by Chloe Jacobs
“Hey, you still need sleep,” Greta called after her.
“I will manage,” she muttered stubbornly. “It’s more important that we find the goblin king.”
She grabbed the other girl’s arm. “No, it isn’t. I’m as worried and antsy as you are, but we aren’t going to do Isaac any good by rushing out into the wilderness in the middle of the night and getting ourselves killed.”
Siona pursed her lips, but she nodded. “All right, but don’t let me sleep long.”
“I promise to wake you as soon as there’s a hint of sunlight.”
Greta hesitated. “Uh, you should know that Wyatt is with Isaac. Here in Mylena.”
Siona stopped dead in her tracks, shoulders tensing. “Has he been hurt?”
She shook her head. “Isaac said they were both fine.” Okay, he might not have actually said that in so many words, but he’d seemed fine, and he would have said something if either of them weren’t fine…right?
Then again, if he hadn’t wanted her to worry, she would never know for sure. He was an expert at manipulating the dream to show her what he wanted her to see.
“They’re fine,” she said again, more for herself this time. “Get a few hours of sleep.”
She took Siona’s original spot at the window and settled in with her back against the frame, her arms crossed over her chest to ward off the bitter cold night air. She looked out but saw nothing, and she could almost convince herself that Mylena wasn’t burning to the ground and she hadn’t come back here to die.
Chapter Seventeen
She must have dozed off just before morning, because she found herself in another dream, and she was hyper aware that she was dreaming.
“Isaac?”
She called his name, but the aloneness was suffocating. He wasn’t here.
She wandered through the woods looking for him anyway, but he didn’t answer. She wasn’t actually worried—this was probably just proof that she could still have regular dreams—but her tension rose with each step nevertheless.
The more she walked, the louder the forest got.
She slowed at the mouth of a cave. Snarling sounds echoed from within, and she knew she shouldn’t go inside but couldn’t seem to stop herself.
The darkness enveloped her, and the chill seeped into her bones, making them ache as if she were a hundred years old and doddering around with a cane. She looked down and realized she was actually holding her sword like a cane, the tip buried in the thin layer of dust coating the cave floor. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she was glad to have it back and readjusted her grip to position the blade in front of her defensively.
She kept moving forward. She could do nothing else. It was one step after another, deeper and deeper into the darkness. The snarling got more insistent, sounding just in front of her no matter how many steps she took. Whatever it was knew that she was coming, but it didn’t rush out of the shadows for her.
Her steps slowed as she went deeper. She could have turned around and left. This wasn’t that other kind of dream. She could have made the decision, but she didn’t. She kept going and the walls started closing in, getting tighter and narrower and smaller. Still, she needed to see. She needed to know.
The Lost creature was there when she turned the corner, just a few feet ahead. It lay awkwardly on the ground and swiped at her with one hand and growled and snapped its teeth, but half of its body was caught in a pile of fallen rock. She was in no danger of being hurt as long as she didn’t get any closer.
She stared, transfixed. He reminded her so much of Isaac, it hurt. The creature had been a goblin boy…before. Not much older than she was from the looks of him. He might even have been too young to have turned during the last eclipse. Something had pushed him over the edge into adulthood in the last few weeks, though. Maybe even the same something that had driven him to go Lost.
He wasn’t getting out of that pile of rubble. She should plunge her sword into his chest and put him out of his misery. The thought of the poor thing trapped here in the dark until he died of hunger, his broken bones causing his last hours to be filled with agony…she wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
As she took a small step forward, her grip on the weapon in her hand slipped. Her palms were sweaty. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. Red and wide, daring her to do something. But what, exactly? Freedom or release? Were they even different? Which was damnation and which was salvation?
The better question was…could she really give him a second chance? Isaac was special, there was no doubt about that. Was she just fooling herself with this crazy idea that all the Lost could be saved the same way she’d saved him?
“I could try,” she murmured hesitantly. Her voice bounced off the rock, and the Lost creature recoiled. She wasn’t afraid of getting too close. The rules of dreaming worlds were well known to her now, and the thing couldn’t really hurt her…well, probably.
She was afraid of failing this boy again, the same way she’d failed him by letting a demon loose in his word and then deserting him. She didn’t want to make promises and then leave him here in the dark alone, without any hope of salvation.
She took another step forward and got down on her knees. She dropped the sword into the dirt beside her and held out her empty hands. “I won’t hurt you,” she whispered.
Its snaps and growls only got worse, and it strained against the rocks pinning it to the ground like it didn’t care if it pulled itself right apart getting to her. She sat back on her heels, doubt washing over her. “I want to help, but you’re going to have to let me. Do you understand?”
Of course it didn’t understand. It was a monster now. Understanding had been replaced with ferocity and hunger.
No, Isaac had been like this, but she’d been able to reach him. She could connect with the boy inside this monster, too.
When she reached out, it swiped for her again, but she was quicker and grabbed its wrist.
It froze, and she froze with it. Its snarls turned to a whimper, and the creature’s eyes cleared. Her heart pounded. She tightened her grip, desperate to make this work. “Can you understand me now?” she asked slowly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
The boy blinked, but he didn’t answer her. He tried to tug his arm back, but she didn’t let him. He groaned with the slight movement and clutched her arm the way football players did shaking hands, except the boy’s claws extended right into her skin.
She gritted her teeth and willed the discomfort away. “You’re in pain, but you don’t have to be,” she said, keeping her voice even and smooth. “This is your dream, and you can control it.” God, it would suck for both of them if she was wrong.
“All you have to do is think about the pain and then understand that it isn’t real. In fact, you can make the rocks go away, too. It’s all in your control if you only stop to think about it.”
Nothing happened for so long that her heart sank. Had she been wrong after all? Maybe Siona was right, and the only reason she’d been able to reach Isaac was because they shared a special bond. She shared nothing with this boy, had never met him before he went Lost and didn’t even have the slightest idea where he was in the waking world. To think that she could—
The rocks disappeared.
He looked down at his legs, which were now free. One of them was bent in an awkward angle, and the other was scraped and bloody.
She squeezed his arm encouragingly. “Just tell yourself that you’re fine, and you will be.”
After a long moment, the boy’s legs straightened. He bent his knees and tentatively stretched. Wary, she looked up into his face. It had smoothed out, become less full of the rage and ferocity of the moons and more boyish—a scared, young goblin boy.
This is working!
Maybe it was this simple. Sometimes, people in the human world lost their way, too, and it was only when others took the time to reach out to help, with love and understanding, that they were able to find their way back home.
He looked down at their joined hands, and she knew he was wondering if he would devolve back into the beast as soon as she let go. It had been the same with Isaac. “Try not to forget this when you awaken,” she urged. “It’s like a dream. Just remember that you’re the one in control. You don’t have to submit to the pull of the moons.”
Then she remembered what Isaac had said about all of his people calling for him when the attacks had started. “Your king didn’t abandon you. He’s alive, and he’s here, fighting. He’s going to need you at his side when the time comes, okay?”
The boy’s gaze widened. He still wasn’t talking, but he definitely understood. She felt the tug of consciousness summoning her back and fought to give him one more minute.
“You’re going to be fine, I promise,” she said. “Don’t give in to the moons. There are people here who miss you, who need you to come back.”
“My mother?” he said in a shaky voice. “She was…the gnomes came into our home…”
Crap. She’d just screwed it all up by reminding him of what he had lost.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know what happened to your mother, but I swear I’ll find out,” she said quickly. “Don’t let fear for her consume you. It isn’t going to do either of you any good. The only way to help her is to—”
But he was already pulling away. She could see the goblin bleeding right out of his face and the Lost creature clawing its way back.
“Tell me your name,” she cried. She wanted to hold on to him, but he wasn’t bound by rock or broken limbs any longer. He was free, and he was angry…with her.
She let go and backed away as he got to his feet with a low growl. “Fine, don’t tell me. But don’t forget what it is. Remember who you are.” She backed away with both hands up to ward him off.
He matched her every step, stalking her as his form filled out, and his eyes turned red.
She had no choice but to let the dream dissolve.
She sent one last plea, listening to the faint echo of her voice and hoping that he would hear her, that anyone would hear her.
Remember and be strong.
When she opened her eyes, it was to the warmth of Mylena’s twin suns beaming gently through the small window of the dilapidated cabin. She straightened. Her back and shoulders were stiff from balancing up against the window frame, an impressive feat for someone who’d fallen asleep at her post.
She twisted around and was glad to see Siona curled up on her side on the narrow little cot, still asleep. The girl had needed rest more than anyone else. Isaac had been hard on her after the confrontation with Queen Minetta and Agramon that had sent them back to the human world, but not as hard as she’d been on herself ever since then.
She got up and stretched, then went to wake Siona, but the goblin hunter’s eyes snapped open before Greta could reach out to touch her. She was alert and ready just like that, although there were still dark circles under her eyes, and she looked paler than usual.
“Are you okay? Did you get enough sleep?”
Siona shrugged and bent over to tie the lace that had come undone on her human-issue sneaker. “Enough is not the issue. I could sleep a thousand years, and it wouldn’t help. But it’s no matter. I’m ready to go.”
“We can wait a little while longer if you’re—”
“Let us be on our way.” She stood and pushed past Greta, a little more sharply than was probably necessary.
They found more abandoned crofter’s cabins and cottages as they left Eyna’s Falls and made their way through the mountains back toward goblin lands. Too many. At first they simply continued along, but after the fourth house, Greta made the decision to start doing a sweep for supplies. Maybe they should have listened to Wyatt and taken the winter coats he’d packed for them. They could also use a decent set of boots, some food, and, if they were really lucky, weapons.
Siona was quiet, and her expression got tighter and tighter with every empty home they came across. Greta held out a threadbare coat and a pair of clunky brown boots that were a little thin in the toes but otherwise in good shape. They looked as if they might fit Siona, but she only shook her head. “I’ll be fine with what I have.”
Greta felt the heaviness of her heart, the depth of her guilt. “I thought you had already worked your shit out,” Greta said. “You weren’t like this in the human world.”
Siona grimaced. “The human world encourages hope, and I was not immune to it,” she admitted. “It was easy to believe that things might not be so bad as we’d expected, but now…”
“Stop punishing yourself. You couldn’t have known about your mother, and you couldn’t have done anything about Agramon. If not for you, we wouldn’t have even made it back to Mylena.”
Siona’s shoulders slumped. “But it’s my fault,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t betrayed the goblin king, and—”
“He’s forgiven you, so you have to forgive yourself.”
“It is not so easily done as that,” she said in a strained voice.
“Hey, it’s over. Now we need to forge ahead, and that kind of thinking isn’t going to do anyone any good.” She made it a command, remembering that Isaac had told Greta pretty much the same thing. “Isaac is fine, and he has Wyatt with him. They’re counting on us to make it back. So, we can stand here all day assuming heaps of blame for all sorts of things, or we can put that blame where it belongs—on Agramon’s shoulders—and take the fight to him.”
Siona gave her a shaky smile and reached for the boots. “The depth of your bravery and wisdom always surprises me, Greta.”
She raised both brows. “There are so many ways to respond to that,” she teased. “So it’s finally Greta now, is it?”
“No other has ever known me like you. And you…you have never abandoned me or shunned me.”
“I think that means we’re friends.” She grinned and squeezed Siona’s shoulder. “Maybe even best friends.”
“In your world, best friends have nicknames for one another, don’t they?”
She laughed. “I’ve been called enough things by the people of Mylena, none that I really care to have repeated. It would be nice for someone to know me well enough just to use my name without adding a sneer to the end of it.”
“Agreed…Greta,” she said again.
Siona forced Greta to take the coat, and she shrugged it on, rolling up the long sleeves. They found some cured meat stored in one of the cupboards, along with a tiny, half-empty flask of what smelled like the strongest moonshine on the planet. With a shrug, Greta put it all in a bag.
She paused before opening the door, holding up her hand to her pursed lips soundlessly. Siona cocked her head, and after only a second, her jaw clenched. She heard it, too. Someone was approaching their position. Many someones. Loud someones.
“Lost?” Siona whispered.
She shook her head. “They’re too coherent for that.” There was a tiny window beside the door, and Greta slowly and cautiously peered through before ducking back quickly. “At least six. Four gnomes and two faeries.”
“Together?” Siona said with a disbelieving frown.
Greta shrugged. “If they’re all under Agramon’s control, gnomes and faeries working together is going to be the least of our problems.”
“What are they doing here?”
“They could be scavenging abandoned properties like we are, or…” She knew what they were doing. “More likely, it’s a hunting expedition. Agramon knows we’re here, and he’s probably sent them out looking for us.”
“To capture or kill?”
“Do you really want to find out?”
She looked behind her, but that didn’t change the fact that there was only one exit to the little building, and the one window big enough to crawl out of was angled partly toward the path. They would definitely be seen.
She groaned. “We could probably take the gnomes, but without any weapons, the faerie warriors are going to kick our—”
“I will take the faeries.�
� Siona pulled her dagger. She handed it to Greta, but she shook her head. “Yes, you use it,” Siona insisted. “My power will cancel out whatever abilities the faeries will try to use against us while you deal with the gnomes.”
Greta shrugged off her borrowed coat with a sigh of regret that she was going to lose it so soon, then took the knife. “Are you sure?”
“Do you have another idea?”
They could lie low and hope the search party didn’t come inside. They could even try escaping through that window and making a run for the trees. The element of surprise might give them a chance.
But the truth was, she didn’t want to run. She wanted to stand and fight. She wanted to send a message to the enemy. Nobody messes with my home and my people. Because Mylena was hers now. She had paid for it in blood and loss, and she would give even more to protect it. I’m back, and I’m coming for you.
“Let’s do this.”
Chapter Eighteen
They waited until they heard footsteps right at the entrance, and on a silent count of three, Greta shoved the door outward as hard as she could, slamming it into what felt like two bodies.
They didn’t wait for a reaction. Taking advantage of their opponents’ bewilderment and surprise, Greta leaped for the first gnome in her way, a hulking dude carrying a wide, heavy sword. It wouldn’t have been her first choice of replacement for her own lost sword, but it would do in a pinch. She jammed the heel of her hand up into his fat nose, and when he screamed, she grabbed the weapon out of his slack grip and kicked him in the stomach.
She turned to meet the next gnome, but then she caught sight of Siona, who was swinging to punch a tall, lanky faerie with a dagger in his hand and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. The second faerie was coming at her from behind.
Greta elbowed the adversary lunging for her flank and flipped the knife Siona had given her so that she held it between her two fingers by the blade point, then hurled it end over end toward the faerie’s temple.
It hit him in the neck.
Close enough.
Siona had knocked down the tall guy and was already spinning around as the faerie behind her stumbled back with a cry. She didn’t hesitate, yanked the blade out of his neck and swiped it across his jugular to finish the job, then kicked him back against the wall of the cabin. He crumpled down the length of it and didn’t get up.