Prince of Dreams

by Pippa Dacosta

  Panic thumped me in the chest over and over. I couldn’t call for my stardust and shadow, for my Nightshade. He was worlds away. And Kellee… he would be furious if I got myself and Arran killed by doing something rash. He’d say he told me so, that I’d died for a dream. As I looked into the shallow gazes of thousands of fae who despised me, I ached to have the Messenger’s strength—Kellee, Talen and Sota—here with me. But I stood alone among an entire race who hungered for my death.

  Saru… there were saru among the crowd, unseen and ignored. But each one of them saw me, and I saw them in return. Arran was one of theirs. I’d confronted the king and saved the saru family. Surely I could do the same again? Wasn’t that what I’d started? Wasn’t that my whole purpose?

  But I couldn’t.

  If I did anything here, the fae would turn on me and Oberon. I wouldn’t even reach the dais. The guardians beside me might be the first to cut me down. It would be over before it had even begun.

  The king was talking about Faerie’s pride and honor and how Arran had struck a blow to Faerie’s heart. His people listened, but all I could see was how this was all wrong. Few here believed Oberon. They knew I was the one who should pay, not Arran.

  I was the Messenger. I’d built myself up, into the myth, but alone, here… I’d never felt so small.

  Cool, smooth tek fingers found my hand and closed protectively around it. The sweet and spicy warmth of autumn coiled around me too. I swallowed and closed my eyes for a few moments.

  I wasn’t alone.

  “Did you find it?” Sirius’s whispers filtered so finely through my hair I could have imagined the words.

  I squeezed his hand.

  “And you swear to save Faerie?” he asked.

  Halow needed me. The saru needed me, not Faerie. I owed Faerie nothing.

  A low warning growl rumbled behind me. “Very well, but do not make me regret this.”

  Armored guards escorted Arran through the parting crowd. My Aeon. He would always be Aeon to me, even if he looked at me now as though he didn’t recognize me. Dull-eyed and obedient, he walked to what would be his death without a whimper of protest. Aeon would have fought them with everything he had until his last breath. But Arran was broken and had been since he’d eaten the starfruit.

  I had to act and do something. Anything. But there was more at stake than Arran’s life. This was not the place to make a stand. I wasn’t ready. The pieces weren’t in place.

  And then, with a terrible, wrenching sadness, I realized I couldn’t save him. It didn’t matter that he was innocent and didn’t deserve this. Justice wasn’t something that fell into place just because it should. There was no way out for him, and no way I could save him without condemning myself to death. And I had so much more to give. I couldn’t die here, just as Sirius had told me. My life, my myth, was worth more than him.

  The parade came closer, and Arran lifted his eyes. A flicker of hope brightened them. If anyone could save him, surely the Messenger could. She rode a warcruiser through the stars with the last vakaru and the Nightshade at her side. What was saving one saru to someone like her?

  I’m so sorry…

  Arran twisted in the guards’ grip, and his hopeful eyes widened as he understood what was happening.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, calla,” Sirius whispered. His hand slipped from mine. “Retrieve his heart.” Sirius gripped my shoulder and heaved me back, out of his way.

  Fire danced up his outline. A nearby guardian cried out.

  Sirius raised his stolen guardian blade, sliced it through the air, and plunged it deep into a guard’s chest. Pixies screamed, and Sirius continued hacking and slashing. He felled three of Arran’s guards as easily as harvesting corn before the guardians shook off their shock and sprang into motion.

  The sounds of metal clashing rang out, and then Sirius boomed, “This saru is innocent! This execution is a farce! You all know it!”

  I backed away, turned, and hurried away from the crowd, keeping my pace slow so no one spotted me until I reached the palace. Bursting into a sprint, I exploded through the empty throne room into the twisting corridors beyond. The hidden chamber seemed farther away than before, and perhaps it had moved as some palace rooms did, but just when I thought I’d been running in circles, the door opened ahead, revealing its secrets.

  I snatched my whip from its stand, hooked it onto my belt, and stopped at the rose-wrapped pedestal. The roses stirred, hissing as some unraveled and angled my way. It was now or never. I needed to free the Dreamweaver, find all the pieces of the polestar, make everything right again.

  The roses quivered, scenting the swell of my emotions over all the things I had done and had yet to do.

  “Hungry? Feed on this!” I plunged my hand into the mass of thorns and gripped Eledan’s heart. The roses struck, tangling around my wrists and sinking their barbs in deep to drag me down among them.

  Thwump-thwump. Finally, I had the Dreamweaver’s heart in my grasp. I pulled. The roses tightened. I felt it then, the thinning and cooling of hatred and rage, as though the roses were shaving off pieces of what drove me forward, layer after layer. Blood dripped from around the thorns. The more I pulled, the more they tightened, and the more I bled, both blood and feelings.

  “Give up his fucking heart!” I grabbed at the knots with my free hand and tried to yank them free. A tendril wove up that arm and squeezed, locking on. No! I needed this horrid heart, and these damn roses wouldn’t stop me. Placing a boot on the pedestal, I pulled against their grip. The roses coiled tighter, feeding with every long second. Higher, they wove around both arms, sucking me deeper into their embrace.

  “Faerie be damned, Eledan! This is on you!”

  “Stop fighting them,” Ailish said from behind me.

  I twisted, trying to fix the water witch in my sight, but she had positioned herself in my blind spot. I glimpsed her watery robes and silvery hair but little else. “How…?”

  “Give them nothing to feed on,” she crooned sweetly.

  That wasn’t possible. “How do I give them nothing?!”

  “Feel nothing. Be nothing.”

  Eledan’s cruel laughter wove through my panicked thoughts. Nothing girl. He knew. Maybe he’d always known. I had to let it all go, shut it all out, and be the heartless, hollow thing again. Feel nothing. Be nothing. Be the Wraithmaker.

  I wasn’t sure I could.

  I wasn’t that same killer.

  Too much had changed. I’d changed.

  Ailish drifted around my left side. Her robes rippled as though she were floating on water. Maybe she wasn’t even here. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I’d take any advice she was willing to give and pay its price later.

  “Stop feeling, or they will steal your fight. Hurry now, the prince is waiting.” She swept a hand behind me, gesturing for me to look.

  I pulled harder, twisting around as much as the roses would allow, and saw Eledan lying on his back on the floor, head to one side, eyes closed and flickering as he dreamed himself another world. The collar I’d fixed around his neck still sat there—cold iron keeping him contained. She’d brought him here just like she’d said she would.

  I had to mend all this and wake him up. I had minutes, at the most, before the guards came, before Oberon realized I was missing.

  Ailish cocked her head, listening. “Quickly, the king prepares to kill the saru and the guardian. We are all waiting for the wild prince, Messenger. Waiting for him to be set free. Remember… remember what you were before. Wraithmaker. Empty. Heartless. A blade forged by Faerie’s king. Be that cold thing again.”

  But I cared too much to let go. Kellee, Talen, Arran, and even Sirius. I cared. That was why I was here, stealing a heart I should have destroyed months ago and trying to save a people who hated me. If I no longer cared, would I continue to fight for them? It was too late to guess or do anything but move forward.

  I sighed and let the rage flow out with the breath. The roses crep
t higher, snaking toward my shoulders, sinking their thorns in like vakaru teeth, only it wasn’t blood they drank.

  Kellee, I wish you were here.

  Love.

  It was warm and comforting, but as I let it go, coldness crept in.

  I can do this. I can stop caring. For them, for Halow, for the saru. Remember who I was before. Forget the Messenger I am today. Forget how Kellee and Talen saved me from the Dreamweaver and have saved me every day since. Forget how Aeon loved me enough to forget me.

  I had to be Eledan’s nothing girl. One. Last. Time.

  Eyes closed, I withdrew into my memories of the little girl who had killed her friends to survive the harvest. The girl who had dreamed of arena battles where the fae would cheer her name. The girl who had done a prince’s bidding and killed a queen. She had been a terrible thing, that cold little girl. And now she was me.

  The roses ceased climbing. Still, they throbbed around my arms, feeding…

  I’d cut my first love’s throat to please Oberon. I would have killed, lied, cheated, and deceived anyone and anything. It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. Only the heart mattered. My life was empty. I was empty.

  Kellee had been right all along.

  Talen saw only the light in me. All fae were attracted to the light. Without the light, without the polestar, I was nothing.

  Slowly, thorn by thorn, the roses plucked themselves free.

  The pain was good and real. And I needed it because nothing felt real anymore. This place, the woman I was, surrounded by Faerie, none of it made any sense.

  Eledan’s heart glimmered in my grip. Tek and flesh, life and metal, and a piece of the polestar.

  “Good, now hurry… hurry, girl,” Ailish urged. “Wake the prince.”

  Boots thundered outside the chamber.

  “Find the Wraithmaker!” a guard hollered nearby.

  Seconds… I had seconds.

  Melting onto my knees beside Eledan, I tore open his shirt, exposing the fleshy hollow in his chest. Months ago, I’d cut out his heart, tek vein by tek vein, and now I was putting it back.

  My hands trembled.

  The Dreamweaver would be real again. But I had him under control. I was not afraid, not anymore. The roses had taken my fear too. I was ready.

  As I lowered the heart toward his chest, tek veins unfurled and reached for their missing piece. Power sparked. Life magic and electricity hissed and spat. An impossible combination, just like me.

  This was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

  For Arran, for Sirius, for the saru who died every day in service to the fae, and for the people forgotten in Halow. For the people Oberon would kill. Yes, this was right.

  I slammed the heart into its hole and pressed down with both hands, forcing it home. Tek spat its displeasure, but the veins sank in, and when I removed my hands, the heart nestled behind rebuilding ribs. Flesh and metal united, weaving together and resurrecting the nightmare.

  Rocking back on my heels, I looked up at Ailish. The bad half of her face was hidden, but the beautiful half didn’t look pleased. I’d expected her to appear triumphant, to grin, but her widening good eye suggested… fear. Had I done something wrong?

  “Open up!” The guards hammered on the door.

  Ailish stared at the sleeping prince.

  Why hadn’t Eledan moved? Shouldn’t he be waking and working his illusions? His chest was healed, and the patchwork of silvery veins was the only outward sign he wasn’t normal.

  I snatched at the collar, ripped it off, and tossed it aside.

  “Why doesn’t he wake?” Ailish asked.

  I’d been about to ask her the same. “I… I don’t know…”

  More hammering rattled the door.

  I grabbed Eledan’s shoulder and shook him. “Son of a sluagh, now’s your moment! Wake!”

  “Something is wrong…”

  No kidding. His head lolled. Why did he have to be so difficult?

  “There isn’t time for this,” I said.

  “Time... It has been too long. He is lost. You need to dream and find him.”

  Before I could argue or ask what she meant, Ailish stepped forward and slammed her palm against my forehead. The cry of protest on my lips died. The chamber rushed away. Falling, falling, falling into the dark, all I saw was Ailish’s eyes, one bright and brilliant, one a rotted hollow. Her horrid skeletal smile chased me into the dark.

  Chapter 22

  Kesh

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  The Dreamweaver was draped across his throne like a thief sprawled on his horde of spoils, one leg over the throne’s armrest, an elbow resting on the other. His tattered edges were fixed. He wore familiar black and red fae hunting leathers. Why, by cyn, was he grinning like he had won a game I didn’t know we were playing?

  “You need to wake up right now.” I marched to the throne, noticing how it got higher on its dais with every step. “There’s isn’t the time for your karushit. Arran will die, and—”

  “Arran.” He snorted and adjusted his position on the throne so he could lean forward and stare me down. “Why do you bother with this betrayer Arran? I’ve seen inside his dreams. The boy is lost. He was lost the moment you cut his throat. Or maybe it was when he ate the fruit to forget you. Whenever it happened, he cannot be saved.”

  I clenched my hands at my sides to keep from tearing him off that ridiculous throne. “He didn’t do that to just forget me.”

  Eledan stood, towering over me. “Didn’t he?” He tossed the comment away as if it were nothing and descended from the throne. He walked by me like he had somewhere more important to be. “He loved the woman who killed him. I’d want to forget that too.”

  “It doesn’t matter now! The guards are here, and you’re still asleep. We need to act now. You must wake up. Oberon will kill him and Sirius—”

  “Time,” Eledan cut in. “Did you know Faerie is built on time, light, and dark? Take one of those three away and Mother Faerie will fall.”

  What was this nonsense? Why was he stalling? “We have a deal. Uphold your end now, Eledan, or I’ll rip out your fucking heart again.”

  He glanced behind him and smirked the half smile I wanted to tear from his lips. “You know what else I know? Here, I control time.” He flicked his fingers at the air. “Oberon must kill two innocent souls to appease his people, and the guards are about to catch the Wraithmaker kneeling over the unconscious heroic prince. Given her history of killing royals, the whip at her side isn’t likely just for appearances.” He gasped, overacting, and laughed his insane laughter. “It’s all very dramatic. What will happen? Will she prevail and wake the prince with a kiss? Or will the guards see her and, assuming the worst, kill her first?”

  “I’ve got a five-fingered kiss right here for you.”

  He turned and smirked. “So much fire in that Faerie heart of yours.”

  “Speaking of hearts, I know exactly what yours is.”

  “My brother told you my secret.” He rested two fingers against his chest and tapped his fingers in time to the beat of that heart. “But not all of them? No… I see not. You’re still the girl who tries too hard to be real, when the truth is, you are nothing. That piece of polestar you carry around is all anyone cares for. You think your precious Talen would love you without that light in you?”

  I tried to guard against the words but I didn’t need to. The roses had taken those feelings. “You don’t know me or anything about me. I’ve changed since we were… together.”

  His smile grew. “Perhaps the last vakaru believes he can use the polestar to resurrect his beloved people? An interesting thought, don’t you think? Or did you think a warlord such as him could genuinely love a dishonorable and shallow thing like you?”

  “This is nonsense.” Sirius’s words danced in my head alongside Eledan’s. Words of how I was a weak, shallow, dishonest thing. But I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t afford to. “Wake up and fulfill your end of the deal. I got your heart. Now pay up.”<
br />
  “I know your fears, Messenger, and your desires. You were always simple, beneath all the lies. All saru want is to be loved by their masters. Do you think Oberon loves you?”

  “No.” He didn’t. His interest had never been about me. I understood that now. Oberon cared only for the polestar and my ability to retrieve the pieces for him.

  “No,” Eledan echoed. “And this Arran… he loves what he’s been taught to love. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  “Why do you care about any of this? About me or Arran or Talen? None of this matters to you. Just wake up, stop the execution, and stop Oberon.”

  “Stop my brother,” he mused like this was a joke.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” I asked. “Revenge?”

  His mouth twisted. “Revenge is too small a word for what I want.”

  “So what are you waiting for?” Why were we talking when we could be out there, in the real world, doing? He had waited centuries to return to Faerie. The moment was here, yet he was wasting time trying to manipulate me? “You’re afraid.”

  “Afraid?” He tensed.

  “It’s been so long and you don’t know if you’re strong enough to stop this. You’re just the weaker fae prince nobody has cared about enough to write into history. They don’t know you. You don’t know you. But I know you. And I know your fears too. You fear you’re a prince of nothing.”

  His right eye twitched. “You believe Faerie won’t bow to me?”

  I shrugged. “You’re free, yet here you are, clinging to your imaginary cage bars like a newly harvested saru.”

  “Enough talk, Messenger.” He lifted his head, standing stone-still. “Are you ready for my reality?” He lifted a hand, fingers poised to click and plunge us outside the dream. “You will love it.”

  “Stop dreaming it then and make it real.”

  Snap.

  Chapter 23

  Kesh

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