by D. Fischer
As though it just dawned on me, my hand freezes, the dressing falling from my fingertips. They don’t feel pain, yet they moan with it.
I whip my head back to him and untangle a lock of red from my eyelashes. “You don’t get sick. You have no pain receptors. You can self-heal.”
Mitus’ jaw ticks my confirmation.
I curse in a mumble. “It’s not the wound. This is most certainly not an infection due to his injuries. This is some sort of bug.” I stand upright and stretch my spine while hiding my concern.
“A bug?” Mitus questions, trying the word on his own tongue. He picks up the extra moss from the table and squeezes it in his hand then sniffs it.
“Yes. I worry about a contagion.”
“Contagion?” he echoes, placing the ruined moss back on the table.
I nod. Even with the impossibility and practically indestructible bodies, I’m sure of it. “This could spread. Has anyone else had symptoms?”
Perhaps they don’t moan from their injuries. Perhaps they moan from the symptoms of their illness. They wouldn’t know the difference and wouldn’t be able to tell me.
Mitus crooks a finger and takes me from patient to patient, most who I’ve already stitched or bandaged and some who are at the brink of death. The healer ignores us as we travel throughout the teepee, often getting in her way.
“The time for healing has passed, and I worry they won’t survive it,” Mitus adds on our way back to the child.
“Oh?” My voice is tinged with malice. Their timeline for self-healing isn’t stored in my medical brain. It would have been nice if they told me their little secrets before I started all my hard work. I shouldn’t have expected them to, though. Patience is often difficult without information, no matter the species. And they have no reason to trust me with it.
“Let me get this straight,” I begin and tap my chin. “Your magical non-pain abilities are faulty, along with your healing abilities, and some strange illness is conquering a land that’s not susceptible to diseases.”
“Yes.” His answer is firm and business-like.
I press my middle finger to my right brow and rub the ache beginning there. “If we don’t get this under control, the entire village will go down. We don’t know if the bug has to run its course, but I suspect it’s designed to kill its host.”
Even with their self-healing, this isn’t going to end well. The evidence is showing that this is a swift illness.
Mitus crosses his arms and his peck muscles ripple. “Tell me what to do.”
I look to him, speculating if I can trust this man to follow my orders. Not long ago, he didn’t want us here and couldn’t return the trust we had placed in him to keep us safe. Chewing the inside of my lip, I come to a conclusion. I have no choice.
“This structure is now a quarantine. No one in it can leave, and no one out of it can enter. Not unless they become infected too. We need to be cautious, magical healing capabilities or not.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KATRIANE DUPONT
DREAM REALM
“This is your home?” I spin in a full circle, observing the absence of décor. There are no personal objects and no hint of the sandman’s interests. It’s bare and basically a Neanderthal cave, only with sparkles.
Satchels hang from every protruding edge of black, sparkling stone. The satchels remind me of my bag, the one I was gifted at my Right ceremony to hold the contents of potions and spells that I’ll no longer need. It makes me miss home. It makes me miss the past when life was simpler.
The floor sparkles, too, and I can only assume it’s sleep dust. I visibly recoil, lifting one of my feet in the air as though that’ll keep me away from the substance. The last time this stuff touched me, I was dropped in a time period where witches were executed.
“No thanks,” I whisper to the sleep dust.
Dyson is touching every bag he comes across, sweeping his fingers over them gently. And while he does so, Sandy’s persistent gaze on my cheek lifts the hairs on my arms.
“What?” I spit to Sandy. I’m not happy about being here. Did I have a choice? No. Will I ever make my own choices again? That remains to be seen.
“Do you have your dragon under control?” Sandy rumbles in a mild temper. His tone echoes in the small space.
Dyson glances at me, and in doing so, accidentally bumps a satchel where it is dangling. It drops, and sparkles spill from the bag. Cursing, he squats to the floor. I suppress a smile. Though he’s a Shifter, he’s anything but graceful. Somehow, this makes him more attractive.
Hovering his hands, he tries to figure out how scoop it back in without touching it. His tongue darts out to the corner of his lips and sticks there in the midst of concentration.
With a flick of my finger, the dust swoops back in through the opening, and the satchel soars back to the cave wall, hooking on the rock. Dyson curses again, unnerved as he scrambles to his feet.
I tighten my arms further around my chest. “Yes,” I say to the sandman, grinding the word between my teeth.
I’m moody and exhausted, but with Dyson this near, I feel the darkness kept more at bay. I can’t explain what he does to me. He says I ground him, but he truly has no idea what that means. He’s the light in my dark. He subdues it just by proximity. If he weren’t here, I wouldn’t be confident of my state of mind because without him, I wouldn’t have come back from my dragon form in the woods. It had been like I was floating in a pit of blackness. I could hear voices that weren’t my own. I could feel emotions that weren’t my own. The voices were scared and all speaking at once. It was peaceful there; perhaps not for most, but for me it was. I was free, truly free, of the burdens I have to hold on my own.
But Dyson had pulled me back. I had felt him, heard him call my name like a muffled echo underwater. I swam then. I swam in the sea of black, his voice my map. And his lips. When they had found mine, his wolf’s eyes glowing in the space between us, I felt it - the feeling of a true home. Home isn’t a place . . . it isn't a possession, but rather inside those we love.
I fight with myself not to gaze at Dyson as my thoughts surround him and what he makes me feel. The word love frightens me more than death itself. With love, I have more to lose. And if I keep the word to myself long enough, it won’t hurt as bad if Dyson falls in the coming days.
“Why do you ask?” I add.
Sandy sweeps the cave as though soaking in memories of a past life. He lifts a hand, points a finger, and sweeps the wall. “This is inferaze. The entire Dream Realm is made of it. It builds my species and makes the dream dust, but also fuels the entire realm. Its magical capabilities are vast. If it were to catch fire...”
“Are you saying that if Kat becomes a dragon and spits one flame, the entire realm will combust?” Dyson asks.
The sandman nods. Then, he flicks his gaze to my hands, watching for any evidence of fire. I drawl a stream of curses and look around the room with a new pair of eyes, now afraid to touch anything. Fire flows through my veins, and most of the time, I can’t control it.
I whip a hand out from its tightly tucked position across my middle and smack Dyson in the chest.
“Ouch!” he grumbles. “What was that for?”
“For bringing a dragon inside a sleeping bomb!”
Placing his hands on his hips, he turns to me. It’s adorable, his stance, while channeling an authority he can’t beat. “We had no choice, Katriane. We each have our mission. This is ours. We couldn’t come to an enemy territory without -” he stops short and looks away. His cheeks redden.
“Without a formidable weapon?” I accuse. I drop my hands to my sides, and my palms slap my hips.
I stare at him for a long time, my dominance rising above his. His guilt is tucked between the straining of his tight lips. Shifters are a dominant species, and male shifters tend to man-handle their mates. If that’s what he’s expecting here, he’s going to be disappointed.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I close my eyes
and speak to the inside of my palm, knowing both creatures will be able to hear me. “What’s the first move?”
Sandy glides to the wall and snatches the satchel I had just returned. “To blend in.”
“To recruit,” Dyson adds.
“And gain intel,” I say, dropping my hand from my face. “And what’s the plan when we run into trouble?”
Both men turn their gazes to me, blank expressions. It’s the obvious choice then.
“Burn them to the ground?” I ask, innocently.
Of course.
We leave Sandy’s room soon after. With the sandman in the lead, we follow behind him, shuffling along the cave’s tunnel wall until he nods to carry on. A variety of sandmen and sandwomen pass, and I immediately marvel that each has a different feature than the last - a bigger nose, wider set eyes - but all the same beautifully dark skin color. I had originally thought they’d all be identical.
They barely give us a second glance. The dwarves, however, hold curiosity and fear as they scuttle by at a quicker rate than when they met us.
It startles me, the emotion that’s in all of the creatures’ postures and features. They’re afraid, and before I can ask why we aren’t trying to recruit all those we come across, we bend one more tunnel’s path and enter the main area of Dream Realm.
I gasp. In the center, a dome pulses with light, almost identical to a hologram heart. Instead of a heart’s red beat, the light is a blinding yellowish-white. This has to be where I woke back to my time, greeted by Sureen with all her majestic egotism.
Surrounding the dome is what looks to be trees. The leaves are like diamonds which reflect and blind the dome’s light with each pulse. The weight of the leaves is too great for the branches, and they almost touch the ground, making it look like the trees are weeping.
Yellow, almost transparent fluorescent tendrils snake through the spikes of the cave’s high ceiling, and every few seconds, more filter in. They gravitate to the dome, and the dome sucks them into its core.
“What are they?” I ask Sandy, awe in my voice.
“Dreams,” he whispers.
A machine, butterfly in shape, swoops from above, and I duck, worried it’ll crash straight into us. But at the last second, it spreads its mechanical wings with an audible grinding of gears, angles the body, and dives into the cave tunnel we had just exited from. I turn and get a better look at it as it travels at a daring speed. The back end is scooped, like a wheelbarrow bucket, and empty of any objects.
Dyson asks the question on the tip of my tongue. “It carries things?”
“It carries the inferaze which fuels the dome’s mechanics,” Sandy explains. “Built by the dwarves, of course. Their minds are brilliant. If Sureen wasn’t afraid of modern technology, we’d be far more advanced than the Earth Realm.”
I shiver. The last thing Sureen needs is modern technology.
“Sandy,” I say. “What all can inferaze do?”
A small smile tilts his dark lips, revealing a rare show of pride for his realm. “It does a great deal of things, little dragon.” And then his mood swiftly darkens. “Even I do not know all of its capabilities.”
Dyson rocks his lanky frame on the back of his heels. “Let’s keep going before we get caught.”
I watch as the sandman’s sparkle fades from his white eyes, and the rest of his pride visibly deflates. “This way.”
“What about Sureen?” I question while jogging to keep up with his long legs.
“She is not here,” he answers simply.
I scoff. “And how could you possibly know?”
He doesn’t answer and quickens his pace instead. It seems almost rude, the way he’s escaped as though my simple question offended him. Even his back is stiff, and each step is rigid and robotic.
Dyson trails back and stuffs his hands in his pocket. With a twitch of his nose, he indicates for me to do the same.
We let Sandy get a safe distance ahead. Scaling the descending rock with careful steps to the main level with weeping trees, Dyson focuses on me, a silent question tugging on his face.
“My next voodoo doll will be him,” I mutter, peeved at being ignored.
Perhaps I’m blowing it out of proportion, but just the same, I never wanted to come here in the first place. With every step we take closer to the dome, I become more wary. It’s too peaceful here. The enemy’s land should never be peaceful.
Dyson quirks a brow. “You keep voodoo dolls?”
“In my mind,” I say with a petulant nod. “I stab them. Frequently. With dark thoughts.”
He chuckles under his breath, but it fades too quickly to be true humor. “Don’t ask him about Sureen,” he cautions. “They had a relationship.”
I quirk a brow at him. “Like husband and wife? Mates?”
If they were mates, how could we trust him? Mates are loyal to each other first.
Dyson subtly shakes his head and lowers his voice. “It was an unwilling relationship.”
“Oh.” At first, it’s all I can say. All of my emotions and blame are knocked out of me with this revelation.
I harden my eyes as images of these “unwilling” events filter into my mind. For a brief moment, an overwhelming urge to defend the sandman lowers my guard, and I stumble on a protruding rock.
It’s ironic how quickly allegiances can form and protective instincts can blossom by simple facts of the past.
“Don’t, Kat,” Dyson warns. “He doesn’t need you to defend his honor.”
I look at him. His wolf is prominent in his eyes and ready to speak reason into me. He’s right though, despite my protective instincts. The sandman has been through much since I met him, and every time, he’s survived.
Dyson carefully places a hand at the small of my back, tentatively in case I deny his advances, and circles a pattern. The touch sends shivers across my body, and my back arches into the contact.
“Breathe,” he cautions again. “It’s of the past, and we can’t change the past.”
I nod solemnly.
We arrive at the first tree, and groans come from seemingly nowhere and everywhere. It sets my teeth on edge, not knowing where the moans originate from.
“What is that?” I ask.
I get my answer as the sandman holds open a nearby tree’s crystals, and they clank together like tiny chimes.
“In,” he beckons while his gaze sweeps the forest of dark trees and sparkling leaves.
Sharing a look with Dyson, a question becomes evident on my face. He only shrugs and dips to enter. I wait a heartbeat and then follow, dutifully curious. Once inside, I stop short.
A dwarf, hand mid-raised to hang satchels on the branches, stares with wide large eyes. Nervously, his tongue darts to the corner of his lips.
“Sandy,” I caution.
Fear spikes in my chest and lights my nerves on fire. Mindful of Sandy’s earlier warning, I fight to keep the flames inside by clenching my fists, and my nails dig into my palms. He’s either a friend or an enemy, and if he tries to dart from this tree, he won’t get very far. Not if my aim is good.
The sandman gingerly touches his hand to the back of my arm, steadying me, and his voice rumbles over my head.
“Nally,” he greets.
I look up to the sandman’s tall height and shiny bald head, then to the dwarf, and then back again.
“Friend?” I ask. I get no answer. Just several seconds of the dwarf’s stare locked on Sandy.
Dyson steps forward, his hand extended in greeting. “Dyson,” he introduces.
Nally flinches, and his short and stocky body quivers as though he’s expecting swift punishment from the gesture.
I soften toward him, my tense shoulders relaxing, and Sandy drops his hand from my arm. “He’s terrified,” I murmur.
“This isn’t possible,” Nally mumbles. He lifts his gaze back to Sandy and retreats by one step. The action bumps his back into the crystals, and they clink once more.
Lightly bending my knees, I
coo, “We won’t hurt you,” as though I’m talking to a frightened pup. His prominent Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows my truth.
A moan, louder than those on the path, vibrates the trunk of the tree, and I look to where it’s coming from. Inside the tree is a face through an opening just large enough to see the pained features of another sandman.
Anger spreads through me and tingles the tips of my fingers. I pin the dwarf with immediate blame. “What are you doing to him?”
“It is all right, little dragon,” Sandy cautions. “Nally is simply tending to the infant’s needs.”
“Infant?” Dyson says with a scientific inquisitorial tone. “He looks full grown to me. Do they not go through the typical human infant growths?”
Bristling to Dyson’s indifference, I head to the hole in the trunk and peer at the man inside. Upon exhale, my breath fans the sandman’s face. His wrinkled eyelids soften like my presence soothes his agony, and the rigid muscles in his cheek smooth.
“But he’s in pain,” I whisper, reaching inside and touching the sandman’s cheek.
“Yes,” Nally answers simply, rushing over with a hobbling shuffle and batting my hand away. The slap stings, and I rub the tender skin. “He is growing. It is how it’s done here.”
Dyson snakes forward and gapes at the trunk. “This tree is made of inferaze.”
Sandy’s earlier words bring light to my tangled emotions. The inferaze creates sandmen, he had said. It’s cruel, though, and less magical than I had pictured. No one should be born or created with pain.
Nally keeps his hand up, prepared to whack mine away again if I dare to think of touching the sandman once more.
“Yes,” Nally snaps bitterly to Dyson. “What are you doing here, sandman? I’ve heard the rumors. You’re dead.”
“I was, my friend” Sandy admits, strolling slowly to Nally. He holds out his arms, and Nally peers at him with an underlying wariness.