Dreamstrider (25 page)

“Now,” I wheeze, in Sly Fox’s voice. “Don’t let her wake up—”

Cold metal presses to my mouth and I plunge back into Oneiros.

The mountainside melts away under a luscious, filtered sun. A stream trickles nearby, clotted with chunks of ice; the white fox laps from it with a lazy, groggy tongue. She must have leapt from my arms in that moment when Sly Fox started to wake up. A chorus of birds veils my footsteps through the soft, squishy snow and the moist earth underneath as I approach the fox.

The fox lifts her head, right ear twitching. But I am on her left. I wait for her to turn her head my way. I tilt my head back and forth, just enough for her to know that I’m alive, but slowly enough that she won’t see me as a threat. I spot a berry bush nearby, a few red fruits glittering beneath a shell of ice. Slowly, I move toward the bush, pluck the berries, and extend them in my palm.

The fox catches my scent—recognizes me, perhaps. One paw, then the other, stretches toward me, like she’s embarrassed to be seen moving toward me but can’t fight the urge all the same. Her nose prods at my thumb, at the berries. Close enough.

We open our eyes.

The empty ocean in my left ear tells me where I am before my eyes focus. Something gargantuan buzzes before me, two images and then one. Jorn. As soon as my eyes focus on him, he gives a grunt and moves away from me.

“We need to meet with the Commandant,” Jorn says.

I moisten my parched lips and look at Brandt’s face, his brow furrowed so deep he could plant wheat in it. “The Commandant’s giving marching orders. It’s an all-out assault on Barstadt.” I’d been so frantic as I fended off the creatures of Nightmare that I’d nearly forgotten. “And he keeps talking about some sort of magical gem, and Sly Fox is acting like she helped him dig it up, but I can’t press too deep into her memories. I have to let her spill it out…” I press the heels of my palms against my eyes.

“I heard about the gem too,” Vera says, hovering in the mouth of our alcove. “One of the girls was talking about a strange envoy who visits the Commandant; the envoy accompanied the lady with the ‘night sky face.’” She crinkles her nose. “Bloody dreams, I wish these people would just say what they mean. Anyhow, the envoy told the Commandant about some mystical stone that he must uncover. As long as he surrendered it to the envoy, the envoy would use it to bless his troops and lead them to victory over the northern mongrels. Meaning us.”

I pinch the bridge of Sly Fox’s nose. “But who’s this envoy? What magical stone? It sounds like another ridiculous myth the Commandants make up, like how he rode a firebird across the land that barfed up gold and grain.”

“Yeah, or how he tamed a shark that spit up rubies. Lots of vomiting in the Commandant myths,” Brandt says with a wry smile.

“I suppose the ‘night sky face’ means Lady Twyne—all her gemstones like stars—but we still haven’t learned who she was working with. Did any of the courtesans know anything more about the mystic?”

Vera shakes her head. “No one’s heard of him or seen him, I’m afraid. Go on; go see what you can wring out of the Commandant.”

In Oneiros, the fox has devoured all the berries in my palm and runs slow circles around my wrist, rubbing back and forth. I don’t move, but I scan our surroundings. We’re in a totally different time and place from the nightmare creatures’ attack. It feels like sheer luck that I fended them off before.

Jorn escorts me in Sly Fox’s body to the northern alcove, clinging to my left side the whole way. The clamoring metal, shifting and sliding across articulated joints, of armored guard announces the Commandant. He slips onto the bench opposite me, our knees intertwined, and the guard stand in the alcove opening, blotting out the dancing mirrored sunlight.

“I do not care what my father may have promised you. You will follow my orders now. I owe you no explanation.” His directness surprises me—I was expecting more allegories and allusions. I’d planned to employ Brandt’s third rule of spycraft—
flattery will get you everywhere
—but now I’ve no idea how to counter. I scratch Sly Fox behind the ears and let her base instincts take over, a habit too deep to interrupt her sleep.

“You said that I would carry the gem across the sea. I would run the flagship, holding the prize that
I
helped you retrieve.” The fox’s fur bristles along her spine, but her rage is not for me. She still doesn’t see me as an intruder, Dreamer bless.

“
No!
” The Commandant’s hand shoots out to shackle my wrist. White rims his irises as he stares at me. I can feel his pulse pounding from here. “We mustn’t handle the gem. The envoy alone can touch it. He’ll carry it into the mists.”

“Into the mists?” I ask, dubious. Something tugs at me in the phrase—something from Hesse’s research.

The Commandant frowns. “You don’t recall his demonstration?”

In Oneiros, I draw the fox cub closer to me. What thought am I missing? Sly Fox’s memories skitter around before settling. A dark chamber in the Citadel. The Commandant sinks into sleep as a man covered head to toe in robes passes a censer of mothwood smoke over the Commandant. The robed man slumps beside him; in the darkness he twitches as if caught in a troubling dream.

Finally, the robed man falls still, one hand raised before him as if in greeting. The candles gutter and something flashes in the air above the robed man like a dancing flame reflecting off a blade. No, Sly Fox realizes. That’s precisely what it is—a jeweled sword, taking shape in the mystic’s hand.

My choked cry nearly wrenches me out of Oneiros.

Hesse’s theory of transference. Hesse didn’t just Shape those things in his Oneiros home—he transferred them, passing objects between Oneiros and the real world just as Nightmare did when he escaped the dreamworld to ravage our homeland, centuries back. Is this how Lady Twyne intended to keep her soul alive? By transferring it into Oneiros before her execution?

The Commandant stares at me expectantly. Sly Fox squirms in my arms back in Oneiros, agitated that I pressed her for that memory. She’s sure to remember this moment. But I can’t fear it. We have to get through this and return to Minister Durst. I open my mouth. “Where is the mystic now?”

The Commandant shakes his head, still unblinking. “He walks the dreamworld, assembling our warbeast. He’s no charlatan. We wandered the mists together, and I saw his plan. The gem cannot be carried across the sea. It must travel through the mists to recover its power.”

Warbeast. My pulse thuds in my ears. I want to turn and run now, but there’s more I need to learn.

Something strange has settled into the Commandant’s gaze. “The gem,” he whispers to himself. His vise grip on my wrist eases, and he leans back against the bench. His eyes look distant as if he were under a powerful charm—not the sightless stare of a resin user, but enthralled as if he had seen wondrous sights. All the earlier edge is gone from his tone. “It is glorious. It is the whole world contained within my Citadel, and all its subjects working for the glory of the Iron Winds. It is a great metal beast, devouring the countryside and spitting up splendorous cities, factories.”

Again with the regurgitation
, I think, but I don’t feel like laughing anymore.

“And at the beast’s core, its pounding heart, is the gem.
My
gem. It burns like lava, and flows through all the joints to fuel the unimpeded progress of the Iron Winds, scorching our enemies. It carries my blood to bind it to my will. My father spoke to me from beyond the grave in my dreams. We spoke of the Iron Winds—of the need for every citizen to pledge themselves to the pursuit of victory. He promised I would find a way to bring the Iron Winds to all the world, and I have found it.” His chest heaves. “I’ve found it.”

I have to quiet Sly Fox to say what I need, what I desperately need, for Barstadt. “Show it to me.”

But the spell is broken—the Commandant lurches forward, and all softness and wonder in his face calcifies into rage. His eyes narrow until they are two pinpricks of disdain burning at me. “No. The gem is mine. No one else can possibly—” He clenches two fists. “Be grateful I give you a post on the fleet, after the way you disgraced my father in our battle against the western islanders. You will not be amongst the ships that walk the mists to enter the bay.”

“But my … uh … Commandant—”

“Go.” He stands, towering over slender Sly Fox, pointing out. “Leave Birnau and ready yourself for battle. Maybe you will find an honorable death on our enemy’s shore; it will be more than you deserve.”

Jorn seizes me by the elbow and practically drags me back to our waiting party. He doesn’t even stop to tell them what’s happened, only beckons for us all to follow. My own amber eyes watch me, unmoving, from my body draped around Brandt’s shoulder. I cannot meet them.

Only when we are back in the belly of our clipper, our costumes shed, and Sly Fox and her party left in the carriage house to rub their heads and grasp at hazy memories of the day’s events, do I dare put a name to the growing dread that’s spreading its black, oily, rotten wings within my gut.

“I think I know what this magical ‘gem’ of the Commandant’s is,” I say to the assembled team.
Dreamer, save us all.
“It’s one of the shards of Nightmare.”

Chapter Twenty

Upon our return to Barstadt City, my first impression of the Imperial Palace is that surely the Emperor of Barstadt and its northern colonies, who serves as the King of Barstadt City and the Grand Majestic Admiral of the Barstadt navy, to say nothing of his title as the Dreamer’s Most Anointed One, could afford more comfortable chairs than the ones Brandt and I currently occupy. I was suitably awed by the grand terrace that led up to the palace itself; I couldn’t help but feel flattered to have earned an audience with the Emperor at last. The white-paneled hallway, traced over in gold leaf and crowned with a majestic dreamscape painted across the high ceiling, looked inviting enough when we were first ushered inside. But now that we’ve been waiting to deliver our report for three hours, it’s all I can bear not to stretch out on the wooden parquet floor.

I’ve hardly slept since we left the Land of the Iron Winds. I dread what my dreams may bring. If I were to slip into Oneiros, would I find it ravaged once more by Nightmare’s minions? I don’t want to know. I fear that I can’t summon up the courage to fend off their venom again. And in truth, I don’t want to cry out to the Dreamer again and hear only silence, only the beating of nightmarish wings.

But since we staggered off the docks, there’s been little time for sleep. We pried Minister Durst from his bed and told him everything, though I think the mere fact that Vera and Edina were too frantic to waste any energy sniping at each other told him quite enough. Durst marched us straight for the palace gates, but soon disappeared into a flurry of meetings and chaos while Brandt and I sit, waiting to provide our account.

“I bet they’re not even doing anything in there,” Brandt says, eyeing the double doors to the war room, flanked by immobile guards who might as well be topiaries. “Having a Stacks tournament, perhaps.”

“Performing a revival of
I Dreamt of You
,” I counter.

“Ugh, of all the insufferable operas. Maybe they’re brewing ale.”

“Watching paint dry.”

“Trying on the Empress’s entire wardrobe,” he says, and we both smile, but there’s a hard edge to it. Brandt pulls off his cap and ruffles his bangs, then twists the hat around in his hands as if he’s trying to pick a lock. “Liv…” I glance over at him, smile fading. His gaze stays fixed, though, on the overwaxed floor. “Whatever Durst asks of us next … It might be our last operation together. I want you to know…”

Hope stirs cruelly inside me. For just a moment, I dare to let myself believe Brandt might feel what I feel. I lean forward, heart thundering. “Yes?”

“Just … know how much I’ll always cherish our time together. I—I know you’ll do fine without me.”

The patter of my pulse dies out. I sink into the hard cushion and look away from him. Foolish, foolish girl. Of course he doesn’t feel the same for me that I feel for him. A cleaning girl from the tunnels could never compare with the life of duty and comfort and purpose that awaits him representing House Strassbourg.

“I’ll be just fine.” I stare past him, unable to meet that deep gray gaze. “Actually, I’ve been thinking of traveling. Seeing the world beyond Barstadt City.”

“Have you now?” Brandt’s eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t suppose your friend from Farthing has anything to do with this decision, does he?”

Heat washes over my face, but what use is it to deny it? Brandt’s surely happier this way—with me carefree and tethered to someone else. I should be happier, too. “I suppose so, yes. Marez has made me realize there’s a lot more to the known realms. More ways to live than the Barstadt way. All our elaborate rules, our classes…” I shake my head, realizing I’m brushing too hard against the truth. “And anyway, if we stop the invasion, I’ll be a free person, so I’d like to savor that for a bit.”

Brandt laces his hands together over one knee. “That’s—that’s wonderful, Liv. It’s just—it’s really, really fantastic. Really.” He grins anew, though there’s something too stiff about it. “I’ll admit, I’m still loathe to trust a Farthinger, but they’ve given us good information. You always do what’s right. You deserve happiness, even if it is—” That mischievous edge touches his grin. “With a man who spends that much time on his hair.”

“Oh, you little demon!” I swat at his shoulder, and we both dissolve into laughter.

But it aches. It aches like the darkest part of winter; like a beautiful dream that can’t be made real. Well, he said he trusts my decisions; perhaps it’s time I trusted them, too. Stoke the fire within me; try and see new things, new places, until it cauterizes this wound.

The doors fling open wide, crashing into the walls. Minister Durst strides out of them with fists on his hips and his lips curled like he’s bit into rotten fruit. “His Majestic Imperial Highness and his war cabinet will see you now.”

Out of habit, I look to Brandt for reassurance, but he’s already pulled away from me, his gaze fixed on the room ahead.