The Echoed Realm

by A. J. Vrana

  The Dreamwalker’s fingertips—cool as a winter’s breeze—grazed Miya’s cheek. With her other hand, she lifted the mask from her face. Miya’s own reflection stared back at her—murky green eyes, lush brows, and dark ash-brown hair cascading past her shoulders in waves. “She wants you to follow them,” the spitting image warned. “She wants to break your resolve.”

  “I know,” said Miya. “But what if I met them halfway? I could send them a sign—something to ease their minds until I’m ready to open my heart to them.”

  “No!” her predecessor pleaded, but it was too late. Miya was already running after the three figures as they faded into the mist.

  “Mason!” Miya called. Even though she was sprinting through shallow water and the doctor only meandered, she was unable to catch him. Every step pushed him further into the void.

  Vines shot up from below, trapping Miya’s legs. She gasped as they yanked her into the water, forcing her to her knees. When she looked up, the architect of Vincent’s death was in front of her.

  “So young and naïve,” the woman tutted. She crouched so they were level. “You followed the breadcrumbs quite well, Dreamwalker. But you’re still too callow to roam the dreamscape unguarded.” With a Cheshire grin, she curled her bony fingers around Miya’s throat. “I could crush you bare-handed, but that won’t do me any good.” Her words were hoarse like the spider was jittering in her voice box.

  Miya scrabbled at her putrid captor—flesh soft and sticky like spoiled fruit. “Rotting…swamp…monster…” she cursed as she struggled to wrest herself free.

  “My name,” said the demon, “is Rusalka.”

  “Rusalka,” Miya repeated, straining to speak through the pressure on her windpipe. “Who says I needed guarding?”

  Miya dug her fingernails into Rusalka’s wrist. A torrent of shimmering smoke ripped through the river like a bullet, pummelling the landscape before crashing into the two women. Dark vapour woven from amethyst and obsidian enveloped Miya’s form. It slithered over her hair, down her face, and hardened into a bone mask, the beak a knifepoint over her bottom lip. Feathery tendrils spiralled down her arm and coalesced into a raven, its wings spreading before talons clawed at Rusalka.

  She gasped and pulled back, flailing to shake off the spectral bird. She turned to Miya, glowering with fury. “Enough of your tricks!”

  The sea of violet eddied around Miya’s body and erupted into a billowing cloak. “I didn’t realize it was a trick.”

  Rusalka’s scowl warped into a humourless smirk. “And neither is this.”

  Kai’s anguished scream gouged the stillness of the dreamscape.

  Stomach sinking, Miya realized her mistake; she’d gotten carried away and lost track of time.

  “No,” she breathed, panic welding her to the ground. Forgetting Rusalka, Miya spun around to find herself staring through the swamp.

  She had to get back to the Grey Gnarl.

  But how?

  All around her were towering cypress trees drowning in the mossy shallows. They were the same ones that led to the dead elm in her dream, yet she had no idea which way to go.

  “You’re too late,” purred Rusalka.

  Miya clasped the dream stone around her neck. Ignore her, she chanted.

  Gavran said to follow the roots. Dropping to a squat, Miya pushed her empty hand into the water and dug beneath the slimy grass. She tuned out her surroundings and forgot her fear of the monster at her back, listening instead for the right pulse—slow, languid, and dying…like the residue on the rose, like the grief clinging to Crowbar.

  Somewhere in those writhing depths, Miya saw the pearl-coloured flower petals and the Grey Gnarl’s brittle roots.

  The stone hummed to life against her fingertips.

  It had picked up the scent.

  Miya propelled herself forward just as Rusalka dove for her. The demon plucked several strands of Miya’s hair, but they morphed into iridescent feathers and floated from her grasp. Rusalka’s gaze shifted to the fleeing Dreamwalker, but Miya didn’t dare look back twice. She squeezed the stone as she bolted across the cypress roots, her chest aching with furious desperation. She was dizzy with fear, the ghosts of her family still floating before her eyes as Kai’s pained cry pressed down on her every cell.

  She’d promised him she’d be back in time. He’d trusted her, and she’d failed him.

  When the drowning forest cleared away and the black lake crept into sight, Miya stumbled into the water and waded across. Algae wrapped around her limbs and tugged her down, but she persisted.

  The Grey Gnarl rose from the horizon like a stygian star. Although she half expected Rusalka to intercept her, the islet remained barren of movement. Miya clambered onto land and rushed to the tree, its crooked limbs towering over her.

  As the barrier between the dreamscape and the physical world thinned, Miya felt the horror wracking Kai’s body carve into her heart. Tears stung her eyes as she reached for the elm’s bole, the craggy bark cutting into her palms like gravel.

  The Grey Gnarl’s deathlike aura sneered a grim farewell as Miya tore through the suture between realms and tumbled back to her wolf.

  10

  KAI

  The moment Miya lost consciousness, Kai felt the tickle beneath his skin. It started as a pinprick in his fingertips, crawling towards his heart. Every itch was an omen of what was to come. His blood was sand in an hourglass, his body an interloper. Miya’s departure had tripped the wires; he was living on borrowed time until reality gathered its wits and corrected its existential algorithm.

  Kai didn’t belong in this world.

  His body and soul were incompatible with the red earth that’d formed him. It was his cradle, and now it would kill him. Without Miya there to anchor him, he would be ripped to pieces, particle by particle. He hated not knowing why, hated that he had no control. He’d dedicated every scrap of affection and willpower to accepting it, reminding himself that it was better than being alone.

  It didn’t work. He couldn’t stomach the chains anymore.

  He’d hoped Miya would find a way to free him, but after three years, she’d given up, leaving him in a gilded cage. As she wandered off into the dreamscape, the gilt flaked away like a cheap coat of paint.

  His heart pounded like his ribcage was trying to crush the muscle that kept the machine running. Kai shrivelled with fear as the seconds ticked by—literally—he could hear them clicking from the black-rimmed clock on the nightstand. Sixty seconds, then a hundred and twenty. A hundred and eighty. Two hundred and forty. Fuck, he’d lost count after three hundred.

  Kai shuffled next to Miya and leaned back against the headboard. He held his breath as long as he could, then let go when the dull ache in his chest became too much. The prickles came quicker, harder—like someone was jabbing him with a sewing needle.

  He thought back to what he’d said—that he felt like he was on a leash. Those words weren’t his own. They’d been planted into his subconscious, burrowing until he couldn’t dig them back out. Kai had no idea how far the roots had spread, but he was ill at ease with his own mind. Something had hatched inside him, and it was preying on his fears and frustrations.

  The words he’d spoken belonged to the thing that’d accosted him in the swamp, dragged him underwater, and held him until he nearly drowned.

  He’d managed to resurface, but his lungs still burned for air. Moments after regurgitating the monster’s shit about leashes, he’d glimpsed her in the corner of the room, simpering as ice pumped through his veins. He had to tell Miya the truth when she got back. Fuck, how he wished she’d hurry up.

  Kai opened his mouth to drag in another breath, but his throat closed with a raspy pull. His heart seized, gravity pressing him from all sides. Oxygen no longer worked for this body. He tried again, gulping down what he could. Vision mottled with colours, his eyes shot to the clock, and he realized three hundred seconds had turned into twelve hundred. Twenty minutes had passed.

&nbs
p; Kai turned his torrid gaze to Miya’s sleeping form. The bitch was cutting it close.

  Pain shot through his ribs and coiled around his heart like a snake, squeezing until he collapsed onto his side.

  What the hell was that? Bitch?

  No. This wasn’t him. He would never—

  Never say never, my sweet pup.

  Kai craned his neck, his vertebrae threatening to snap. He could smell her—the sour stench of death and swamp.

  She’s forgotten you, little wolf. The voice was salty-sweet. How could she, that—

  “Fucking bitch!” Kai finished her sentence. His eyes were trained on Miya, but he didn’t know which woman he was referring to.

  He didn’t know which one deserved his wrath.

  You’re looking at her.

  “No,” Kai choked.

  The voice laughed like chiming bells. She promised she’d be back in time. She’s not, that lying little—

  “No!” Kai roared, the outburst shredding his already weakened lungs. He retched and coughed up blood.

  Stubborn pup, the demon cooed against his ear. You’ll be torn limb from limb while she sleeps peacefully, wandering her dreams like an innocent lamb.

  The taste of iron was bitter on his lips. Somewhere through the haze, Kai located Miya’s face. She looked so relaxed, her hands folded over the rose stem. He swallowed down the bile, but he couldn’t stem the onslaught. How could she just lie there? How could she abandon him? Didn’t she know what would happen to him?

  End her, came the devil’s offer, and the pain will stop.

  The solution seemed so simple. Everything faded until all he could think about was easing the pain…and punishing the one who’d foisted it on him.

  With his remaining strength, Kai pushed himself to his knees, his muscles tearing like tissue paper as he trained his glare on the object of his ire.

  The one who’d lured him from his home.

  The one who’d robbed him of his greatest pleasures.

  The one who’d stripped away his freedom.

  The one who’d locked him in a cage to which she was the only key.

  The demon slid her miry hands up Kai’s back, her voice like honeyed poison as she spoke the name burning on the tip of his tongue.

  The Dreamwalker.

  11

  Miya

  She tore through the darkness, reaching for the ripple in a swirling sea of shadow and light. Somewhere beneath it, Kai screamed—a distinct no—the refusal muffled like he was underwater. He was close, just beyond the stitching of the dreamscape.

  Puncturing through the veiny seam, Miya shot upright and gasped for air. She found herself staring wide-eyed at dried lavender that was encased in a chestnut picture frame mounted on a mint green wall. A shiver slunk up her spine as her skin crawled with goosebumps. Something was in the room.

  “Kai!” He was collapsed on the floor, several feet from the bed, his head near the door. Was he trying to get away from something?

  At the sound of her voice, his shoulder twitched. He pushed himself to his knees, then rolled back into a squat. Miya swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.

  “Stay back.” It was an order, his voice a menacing growl.

  “What? Why?” she demanded.

  He remained turned away. “It’s not safe,” he said tightly. “I’m not safe.”

  Miya swallowed the lump in her throat, the air suddenly smoggy. Eyes darting around the room, she searched for the source. “What do you mean you’re not safe?”

  Still crouched, he pivoted to face her, his fingers clawing into the carpet as though he were preparing to lunge. That, or he was holding himself back from lunging. When he finally looked up, his eyes were a firestorm. His lips pulled back, canines gleaming.

  “I almost died because of you,” he seethed, his restraint slipping.

  Miya’s breath hitched, and she shambled back, her legs bumping the bedframe. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, but her mind was reeling too fast to provide an explanation—that she’d seen her family, that they were searching for her with Mason.

  She was preoccupied with trying to tune in—to figure out what was lurking in the room with them. It was like the walls had eyes, and they were leering with sinister anticipation. Surely, those eyes belonged to someone. She caught Kai slowly rising to his feet, his chest rumbling as he bit back a wolfish snarl.

  He’s going to attack, something inside her stirred. You need to find the parasite.

  Yet what if Kai wasn’t under any influence, and the anger was his own? What if he was the danger she sensed? Doubt pelted her focus as panic crept in.

  No, that was impossible. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never once felt unsafe. Barring a single fight when they first met, he never so much as raised his voice.

  What of the others he’s harmed? Did they deserve it?

  Usually, it was self-defence, but needless confrontations weren’t uncommon. He always sniffed out reasons to pick fights—good and bad ones.

  “Miya,” he warned through clenched teeth, and her gaze wrung back to him.

  His face was a flood of rage and sadness that twisted into a single, anguished glance. She could see him fighting for control even as he reached behind his back and unsheathed his hunting knife.

  The air around him crackled, and Miya glimpsed a shadow reflected in the glint of Kai’s blade. Sour breath wafted past her, and as though the veil had lifted, Miya finally found what she was looking for.

  Rusalka was standing behind Kai. She peered over his shoulder with a serpent-like smile tugging open her taut cheeks. She had a hand on his arm, her velvety fingers caressing him with sickening tenderness.

  A flash of silver sliced through the air.

  “Lambchop.” Kai’s voice was a ghost of a whisper, a plea that nearly sank beneath the silence before it reached Miya’s ears. His knuckles whitened around the leathery hilt as his arm shook against Rusalka’s touch. His dark mahogany eyes rose to ensnare Miya for one paralyzing moment as he spoke a single command.

  “Run.”

  Kai thrust the knife downward. It disappeared into his leg, crimson blooming over his faded green cargo pants. Rusalka gasped as the wolf’s defiance staggered her out of her own spell. Kai tore the blade up his thigh and released a scorching scream, the sound slashing through the air and maiming Miya’s already battered heart. Kai’s knee buckled, and he crumpled to the floor.

  Miya’s stomach churned as the blood pooled around him and dyed the carpet red. Acid clawed up her esophagus alongside the blistering fury, her every breath ragged as she pierced the demon with an icy, tear-brimmed stare. “I’ll cut out your fucking spine and hang you from that rotten tree.”

  A wide, appreciative smile slithered across Rusalka’s face. She seemed to welcome the threat—delight in it, even.

  Come and get him if you dare, she sneered.

  Miya knew better than to be goaded by a demonic siren. She wouldn’t let Kai’s sacrifice go to waste. He looked up, his eyes a sea of torment.

  “I’ll fix this,” Miya promised.

  She snatched her mauve jacket off the chair and rushed to the window. Pushing it open, she slipped through to the fire escape that led to the laneway. While Kai was the sword that cut down their enemies, Miya was the hand that wielded it. She needed to be smart, or they would both end up dead.

  Miya didn’t dare look back, terrified she might waver. Her hands trembled as she climbed down the narrow black stairs, each footstep reverberating against the hollow metal. Rusalka didn’t come after her, opting instead to hang on to her new prize.

  Miya snagged her lip with her tooth as she bit down too hard. She had to endure, no matter how unbearable it was to know that Kai was trapped with that thing. He would do no less for her.

  When Miya’s feet hit the ground, her body seized as she considered her surroundings.

  Where would she go? To whom could she turn? Kai would be ripped apart if she returned to the dreamsc
ape. God, how she hated herself right then—her utter lack of focus. She was like a magpie drawn to a shiny gem.

  Miya clutched the dream stone around her neck and began walking, her strides quick as her ankles and toes froze in her sneakers—not from the cold, but from the foreboding. If only she’d spent more time practicing, maybe she would’ve been able to call the raven to her. If she were a more competent Dreamwalker, maybe she wouldn’t have run after her family like a dog chasing a strip of bacon. She could’ve evaded Rusalka and made it back to Kai in time. She could have kept him safe.

  Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. None of that mattered now. Rusalka was right; she was wet behind the ears.

  Miya rounded a corner into an empty alleyway and crashed into the bricks, grains of mortar scraping her jacket as she slid down and collapsed into a squat. She buried her face between her knees, her insides a volcano waiting to erupt. Everything she’d shoved down came spuming up. Salty tears flowed free. Sobs broke from her tightly pursed lips, but she snuffed them out with her sleeve.

  She thought back to what she’d seen in the dreamscape—Mason, staring at a map of the United States. Her parents, searching desperately for their only daughter—the child they’d spent years raising only to lose in a single night. How she yearned for the protection of her mother’s arms now. The desire to reach out to them was overpowering; it would only take a phone call. Yet her predecessor’s warning still rang clear in her mind.

  They cannot know you live, she’d said. They were not made for this world.

  Those words were so much weightier now.

  She had to reach Gavran and his fledgling in mischief: a lifelong friend with a stunning white coat and piercing amber eyes. Her black nose had once curiously poked through the bushes when Miya was a child searching for magic in a mundane world.

  Miya wiped away her tears. Had she just lost her fortress? She didn’t want to believe it, but she knew Kai wouldn’t have wounded himself so viciously unless he really believed he’d been compromised.