Flint’s quiver. I nocked it against the bowstring, pulled back, and let the projectile fly without care. “Satisfied?” I dropped the bow in a huff just as the twang of splintered wood echoed through the morning valley.
Everyone’s attention turned to the marked pine. My arrow pierced the center of Flint’s target. I gaped, and Darric let out an enthusiastic laugh.
“Okay?” Puzzled, Flint laid his hand on top of his head. “I don’t think ya were lookin’ that time. Ya can’t always rely on luck . . .” He paused, examining the pine. “We’ll keep tryin’ . . .”
He brought me a new arrow. I readied myself. After three hard pulls on the bowstring, my arms were too weak to draw back as far as I needed. I quickly found the target and gave in to my body’s demand to let the arrow loose. It traveled in a beautiful arch and landed directly on top of my previous shot, continuing through the trunk to leave a gaping hole.
Stunned, I shook my head in disbelief.
Flint rubbed his eyes and wrinkled his tapered nose. “There’s no way ya had enough power to do that. I watched ya.” He ran to inspect the tree.
“Do it again.” Darric concealed his smile by running his tongue over his teeth.
“I most certainly cannot,” I said.
His brows lowered, and the smile dimmed. “That sort of doubt is why I will never teach you to wield a sword. That, and your evident lack of actual concentration and control.” He slid a second knife out of his leather bracer.
I wanted to wield a sword. Darric’s elegant skill entranced me. If I was ever to be the same caliber of lethal assassin, I had to prove I was capable.
I took another arrow, drew my bow, and shot the weapon towards the pine.
“Whoa!” Flint spun around as the arrow whizzed by him. It slid through the hole and disappeared into the forest. “Aya!” I could see the whites of his eyes even from a distance. “That’s stupid an’ dangerous! Ya coulda hit me! Wait till I’m clear!”
A bizarre confidence filled my chest; it flooded my arms with cool liquid and twisted my brain. For some unknown reason, I was positive I would not hit him, no matter how many arrows I sent gliding in his direction. This weapon yielded to me, even if my muscles loathed me for it.
“Impressive.” Darric grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. “Again.”
I gulped and reached for Flint’s quiver.
An hour later, six arrows had left an additional four holes down the center of the pine.
Flint decided to change tactics. He retrieved a new bit of charcoal from the fire and ran to the forest edge, one hundred feet from the cavern. This time, he made smaller marks on three different trees, each at varying heights and far away from one another.
“It’s like he wants me to miss,” I observed, watching him scurry between the trees.
“Wouldn’t you?” Darric asked. “He offers to teach you to use a bow, and you are better than him. It’s not exactly the ego stroke he was hoping for.”
“You could have told him you’re a talented archeress before you decided to humiliate him.” Bromly laughed.
Darric rolled his eyes.
“I’ve never used a bow in my life!” I insisted. I couldn’t start a fire or peel a potato; how could he assume I was an expertly trained archeress?
“Let’s rub salt into this wound, shall we?” Darric suggested.
“No,” Bromly discouraged, putting an end to his sewing.
“Aya, put on Flint’s quiver so you have arrows at the ready, and hit his targets consecutively.”
“What good will that do?” My arm was sending shocks of pain into my shoulder. I gripped high on my bicep and massaged my fingers into the muscle. “I don’t know if my arm will allow it. Besides, it’s too easy. There is no challenge involved,” I grudgingly admitted, not wanting to tell him how clearly I could see the targets. They didn’t seem one hundred feet away but rather right in front of me. I felt I could reach out and touch them.
“Taking the last three shots perfectly will put an end to this nonsense and get Flint back to work,” Darric explained. “Bear season is about to start. He needs to help Bromly with hides instead of avoiding his responsibilities making arrows and new bows. We are behind, and bear kills will overwhelm us if he is distracted by unnecessary archery lessons.”
“I can’t argue with that logic.” Bromly folded his rabbit blanket and neatly added it to a pile of others. “But I wish you’d come up with a less insulting method to get him refocused.”
“Aya?” Darric waited for me to acknowledge his plan.
I reached for the bundle of arrows, moved my hair aside, and slung the quiver over my shoulder, tying the fastenings around my chest.
Flint finished marking the pine trunks and jogged towards us. I slipped an arrow from the quiver, strung it into place, aimed at the target farthest to the left, and released. The twang of wood echoed when the arrow stabbed the trunk directly on the black mark. Immediately, I drew a replacement. My weakened muscles trembled, but I let the arrow fly at the last moment before my fingers gave out.
Flint spun to watch the second shot zip past him and replace the middle pine’s charcoal circle with a hole. “Aya
!” he squealed in alarm. “Stop!”
I nocked the final arrow into place and tugged the bowstring back to my cheek. “Shit!” Flint ducked, covering his head with his forearms as the final shot whistled through the air and made a defiant wooden bang through the last tree.
I dropped the bow and cried out, clutching my shoulder. Sharp spasms ripped into my hand and across my chest.
“That was brilliant!” Bromly shouted and doubled over with laughter.
“You probably should have waited until he was back.” Darric chuckled, sliding his knife into his bracer.
“I’m done.” I shook my head and winced. “No more archery.”
Flint stomped his feet like a child upon reaching the cavern. Sweat dripped from his temples, and he turned a dark scowl on Darric. “I take it that was your dumb idea?”
Darric held up his hands in surrender. Bromly rubbed his fingers into his beard, trying to stop the flow of laughter.
A wave of remorse hit me when I realized I’d been part of a joke meant to torment Flint. “I’m sorry.” I grimaced, rolling my shoulder.
“Sorry? You’re sorry!” Flint shrieked. “Next time, don’t take Darric’s fucked-up advice an’ ya won’t have to be sorry. Or better, don’t lie to me ’bout your experience so ya can join in on his shitty games an’ mock my skill.”
Darric uncrossed his arms and laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. Pushing away from the cavern wall, he started to circle like a predator.
“I would never purposefully seek to humiliate you,” I told Flint. “I had no idea what I was doing. I would never ask you to teach me if I meant to insult you.”
“Really?” He pointed to the hole-riddled pines. “That suggests otherwise. An’ ya know what I think? After bein’ kidnapped by bandits, ya were disarmed an’ needed a bow made. All of this was jus’ your way of gettin’ somethin’ ya wanted so the three of us might take ya seriously.”
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 20