The Echoed Realm

by A. J. Vrana

  But would Rusalka have targeted him if he were merely a wolf? Did the malice fuelling her give a rat’s ass about how he understood himself? For Rusalka, he existed as a man. He moved through the world as a man. He’d treated her with the same violence she expected from men.

  He’d driven a knife through her heart, and he wasn’t the first.

  If Rusalka’s diet was any indication, Kai was as much a man as the piece of shit that’d turned her into a trash-fire of rotting fish meat. The wolf would always be there, but he couldn’t pretend it was the only part of him that mattered. Not anymore.

  You always did think you could solve every problem by smashing it to pieces, Velizar’s voice cut through the fog.

  Kai dropped his hand to his side. He was still by his old cabin—at least, its dreamscape equivalent. “It’s cute how infatuated you are with me,” he smirked. “Sounds like you’re jealous.”

  Of your smashing? Never. But I do know you, brother. Why do you think I’ve been waiting for you, here, where our story first began? I always knew you’d come back.

  Kai glanced around the murky glade. “You and I go way further back than this damn shack.”

  Not the shack, the voice dipped lower, but the land on which it stands.

  “Black Hollow?”

  You always return to the Hollow. Life after life. Death after death. You’re drawn to the tragedy of this place.

  Kai took a long step into the woods, leaving his old home behind. “The only consistent tragedy in my life is you.”

  Oh, my dear Sendoa, how little you know.

  “Sen-what now?” Kai barked as he ducked under a branch.

  You were not always Kai, Velizar scoffed the name. You were Sendoa. And we were living gods. Creation and destruction—two sides of the same coin—brothers sharing the same bones. Then, he murmured, All I ever wanted was to be with my brother.

  Kai kept his gaze fixed on Rusalka’s trail, her swampy odour and tarry viscera staining the foliage. “So, I was destruction?”

  A god of destruction. And I, a god of creation.

  Kai stalked past a fir tree, some of the pinecones swiped clean off. Rusalka must have groped at them as she stumbled through the woods to get away. “And the Dreamwalker?”

  Chaos! Velizar snapped, his hostility vibrating deep behind Kai’s ribcage. She stole destruction, unsettled the balance we brothers created.

  Kai paused mid-step and narrowed his eyes. It sounded like horseshit—the deluded ravings of a narcissist. “What do you mean, she stole destruction?”

  The answer came softly, an accusation coated in candy. She stole you, baby brother. You forsook your duty, your role as the destroyer, all for your blind love of that woman.

  “Sounds about right.” Kai crouched and eyed the fading footprints. They were so small and slim, like she’d wasted away and ossified in the mere seconds it took to flee. “You’re a stick up the ass and a killjoy. Besides, the Dreamwalker’s pretty hot. I stand by my choice.”

  Make jokes to your heart’s content, little brother, but you betrayed me. You damned me for your selfish wants. You…left me.

  Kai rose to his feet and balled up his fist. His hand was quivering again. “When are you going to get it through your thick, ghostly skull? That person you knew—Sendoa or whoever—that’s not me. My name is Kai Donovan, and I’m not your goddamn brother anymore. That was lifetimes ago. I never did shit to you.”

  That may be so…Velizar murmured as Kai approached an aspen. The milk-coloured trunk was smeared with a bloody handprint. Kai reached out and splayed his fingers over it, mirroring the impression painted on the bark.

  …But has anything really changed?

  24

  MIYA

  Miya rounded the corner of the narrow lane and nearly slammed into Ama. The white wolf was like concrete, her arm outstretched as she held Miya at bay. Lips pulled back, her canines flashed in warning.

  What could possibly frighten the snowy huntress with eyes like balefire?

  “Stop.” Ama swatted Miya’s probing hand down and clasped it tightly. The answer to her question was lurking in front of them, at the end of a dark alley.

  There, where light atrophied to a guttering flicker, the shape of a man emerged. He was slumped against the chipping brick wall, crumpled like a discarded note bearing an unpleasant message.

  “Mason?” Miya stepped forward, her movements mirrored by a rigid Ama.

  As pebbles cracked under Miya’s rubber soles, the doctor stirred with a judder. His head hung limply to the side as he jerked liked a marionette. Blood dribbled from his nose and mouth, and the whites of his eyes were webbed with pink.

  “There’s something possessing him,” said Ama. She clutched Miya’s arm with an iron grip. “Be careful.”

  “I know, I feel it too.” Crouching down, Miya clasped Mason’s face between her palms. “Hey, Dr. Evans, can you hear me?”

  A low, raspy breath seeped from Mason’s chapping lips. His pupils rolled up before falling on Miya’s face. “We…are not…the doctor.”

  Trembling fingers raked against Miya’s forearms. His hands were like ice, the tip of each digit pale blue. His touch left burning streaks on her skin, and with every fiery pulse, she could glimpse swirls of madness flashing inside him.

  “Mason!” She gave him a light shake, but his head only lolled. “Tell me what’s hurting you!”

  I warned you not to reveal yourself, Kali’s—her predecessor’s—voice echoed in her mind.

  Miya ignored it. A life was at stake. She couldn’t stay hidden. “Show me,” she said to him. “Show me what’s haunting you.”

  “Mi…ya,” he wheezed and fell into her hold. His voice penetrated her skull, suddenly strong and clear: I know the truth.

  Behind her, Ama gasped. “Miya, get away—”

  The white wolf’s words were swallowed up by a velvet-thick haze. It pulled Miya underground, beneath the pavement, where earth turned to charcoal smoke, and all that was solid melted away.

  Miya found herself in a foggy corner of the dreamscape, the light muted like a dim sunrise.

  “Welcome, child.”

  The voice was all around her, reverberating like a penny in a crystal chalice.

  “Who are you?” Miya called back. “What do you want with the doctor?”

  “Only to serve,” the voice replied, “for I am the Servant.”

  “The Servant,” Miya muttered to herself, measuring her next words carefully. “Why do you serve this master?”

  A low hum of contemplation rumbled beneath Miya’s feet. “We share a vision, a singular desire.”

  “A desire for what?”

  “The truth.”

  Miya clenched her teeth and pushed down a grimace as the dream stone seethed against her skin. It was as she suspected; Mason’s greatest weakness was his fear of the unknown. No wonder he’d been preyed upon by something that claimed its wish was for truth with a capital T.

  She knew truth demons couldn’t lie; they swore allegiance to their victims and vowed only to speak facts. They masqueraded as allies, then corrupted their host’s worldview with lofty claims to knowledge. Truth demons were parasites. They fed off the insanity they induced in their victims while leaving their bodies to rot from the inside out.

  “Why show yourself to me now?” Miya asked. “Haven’t you already achieved your goal?”

  “There is a truth my master wishes to share with you. It was the purpose of our merging.”

  Miya snorted. The saddest part about these demons was how they failed to see the truth about themselves; they really believed their actions were in the service of their prey. They didn’t think themselves menacing, nor did they understand their intentions as self-serving. Ironically, the ghoulish authority on truth never understood the only truth that mattered: the servant was the master.

  Miya’s heart sank. Mason had let the monster in to help her; she was responsible for his plight. “He can’t share anything with you gagging
him. Let him go.”

  “Let him go? Or…” A pause, then a groan. “Was there no threat to follow, child?”

  Heat prickled Miya’s cheeks as anxiety knotted in her gut. She’d forgotten; she was the hand to Kai’s blade, and right now, she had no weapon to wield.

  “A weak thing like you would never pay the price for my death.”

  Miya frowned. “What price?”

  A light wind weaved through the fog, ominous whispers riding on the breeze. They crawled into Miya’s ears like ants, each one carrying a tiny mote of truth. The spirit was right yet again; the price for his death was steep—perhaps too steep.

  Before Miya could weigh her options, a warm hand grasped her shoulder and tugged her back through the mist. It was Ama—reaching for her from the other side.

  Come back, she beckoned. After their time together in Black Hollow, they’d developed a symbiosis. Ama was the anchor that reined her in when she wandered too far. Miya reached for the white wolf, eager for something familiar, something safe. She closed her eyes and surrendered to Ama’s voice, falling through the haze and crashing onto the cobblestones on the other side.

  Her face collided with a slab of rock. Grains of dirt and gravel scraped her cheek as the road rattled her jaw. The world spinning, she pushed herself off the ground. Guiding hands steadied her, but she swooned and nearly toppled over.

  “That was reckless,” Ama chided.

  When the dizziness subsided, Miya opened her eyes. “Ama,” she mumbled, a lump in her throat. “I can’t do it. I can’t help him.”

  “What are you on about?”

  Falling on her behind, Miya glanced at Mason. He was wasting away, and she was powerless to stop it.

  “I’m useless without Kai,” she whispered, the admission cutting to the bone. She curled her knees to her chest. “I have nothing to fight with. I’m just a bird lost in a storm.” She’d grown arrogant next to Kai, syphoning his strength to compensate for her weakness.

  “This is exactly what I was talking about!” Ama grabbed Miya’s shoulders. “Has it ever occurred to you that Kai doesn’t think he’s strong? That maybe he also feels vulnerable and helpless? Stop measuring your worth by that buffoon’s capacity for destruction!” She sought Miya’s eyes. “You are enough. Just you. You don’t need Kai! Do you hear me?” Ama gave her a gentle shake. “You are not the hand that wields the sword. You are the sword.”

  Miya wiped the streaks of salty tears from her face. “I’m not a sword, Ama. I never have been.”

  “I don’t care what metaphor you use!” Exasperation flowed off Ama in waves. “You can be a wooden spatula or a dead end on a cliffside road for all I care! Find your own damn way!”

  Miya felt like a shaking swallow, vaulting out of control as thunderous clouds knocked her around. How could she soar through the gale and make it to clearer skies?

  Before Kai, Miya never fought back; whenever she felt wronged, she withdrew and wilted in her pain. Visceral peril and Kai’s unyielding force of will simmering beside her gave her courage to wage a war. Now, in his absence, she felt like a sail without its wind.

  It was unsustainable. Kai had given her the thrust she needed to claw her way out of a rut, but she couldn’t depend on him forever. Miya was alone. Kai wasn’t there to do her dirty work for her. She would have to do it herself.

  In her frantic efforts to return to a normal that no longer existed, she’d rebelled against a terrifying possibility that demanded she forsake one piece of herself to discover another:

  I’ll find my way without him, she resolved, because he might not ever come back.

  25

  Miya raked her nails against the cobblestones and pushed herself to her feet. Wiping her bleary eyes, she sucked in a shaky breath and turned to the doctor slumped against the wall. His eyes were blank, bloodied half-moons that shone no light. Yet amid the stillness, she felt a faint thrum.

  Miya pushed aside the folds of Mason’s jacket until she felt three pointed edges prodding through a mesh interior pocket. Her fingers trailed the rough line where the object had been broken.

  It was the missing half of the dream stone.

  Inverting the pocket, Miya retrieved the stray fragment. Her heart squeezed behind her ribs as the stone’s magic saturated her fingers. The dream stone was a part of her—a splinter of the Dreamwalker that cradled her power in its iridescent glow. As Miya slanted the labradorite, black veins and a streak of shimmering gold cut through the undulating violet and emerald gleam, barely discernable in the dour alleyway. The dream stone was a totem, a tether, and so much more.

  Fishing out the pendant that seethed against her breastbone, Miya pressed the two broken edges together and watched the fissure disappear. They fit like star-crossed lovers.

  It was as though the two pieces had never parted.

  Miya too felt more whole. A delicate seed had sprouted in her mind, and one day, it would grow into the sturdy belief that she was enough—with or without Kai. The conviction had already taken root; it simply needed to be nourished.

  But Miya’s newfound valour hadn’t been imparted by a piece of rock. On the contrary, it never would’ve called to her had she not proffered some resolve. Ama’s strident words had rattled the doubt from Miya’s mind, forcing her to dig under the rubble of her insecurities and to find something more, something not-so-easily broken. The dream stone was just a compliment—a jewel to embellish the crown.

  Mason shuddered and grasped at his left arm. Turning his wrist over, Miya traded glances with Ama, who sidled up to her and examined the markings seared into the doctor’s skin: two crescents that mirrored one another, and a line that sliced straight through their centers, dividing the arcs into four perfect quarters.

  “Truth demon,” said Ama.

  Miya peeked at the white wolf. “How’d you know?”

  Ama nodded towards Mason’s marred forearm. “That symbol—a cord tying two minds together. The curves represent separate consciousnesses—opposed but alike, one reflecting the other. One is for the demon, the other for the victim. The line that cuts through them is the cord, binding them together. It appears last, when the victim finally succumbs to the demon.”

  “I have to go back in,” said Miya. “I need to untangle him from this…thing.”

  “No.” Ama clutched her shoulder. “This isn’t something you can just untangle like a knotted shoelace.”

  “Then I’ll sever the damn cord!”

  Ama’s fingers dug in hard. “Killing a truth demon isn’t easy, and there’s always a price for it. It’s their defense mechanism. Whatever you do to the demon, it’ll come back to you.”

  “I know,” came Miya’s mousy response. “But I can’t get away unscathed every time, and I can’t leave Mason like this. He came here for me. Because of me.”

  “That was his choice.”

  “He doesn’t deserve this,” Miya protested.

  “Sacrificing yourself won’t fix anything.” Ama kneaded the taut muscle over Miya’s once-bony shoulder. She smiled. “You used to be like a gazelle. Now you’re a huntress in your own right.”

  Miya laced her fingers with Ama’s. “You and Kai are the hunters—the wolves. I’m the raven that follows.”

  “Ravens are scavengers,” Ama scoffed.

  “They’re also smart. They make tools, solve problems. They observe, then bend the world to suit their needs.” Miya raised her eyes to the white wolf’s, drinking in the warm amber glow she’d known since childhood. “You and Kai…you break reality like a brittle stick. All teeth and maws. Let me do what ravens do. Let me play with the stick.”

  Reluctance flashed across Ama’s face, but behind it, a quiet confidence burned like a spark in kindling, waiting to be stoked. “All right.”

  The concession was strained, but it was all Miya needed. Kneeling, she cupped her palm against the brand on Mason’s forearm, closed her eyes, and let the world fall away—the bustle in the nearby street, the cars whizzing by, and the li
ght glaring through her eyelids, painting her vision red. She could feel Ama anchoring her, pacifying her spirit’s penchant for flight. It’d become so easy for her to tumble into the dreamscape, but with Kai’s life at stake, she needed someone to drag her back in time.

  “If I’m still under in fifteen,” she swayed forward, “pull me out.”

  “I understand,” said Ama, her voice as firm as her grip. “Once you force the demon into the in-between, you should be safe. Kai should be safe.”

  “Good,” Miya mumbled as her body surrendered to gravity, the demon’s cord burning feverishly against her palm. Somewhere in the distance, the spectre snarled. She followed the sound out of her body until the garbled roars grew clearer, and she could make out the demon’s threats.

  You come seeking death, it hissed.

  Yes, Miya replied. Yours.

  26

  Miya glimpsed the hanging star hovering above the surrounding haze.

  She tilted the dream stone towards its faint light, and the labradorite’s vibrant colours painted the pallid fog in mulberry and meadow green. Where colour gathered, Miya sank to her knees and pressed her hand to the ashen soil.

  Follow the roots, Gavran had said. Her fingers seeped into the earth, and with them, violet tendrils ploughed through the darkness until they coiled around something cold and ancient: a maze of serpentine roots. She could see them mapped out underfoot, veins beneath white, sandy skin. The entire dreamscape was a living, breathing organism, and the ground she stood on was merely its flesh.

  Miya kept her eyes trained on a single road in the network: a decaying root mottled black with sickness. It wound thinly between the rest, curling around sturdier lifelines and using them to obscure its path. It didn’t matter; Miya now knew her way.

  The dream stone sang with power, and her fingers tingled with its vibrations. The labradorite’s melody spoke to her, guiding her through the labyrinth below and the mist above. For the first time in three years, she didn’t hear Kali’s whispers telling her where to stop and where to go. She no longer needed her.