The Nightmare Dilemma (Arkwell Academy) (38 page)

“You’ve been wh—” I broke off as the answer came to me.

“That’s why I’ve been sneaking out at night,” Selene said, knowing my thoughts. “Me and a couple of the other sirens have been teaching ourselves how to fly. It’s been hard, and I can’t do it for more than a couple of minutes, but I’m a lot better than I was.”

It was incredible, and yet it all made sense—her need to be out at night, to wear dark clothes, even her inexplicable fall into the bushes at Coleville. She hadn’t been walking and stumbled at all.

“You’ve got to understand what it’s like, Dusty,” Selene went on. “All my life I’ve been denied this part of myself. It was wrong. So wrong. And when we were fighting Marrow and the Black Phoenix, I could’ve done so much more if my ability to fly hadn’t been stunted. I swore after that night it would never happen again.”

“Why are you apologizing?” I said. Selene stuttered, and I reached out and hugged her hard enough she gasped. “It’s wonderful. And I’m so jealous and—”

Eli cleared his throat. “Can we save the girl moment for later? Like after we save the world? We’re kind of in a hurry here.”

Selene and I shared a grin.

“Right,” I said. “How do we do this?”

“Hang on a second.” Eli touched Selene’s arm, drawing her attention. “Are you sure your wings can handle the extra weight?”

Selene exhaled. “No, but I
think
I can. For that short of a distance anyhow.”

My heart plummeted into my knees. She didn’t know, and if she was wrong, I would fall to my death.

Eli started to say something, but I shushed him, afraid he would insist that we not do it. That wasn’t an option. Saving those people was worth the risk. I took Selene’s hand and squeezed. “I believe you can do it.”

Selene smiled. “Okay, stand back.”

I pressed against the side of the tower and waited, my eyes fixed on my best friend. She spread her hands wide, and there was an odd ripping sound, though not of fabric. I watched with my mouth open as wings—as black and shiny as her hair—grew out from her back, narrow at first and then fanning out to their full size. I realized, almost belatedly, that the holes sewn into her jacket were there for this very purpose.

Once her wings were fully expanded, Selene waved me over to her. I did so, trying to keep my limbs from shaking. Her wings were enormous, but I knew that didn’t mean they were strong enough to bear my weight. I did my best not to think about it.

“Stand in front of me,” Selene said. “And help me hold on.” She wrapped her arms beneath mine as I moved before her. “We’ll be back, Eli.” For a second, the confidence in her voice bolstered my own. But then she pushed me to the edge—and jumped.

We plummeted downward, Selene’s wings arching high above us. I bit back a scream, certain this was it, that we would keep falling, at least until Selene let go of me to save herself. But then her wings swooped down hard, beating the air. A rush of wind lifted us up, and we soared forward. She didn’t deposit me on the other side of the stairs as I’d expected, but let the momentum of that one stroke carry us all the way to the top of the tower.

The moment we reached it, her wings gave out, and we fell, hitting the stone hard. I sucked in a painful breath and rolled over, glad that Selene had landed to the side of me rather than on top.

Selene pushed herself up with the help of her wings. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. But that landing needs work,” I said getting to my feet.

She giggled, but my own humor—more of a statement of relief—vanished as I caught sight of the stone plinth set dead center of the tower.

My heart slammed against my breastbone as I stared at it. It looked exactly like the dream, and yet nothing like it at all. There were no letters engraved on its side, and out of its top rose the hilt of The Will sword, its blade buried a foot deep in the stone of the plinth.

B E L L A N A

B E L L A N A

B E L L A N A

The name sounded over and over inside my head, but it was wrong, incomplete.

Even still, the same pull I felt toward the plinth in my dreams came over me now. Only I realized it had never been the plinth calling to me at all. It had been the sword. Always.

I walked toward it, each step heavy and hard as if some unseen force wanted to keep me from it. But it wouldn’t work. That sword was meant for me, and I for it. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name, my own mind.

I stopped in front of it and placed both hands on the bone hilt.

Say my name
, a voice that did not belong to my psyche spoke in my mind.

I don’t know it.

Say my name.

I don’t know it.

Yes, you do. You’ve always known.

B E L L A N A

I grabbed the hilt and pulled upward as hard as I could. It wouldn’t move.

Say it!

I don’t—
The thought stopped in my head, giving way to a sudden vision of the dream. I saw the stone plinth again, saw the letters engraved on its surface.
All
the letters. The sword itself was showing it to me straight into my mind as artfully as the most gifted psychic.

B E L L A N A X

Bellanax.

The moment I thought it, the bone hilt began to warm in my hand. Then a bright light, a mixture of purple and gold, spread down from the hilt, over the runes, and into the stone plinth itself. A second later the stone cracked down the center, and the sword came free.

I held it up, struggling with its weight. But even as I watched, that golden, purplish light enveloped the sword, shrinking it, making it lighter, until the sword was the perfect weight and size for me, an extension of my arm rather than some magical object made of steel.

Bellanax
. The true name of Excalibur, the sword of power.

And now it was mine.

*   *   *

“Come on, Dusty.”

Selene’s voice barely registered in my mind. How long had I been standing here? It seemed a thousand years or more, as many years as the sword itself had known. It was ancient, the oldest thing I had ever touched.

Go
, a voice said in my mind, and I obeyed, turning toward Selene. She eyed me with open worry, her gaze lingering on the blade. I ignored it and walked to the edge, clutching Bellanax with both hands. Selene stepped behind me and threaded her arms through mine. I couldn’t hold on to her this time. But that was all right. With the sword of power in my grasp, we would be fine.

“I should be able to glide us all the way down to the roof,” Selene said.

“Okay.” I could see Eli below us, and I pointed at him and then down. He nodded and turned to begin his descent.

No fear touched me as Selene pushed me off the edge this time. We glided down as light as feathers, and I landed easily on my feet. I didn’t hesitate but started making my way across the roof, leaping the holes effortlessly and with a grace I’d never known before. Somewhere in the far corner of my mind, I knew that I was no longer fully in control, that the sword, that
Bellanax,
had taken control, at least on a physical level. But that was all right. The sword was wise. The sword was powerful. It would see us through.

I was barely aware of the journey down the next set of stairs. Eli and Selene were somewhere behind me, moving much slower than I was. Soon I had reached the ruined pavilion. Then I was across it and running at full speed over the lawn toward the burning pyre in the distance. With the sword in my hand, I felt like I was flying.

But before I reached the pyre, a violent tremble shook the ground, and I stumbled. By the time I regained my footing, the first split had appeared in the earth’s surface. Screams broke out as the people standing near the pyre began to flee. The fissure was growing, spreading like a wound. The sight of it terrified me to my core, but fear didn’t touch me, not really. All thought fled my mind as instinct took over, and I sped up.

Before me, the fissure was an open, gaping mouth, spewing out flames. I didn’t slow, not even for a second. I kept running, and when I reached the edge—I jumped.

The fire enveloped me, flames licking along my skin, leaving behind a trail of pain. But only for a moment. Then something rose up around me, protecting me from the fire.
Magic.
Magic like I’d never known before.

Holding my eyes closed, I fell blind. Something other than gravity pulled me down. It was as if the sword in my hands was drawn to the power flooding out of the Telluric Rod like a magnet of opposite charge. Energy flooded through me, setting my entire body afire. It was coming through my hands from the sword. I needed to let go before it burned me up, but I couldn’t. I had to hold on to save those people, to save the island.

So I gripped harder, holding on even as my consciousness slipped away, even as I felt myself dying.

34

The Passing

I dreamed of the tower again. But there was no wind and no plinth. There was only the sword in my hand. It radiated heat like something alive. And I knew on some level it was alive.

Eli was there, on the other side of the tower, watching me with a wary gaze. I beckoned him to me, but he shook his head. “Not while you’ve got that.”

I glanced at the sword, not even aware that I had been holding it in front of me, pointed at Eli. He was afraid. Why was he afraid?

I turned and set the sword on the edge of the tower. The moment it was out of my reach my hand felt empty, my body cold from the inside out. I almost picked it up again, but then Eli was there, wrapping his arms around me.

I gasped, amazed that he could touch me here. “Aren’t we dreaming?”

“Yes, but it’s your dream, and I’m not really here. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“And you must wake up, Dusty. You must wake up soon or … or you might never wake up.”

“What do you mean?”

But Eli didn’t answer. He turned to ash in my arms and then disappeared on the wind.

*   *   *

Time passed. I could
feel
it passing around and over me, as if I were a stone set in its river. Eli did not visit my dream again.

*   *   *

“Has she said anything?”

“Not this morning. Not since yesterday.”

“Any movement?”

“A little. But not enough. Never enough
.”

The voices were familiar, but they were so distorted I couldn’t place them. It was as if I were listening to them underwater.
Water,
I remembered the water. A vision of being surrounded by merkind appeared in my mind. I’d fallen—all the way through the earth into the sea. And I would’ve drowned if not for their help. They’d carried me through the water and then onto dry land.

“What will happen if she never wakes?”

I tried to breast the surface of consciousness, but it was too far. And I slipped down, down, down, under again.

35

Aftermath

When I finally did wake, I found myself alone. The room was a familiar one, the bed large and luxurious with a black and white satin comforter. White sheer curtains hung from the single window. Various paintings decorated the blue-gray walls, one depicting a sunset, another an ancient ship caught in a storm.

I knew this place. This was the spare bedroom in my mother’s house on Waterfront Lane. Framed pictures of me lined the top of the chest of drawers in one corner. There were too many to count—my whole life captured in still, single moments.

All of this I had taken in without sitting up, and I slowly became aware of how heavy and sluggish my limbs felt, as if they hadn’t been used in a long time. I slowly pushed back the bedclothes. When I did, I saw I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. A sword lay in the bed beside me. The blade was sheathed in a leather scabbard, but I recognized the bone hilt.

Bellanax
.

At once everything came back to me with startling clarity. The way I had jumped into that burning fissure. The way the sword had known what to do on its own, absorbing the power of the Telluric Rod as it had just begun to explode. It had pulled that power into itself, and then channeled it outward, breaking the spell before it could complete.

And when it ended I had fallen all the way through the hole and into a channel that led me out to sea. The merkind had rescued me, but I couldn’t remember anything after that.

Gritting my teeth, I sat up, muscles protesting the movement. The action left me panting and weak as I slumped against the headboard. I was wearing a pair of silk pajamas, the kind with a long-sleeved, button-down front and pants. I ran my hand over my stomach, alarmed at how easily I felt my ribs, my belly a sunken, hollow cave between my hip bones. The sight of my body in such a condition set my head to pounding with fright. How long had I been unconscious?

I peered at the closed door into the bedroom, wishing it would open. I didn’t actively engage my mind-magic. I knew I didn’t have the energy for it. But after several minutes of this, I gave up the hope, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The movement was easier, my muscles warming up, but still it left me panting and exhausted.

I slowly slid off the bed and stood, testing my balance. Wobbly, but okay. I glanced at the sword and debated picking it up. I
wanted
it with me, and yet I didn’t. It filled me with both awe and terror like a wild beast I wanted to tame but was too afraid to approach.

Turning my back on the sword, I crossed the room to the door. I leaned against it for a moment, catching my breath, and then I pushed it open. I walked down the dim, empty hallway with one arm braced against the wall for support. When I reached the end of it, I looked around the corner and spotted my mother standing in the kitchen across the way, only her head and torso visible over the divider into the living room.

Before I could call out to her, she turned and spotted me. The glass in her fingers slipped and crashed to the floor. She didn’t care as she dashed through the kitchen toward me.