Dreamstrider (17 page)

“I blame myself,” he says, “for expecting too much. I believed Hesse was giving me a miracle, but you’re only a person; it wasn’t fair of me to see you as such. I’m afraid—” his voice cracks—“I expected more of you than was fair of me. Believe me when I say that I wanted more than anyone for you to succeed.”

“What exactly are you asking of me, Minister?” I fold my hands into my lap to keep them from trembling. His tone is gentle, but his words sound dangerously close to a dismissal.

He leans over his desk and passes me a stack of papers, folded in half, though ribbons and sealing wax dangle down from inside. “I need you to succeed on this mission—help us prevent the Land of the Iron Winds from invading. If not for Barstadt, then for this. You have to put aside what’s happened, Livia. Help us stop the Commandant, and these will be yours.”

They’re papers—citizenship papers. Papers like these are exorbitantly expensive if one goes through the proper channels, and even more so if greased with bribes. My temporary papers granted me clemency from a lifetime of tunneler serfdom, but Durst always held issuing power over them, and was free to dispose of them—and me—at any time. These papers are the next step—true citizenship, not a temporary grant.

I look from the paper to Durst. “Permanent papers? No provisions?”

“After we’ve stopped the Commandant, they’re yours. Completely. You’ll be free to go and do whatever you please if you can see this matter with the Land of the Iron Winds through.”

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. My life, completely mine to control. Half a year ago, I couldn’t imagine life away from the Ministry, but knowing now that there’s far more of the Central Realms to see than just Barstadt …

Whatever I decide, my papers are the beginning of it—of true freedom. I have to earn them, no matter how challenging it proves. “Thank you, Minister.” My voice dissolves around me. “I won’t let you down.”

“Your Farthinger friends left a message for you with the clerk,” Sora says, when I head back into the barracks. “They’ll be by tomorrow morning to fetch you for something.”

“Thanks, Sora.” I grab my coat. “Feel free to help yourself to the pastries in my room. I need some time to myself tonight.”

I climb atop the steep barracks roof, my favorite hiding place, as twilight dusts the turrets of the Imperial Palace on the hill ahead of me. Between Hesse’s death, our impending mission back to the Land of the Iron Winds, and Brandt’s recent distance, I feel tangled up like a dropped stitch, and I need the crisp autumn air to clear my head. But then I spy the crowd gathering along the sloping square that leads up to the palace, and a fresh wave of nausea washes over me. It’s almost time for Twyne’s execution, and the roof offers all too clear a view.

The rooftop hatch pops open, and Brandt’s head emerges, grinning like a little boy who’s just gotten away with something. “I thought I might find you here.”

“Are you sure you didn’t get lost on the way to another ball?” I’d meant it in jest, but the words come out too harsh. His grin fades so quickly it must have been for show.

He climbs out of the hatch and settles back against the roof. “Now, now, how could any self-respecting aristocrat miss out on … all this?” He sweeps one arm toward the square. The jail cart hasn’t even arrived yet, but it’s bursting with black-clad Barstadters, from the lower merchants to jewel-encrusted aristocrats seated in private tents. While the din of gossip reaches all the way up to our roof, every single head is turned toward the temporary platform, where the Emperor sits beside a wooden block. “Not even the courting season takes precedence over such a scandal.”

I hug my legs to my chest, tucking my chin over my knees. A question lurks on the edge of my tongue, and even though it pains me to ask, I have to know. “Brandt.” I glance at him. “Are you still courting Edina?”

“Nightmare’s teeth, Liv.” He runs both hands through his hair, then curls them into fists, taking long, steadying breaths. “I’m sorry. I just—I wasn’t expecting to—I came here to say—” He swallows down hard. “I, ah, I came up here to get away for a few moments, is all. Before we’re off on a deadly mission again.”

I nod, face still hidden behind my knees. “I wish we didn’t have to go back. And with Vera and Edina and Jorn—”

Brandt’s smile makes me falter. “You can do this, Liv. I know you. You just can’t let your fear get in the way. That’s when you get tripped up.”

His bangs fall back into place across his tanned forehead, a smooth array of soft browns and heady golds. I reach forward to brush them back, but stop myself short. “I pray to the Dreamer that I’ll be strong enough. That I won’t be afraid. But…” My hand drops to the slate tiles. “It never seems to be enough.”

“Maybe it’s not for the Dreamer to fix. Maybe he wants you to be strong for yourself.”

For myself? I start to laugh. All anyone’s ever wanted from me is what I can do for them. Clean for the gangs, earn enough for my mother to buy Lullaby, dreamstride for the Ministry. But perhaps it’s time I learned to care for myself. If I can truly earn my freedom, then I can finally do whatever I wish, for me alone.

Brandt unhooks a wineskin from his belt and unfastens its lid. The scent of warm cinnamon and nutmeg spills over us, and I tilt my head back with an indulgent grin.

“Mulled cider,” I say, then take another sniff. “And you’ve spiked it, you devil. What’s the occasion?”

“A peace offering. And an apology.” He hands me the wineskin, but his fingers catch in my loose curls; he sweeps them back from my shoulders. “I should have been there for you after … after we visited the constabulary.”

The cider blazes down my throat, but I stiffen at his words, passing the wineskin back to him with a grimace. “You have your obligations. Your duties to your House. I understand.”

“No. I want to help you—help serve the professor’s memory. The constabulary may not be taking it seriously, but I do.” He gulps down the cider as well. “Why was Hesse so overcome with guilt of late? Why now?”

I stare down at the restless crowd in the square. “I thought maybe it was because of what happened to the others who tried to dreamstride.” I can barely speak past the lump, hardening like clay, in my throat. “But it doesn’t explain why it troubled him recently.”

Brandt tightens, a line of muscles standing out along his neck. His eyes sparkle celadon in the dusk. “No. Livia—no. If he knew it could—what it might do to you, to dreamstride, then how could he—”

“I’m only a tunneler, not meant for anything more. Who would have missed me?” I pick at the slate tiles of the roof.

“I would have, for one. You’re … you’re
you
, Livia. You’ve got smarts, and when you let yourself, you have this determination that I—that inspires me, too. How could anyone not see that?”

I laugh, dry and bitter. “That’s why they’re all scrambling to go on missions with me, right?”

“Only because Durst doesn’t know how to use your properly. I’ve been doing this for ten years—half my life. And you’ve the added burden of mastering dreamstriding, on top of it all. Even the Incident—that wasn’t your fault. Durst just doesn’t know how to use you. It’s like asking a fork to do a spoon’s duty.” Brandt takes another pull from the wineskin.

“If I’m a fork, then I’m a badly dented, tarnished one, a fork no one needs.” I wrinkle my nose. “The nicked one you’re always slicing the inside of your mouth on—”

“Livia.” In an instant, Brandt is looming before me, my cheeks cupped in those strong, broad hands of his. “Don’t talk about yourself that way. I know you—I know your good heart, your determination to see things through.” His mouth softens, all pinkness and spring thaw. “You’re perfect. Nicks and all.”

My heart is thundering like galloping hooves. I lean forward, forehead resting against his, his warmth as radiant as the cider in my blood. I need Brandt—I need to see him smile, see him unburdened. The real Brandt, not the one who wears the Ministry’s masks or his House’s fancy dress. Brandt believes in me in a way no one but the Dreamer ever has.

The crowd roars in the square. Brandt jolts away from me, hands sliding to his hair again; he bites down hard on his lower lip. My chest is heaving; my face must be as red as Brandt’s coat right now. But the sight in the square chills me through.

The iron-barred jail cart rolls slowly through the crowd. Even the horse pulling it proceeds with its head down, bloodlust in its eyes, its nostrils aflare. Those closest to the cart press against it, shouting, taunting, hands darting through the cart’s bars, reaching for the traitor. Inside the cart, Lady Twyne stands tall, chin jutted high. I think she’d stand that way even if she weren’t shackled in place—defiant, looking down her nose at her detractors to the very last.

I snatch the wineskin back from Brandt and draw another mouthful of cider to ward this awful chill from my heart.

“Livia…” Brandt twists his head to watch me, but he’s turned inward, shoulders hunched, hands in his lap; whatever we’d been about to share, it’s gone. The space between us aches like a bruise. “I don’t want you to think I—”

“I don’t think anything.” I let the words fall swift as an ax.

Someone in the crowd manages to catch hold of Lady Twyne’s black robes and tugs them free, baring her upper body to all of Barstadt. She doesn’t scream or attempt to cover herself, and for a moment I feel embarrassed for her, but then I recall what she meant to do to Barstadt, and my pity stokes into rage.

“Edina and I are to be married,” Brandt says, staring down at the crowd.

The world falls out from under me. I lurch forward, and the wineskin tumbles out of my hands, spilling down the slate tiles, and I scrabble for it as I sift through the hundreds of questions in my head all screaming to be heard.

“Oh, Brandt, that’s … wonderful.” I take a deep breath and sink back down on the roof. “Congratulations on your…”

My throat closes up around the word.
Betrothal.
Such a heavy little word, the sort of thing one slams onto the table as a wager for the final round of Stacks. I can’t say it; I won’t. I force myself to grin like a woman possessed, but I can’t wear masks like he can.

Despite his placid face, Brandt tightens and flexes his left palm, watching it intently, like he expects it to perform a trick. “Our parents signed the agreement just this morning. It’s—it’s the first chance I’ve had to tell you.”

“And why do you need to tell me?” I hear myself say, from somewhere very far away.

“I just … thought you’d like to know.”

I catch him watching me from the corner of my eye, but I keep my gaze straight ahead. Whatever he thought—whatever I dared to hope—it can’t be. I have no right to a son of House Strassbourg. I’ve lived within the strict confines of Barstadt society this long; I can endure this boundary as well.

I will not acknowledge this fraying in my heart, tearing a little more each day as the distance between Brandt and I grows, stretching its fibers just a little too thin.

“Lord Alizard. Oh, he’ll make for an interesting father-in-law.” I suppress a snort. “I know you have to quit the Ministry to work for your family, but please tell me you won’t be working for him, too.”

“Of course I won’t.” Brandt’s mask slips as he grimaces. “Edina and I agree it’s best we distance ourselves from whatever vile deals he brokers with the gangs. Edina will manage our household while I work for my father’s trading concerns.” He shakes his head with a wry half-grin. “Is that why you look so vexed?”

As if I could tell him any other reason. As if I could admit out loud why my heart is aching so, why my mind is a thousand leagues away from this blunted pain I’m feeling. As if there is any other way but distance to survive. I’m watching myself, like my body is just another temporary vessel for my dreamstriding, and I can let it do the work of emotion and pain and speech for me. “As long as you’re happy, Brandt, then so am I.”

He doesn’t answer immediately; instead he squeezes that fist as hard as he can. Veins dance along his exposed forearm—such a lovely olive shade. “Edina is kind—nothing like her father. She’s clever, but not in a scheming way. And Edina, well—” Brandt hesitates. “She’d been …
involved
with someone before. Some of the Houses are still scandalized about that, but she’s done her best to overcome it. I think she truly cares about my happiness. Isn’t that what matters? Her father’s happy, my family’s happy, everyone’s at peace. I’ll miss working with you—with all of the Ministry—but, well, I know you’ll do great things. You don’t need me.”

I don’t have a chance to respond. The drum corps begins its slow, lumbering beat.

The executioner has covered Lady Twyne back up; now she’s only a black shadow on the horizon, backlit by a sliver of sun, climbing the platform steps. He stands her before the block and turns her to face the crowd. The Emperor reads her sentence, though he’s too far for us to make out much. I catch “treason,” “conspiring with,” “against the Empire.”

“What’s going to happen to the little girl?” I ask Brandt. “Martine.”

Brandt rubs at his chin. “Lady Twyne’s sister is married to the lord of House Kircher. I believe they’re going to take her in.”

I nod. House Kircher is not the kindest, nor the brightest, but it’s better than the streets. Better than leaving her to crawl into the tunnels, never to find her way back out.

The Emperor turns to Lady Twyne, and only because I’ve seen more of these than I’d like do I know he’s asking for her final words. She shouts something, but her voice is swallowed up by great gasps that trickle through the crowd, rushing like water down the hill.

The executioner pulls the hood over her head, snuffing out the dazzle of her facial sapphires, then lays her head onto the block so delicately as if he’s nestling a jewel back into its case. The drumbeats hasten. Brandt reaches for my hand, but I’m sitting on it, frozen in place.

The drums speed up, dissolving into uneven, thundering chaos.

The executioner’s blade swings up, then down.

The crowd roars.

It is only later that night, as Sora and I play a round of Stacks in the barracks, that the gossip mill reaches us with Twyne’s final words: “Awaken into Nightmare.”