Page 77 of Never the Roses

That was one positive change from before. She was a free agent now, present of her own will, and not subject to any kind of pressure. She had slipped her leash and they were careful of her.

Except for Leskai, who cheerfully continued to play on what he clearly considered to be an intimate friendship, willfully or blissfully ignorant of how his betrayal affected her. He seemed to think mutually hiding their identities from one another canceled out any trespasses, and he traded on his supposed influence with Oneira, spending that dubious coin to maneuver his way through the court. Finding it easier, Oneira mostly ignored him. She didn’t need his meaningless apologies or effusive praise, bemused that he still referred to them as friends.

She didn’t contact Stearanos, much as she longed to. Instead, she kept to herself, with only Adsila for company, coming to the realization that loneliness cut the deepest when one was surrounded by people.

Then the day came that brought actual news: the devastating information that not only had Oneira’s return to court not snuffed out the conquest before it began, but that King Uhtric had been declared dead and the Crown Prince Mirza had taken the throne, along with adopting a renewed fervor to begin his reign by adding the Southern Lands to his empire. Their navy had amassed, due to set sail within days.

The court in a turmoil of panic, talks resumed about how to best deploy Oneira as a weapon. Feeling like nothing more than a magic sword to be wielded as others saw fit, wrestling with the harsh reality that her worst nightmare had come true, Oneira absented herself from those council meetings, another form of exile, leaving the world of men and wars for the nominal silence of her rooms at the citadel.

That night, for the first time since they’d parted, she walked the Dream to Stearanos.

She’d thought she might have to wait for him to be asleep, knowing him to be embroiled in his own court where he’d no doubt be forced to keep courtiers’ hours. But she found him, already dreaming, reaching him more easily than ever, as if the path between them had shortened, like a trail worn with use, the gates to his mind invitingly open.

He dreamed badly, too, full of the chaos of war and the stink of the dead and dying. Black and bloodred rivers ran through a smoking landscape, shrieks of agony in the air, that peculiar scent of disrupted human flesh and shattered hopes thick in his dreaming. Oneira couldn’t relieve him of those nightmares, no more than she could excise them from her own dreams, but she could create a place for him to exit them for a while. Grudgingly, she admitted to herself that she could not have accomplished this if Stearanos hadn’t insisted on learning those rudimentary techniques of oneiromancy.

Working methodically, in an effort both well within her expertise and also entirely new to her, she constructed a Dream version of a garden, a blend of her own and the one belonging to the ancient gardener. She filled it with Veredian roses, as she imagined them to look in full bloom, and set a table with honeyed tea and cookies. Casting a critical glance over her creation, she thought it looked perhaps too romantic. Certainly too much so for the conversation they needed to have.

And yet, she wouldn’t change it. She’d created it with loving intention and that manifested in the Dream.

Opening the garden gate, she extended a path to Stearanos, where he raged on a hillside over the endless sea of battle, naked and impotently flinging fireballs that immediately fizzled and became venomous serpents that turned on him, slithering up his legs, burying their fangs in his flesh. The path to her garden arced to him like a rainbow, radiating light and peace. Oneira sent Adsila to fly along it, just in case Stearanos doubted who invaded his dreams.

But he’d already leapt onto the bridge, running down the path and bursting into her garden, Adsila winging behind him. He raced to embrace her, stumbling when he passed through her and into a rosebush she quickly denuded of thorns. The dream roses couldn’t harm him, but he could feel pain and she’d spare him that as much as possible.

Stearanos recovered his balance and turned to her, holding out his arms in hope and bewilderment. “Oneira? It’s really you.”

“Yes, it’s me,” she answered, a giddy smile stretching lips that hadn’t moved out of their stoic set in far too long, absurd joy bubbling up in her.

“I dreamed of you so often,” he confessed, moving closer, “but I somehow knew it was only my own mind and never truly you. And yet, I still can’t touch you.” He passed a hand through her arm, disappointment creasing his brow.

“This is only a dream,” she reminded him. “I control it, but neither of us is physically present. Only Adsila is.”

“Since you control this dream,” Stearanos said, gesturing to his nudity, “could I have some clothes? It seems I’m always naked in my nightmares of war.”

“A dream metaphor for vulnerability,” she commented, clothing him in his typical style, resisting the urge to dress him in something according to her whimsy. This wasn’t a meeting for mischief. “Very common. Would you sit?”

He eyed the tea and cookies. “Can I?”

“The dream is as real as any you have on your own. Just as you eat and drink in dreams, or experience any sensation, it will be the same here.”

“Except for you,” he said with a half smile that looked more sad than anything. “I’ve dreamed of making love to you, Oneira, and that felt real.”

“But it wasn’t.” Her own sorrow rose up to meet his. “I am both more and less real than the Oneira in your dreams.”

“Thief of my heart,” he said softly, then sat at the table and ate a cookie. “Tastes like dust.”

She sat also. “I could make you experience a flavor, but that would be far more invasive than even this. I’m not comfortable manipulating the dreams of other people, as I think I’ve told you.”

He regarded her somberly. “So this is an excursion.”

“Yes.” She looked around at the lovely garden. “I’ve never done anything like this before, but I wanted this time with you to be… memorable, I suppose.”

“That sounds terribly final,” he said, going still.

“We’re at an impasse.” She spread her hands. “With the old king gone, your prince is now wearing the crown and is determined on conquest.”

Stearanos nodded, full of grim regret. “We have tried to talk sense into him, but…” He scrubbed his hands over his face, his skin aging into deeper lines, his dreaming self reflecting the weariness of his spirit. “My gambit failed. I failed you, Oneira. Hearing that you’d returned to Queen Zarja’s court only inflamed the prince. He is indeed determined. He is, perhaps, not entirely sane, seeming to believe that all the world exists only to serve him. I’m not sure he grasps that other people have lives and thoughts independent of him.”

“I’m sorry, Em.”

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