Page 39 of Queen of Stars and Shadows

I can find water, says the voice deep inside me.

How?I ask.

I’m a nightmare. I have better senses than you do. Sight, taste, and certainly smell.

And you can smell water here?

She makes a strange purring chirp that is a clear yes.

It occurs to me that I might be going mad, just like Zyren. I am talking to myself, after all. But no… it’s not the same. No one else may understand it, but there reallyisanother part of me, a part I never knew was there until I came back to Valaron. To my home.

Of course, a mad person would probably rationalize it like that, too.

I brush the thought away. If I am going mad, that’s the least of my many worries.You want me to let you out all the way?

The same purr of confirmation.

But will you go back when I tell you to?

Silence is my only answer.

I sigh and shove her deeper down. I can’t risk losing myself forever. I’d come to terms with having nightmare blood, with having this dark power inside me. But I’m not going to let it take me over entirely. If we can’t have a partnership, she’ll have to stay where she is.

Zyren and I don’t speak as we trudge through the sand. We’re both too tired to attempt conversation. We’d walked hours to get to the ocean, and now we’re at, what? Two hours? Three? Certainly we’ve been in this place now the better part of a day. Which means I have only about one more day left. One more day to escape this hellscape, stop Avonia, and reclaim my throne in Selaye.

Tears of despair prick at the corners of my eyes, but they don’t spill over. I have none left to shed.

The air begins to shimmer, whether from heat waves or because I’m becoming delusional, I’m not sure. Zyren isn’t doing much better. He stumbles into me at one point, and we both fall to our knees in the sand. I realize then that I’m not sure I have the strength to get up again.

Or the strength to fight my nightmare when she claws for the surface.

Consciousness blinks in and out. I just know that I’m moving inland, away from the water. Somehow, I must convince Zyren to come with me, because I can feel his shadow at my heels. In my flashes of awareness, I realize I’m crawling on my hands and knees, and I can’t even find it in myself to care. My head throbs, and my throat feels like rusted metal.

I don’t know how much time passes.

And then I sense what my nightmare senses. Somewhere, not far off, I hear a faint sound. The air also feels cooler, just the tiniest bit. We move toward it, and finally, as I collapse on a bank of sand, I look down and see a small valley of rock cuttingthrough the dunes. Somewhere down there is water; I can hear it trickling.

But nightmare or no, my body simply can’t go any farther.

So I lie there, on the edge of the valley, and darkness claims me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Zyren

Iwatch Sarielle asshe sleeps next to the tiny spring I’d dragged her to after she passed out. I’d made her drink, which I don’t even know if she was conscious of. Her eyes had been darker than midnight. And then she’d fallen into a deep sleep.

I’d slept, too, for how many hours I’m unsure. When I’d finally awoken, I said a prayer that we made it, and that we have a source of water that can keep us alive. Sarielle’s inner nightmare must have taken over, had led us to this water. We’d be dead otherwise.

Now we just need to find a way out of here.

I’m tempted to let Sarielle sleep longer, but I gently nudge her awake. When her eyes flutter open, they’re black for a moment,and she jerks back away from me suspiciously. But the darkness recedes, the golden hue returns to them, and then Sarielle’s body slackens in relief.

“Zyren,” she sighs. Her voice sounds scratchy still.

“Here, have some more water.”

I point to the spring bubbling up from the rock a few inches from her face. She bends down to it and drinks thirstily, scooping handful after handful into her mouth.

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