The Dream Crafter(63)

No, not the last one. Her feelings were quick and impossible to explain, but they were real. That she knew beyond all doubt.

Whether what they had ultimately survived the outside pressures they were under, they were real. He was part of her, as much as her brother, and nothing would change that.

An urge came over her, an urge that she wanted him to know her, know a part of her no one else could claim. She almost wished it were dark still so that she could talk to him under cover of night.

Facing away from him, his arms tight around her and his breath warm on her neck, she said, “My brother is in jail for murder. But the truth is, the murderer is me.”

*

“I started wandering in dreams when I was about seven years old,” Amana continued as Merc’s breath caught in his chest, afraid to breathe loud in case it led to disturbing her and causing her to quit talking. “It was nice, then. I told Nakoa all about it – the people I met, the places I visited. I visited everywhere, including other Realms. I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t realize there were not only realms here on this world, but Realms as in different planes of existence. I only visited pleasant places though, none of the horrifying ones talked about where necromancers and demons rule.”

Sweat beaded across his forehead and down the back of his neck, and a part of him wanted to retreat, didn’t want to hear what she would say, didn’t want to face the possibility she could tell him something that would change their world. He wanted everything the same.

“I had just turned fourteen, and I hated being on the island. Everyone knew my story. The boys, the men, thought I’d become my mom. And then one night he appeared in my dream. He was golden, slender and beautiful, and I thought my dreams created him, because nothing that perfect should exist.”

Amana was shivering, and Merc brought her closer to his body, tightened the covers around her, tucking her underneath his chin.

A pause, and then she continued. “It turned out he was a wizard who knew about dream crafters, and had been following me within the dream world when he saw me and suspected I was one. I was stupid enough, thought I was in love enough, to follow him in the real world. We moved, my brother and I. My mom was dead, and it was so easy to disappear.”

A shudder rippled and roared through her, her voice quavering as she told the story.

“We met in person, and he kept pressuring me, to leave Nakoa and go with him. I thought, he never had siblings, so he doesn’t understand. I thought, he loves me so much, he wants me all too himself without needing to share. It was so romantic to a stupid girl. So one night I gave in and left to be with him. And when he verified I was alone and had cut all the ties to my world, he hit me, and threw me down. He tore off my clothes, and chained me to the bed. He…”

She broke off, her breathing too fast, too shallow, and she clutched at him, trying to bring him closer, and he followed her lead, bringing them so tight together her skin was imprinted on his.

“Afterward, he spoke about power, and how I would give him children who would serve him while he ruled the world. And I kept thinking, I couldn’t let that happen. Not my babies. Not my children. And I fell asleep, and she was there in the dream – my devil. And she asked me, if my life was going to be lived under him, or if I was going to make things right, and within the dream I…

…I was able to make things right.”

Despair swirled around her, thick in the air and clinging to her skin like a cloud of rancid perfume. She was shivering, no matter how close she got to him, no matter how huddled or small she made herself, and her voice dropped to the smallest he’d ever heard.

“My brother found me the next day. I wrote Nakoa a note, because I’d never abandon my baby brother. Nakoa came in and saw me chained to the bed, saw the body next to me. We knew Nakoa was something, but then there were sirens – I don’t know how they knew – but there were sirens, and Nakoa was screaming I needed to run, and before my eyes my baby brother…a berserker, that’s what we found out afterward…and with his bare hands he freed me, and he began tearing apart the body all the while screaming at me, and…I…I ran.”

Tears were streaming down her face, her voice shuddering sobs, her frame a shuddering mess. “I left him. He was a baby, and I left him. I was the big sister, and…”

Sobs wracked her now, and he turned her around, pressed her close to him, let her cry into him, her fingers clawing into his back and she stayed close, her tears running down his chest.

They stayed like that for timeless moments, as she cried, as he held her, as they clung to each other like children riding out the storm.