Page 85 of Trials of Dusk and Dreams
“I . . . I guess I’m in Fox’s bed. As usual.”
Wait, how can Bodin’s Sluagh side be out? The whispers laugh at him. That cold dread on his face increases. We both realize our mistake at the same time: He’s not entering my dreamscape—I must be entering his. Or . . .
“Our dreamscapes have clashed!” I gasp.
“Impossible,” he grunts, shrewd eyes darting about, looking for answers.
I know I’m right. I feel it in my bones, in the tingling of magic crawling along my skin. I never noticed it before, but it’s there. And it’s different. Darker. Thicker. More pungent and lethal.
“Where did you fall asleep?” I ask Bodin. “In your bed or somewhere without a dream web?”
He doesn’t answer, but the horror dawning in his eyes tells me all I need to know. He’s not in his bed.
“Bodin,” I say, barely above a whisper, “Wake up.”
Come for me. Wake me up, too.
We lock eyes, and then he disappears, leaving me alone with the nightmare, its tendrils, its misty wisps locking around my wrists and stinging like regret.
The room seems to stretch and distort, and the walls melt like wax. The nightmare’s grip is ice-cold, seeping into my bones. The scent of fear—my own and remnants of Bodin’s—mingles with the pine and wine, creating a nauseating cocktail.
“You see?”the Echo Wraith hisses, its voice a chorus of every doubt I’ve had. “Even in dreams, you bring nothing but danger. You don’t belong anywhere—not in the waking world. Not in nightmares.”
I struggle against its hold, but the more I fight, the tighter it grips. The whispers grow louder, a roar of regrets and fears drowning out my thoughts.
“They’re all going to leave you.”
The wraith’s form shifts, becoming a mirror image of myself—but this version of me is covered in blood, eyes wild with the same feral hunger I felt when Nero commanded me to kill. It grins, revealing sharp teeth.“This is who you really are,”it taunts.“A killer. A monster. Just like Nero made you.”
“Bodin!” I scream, hoping against hope that he can still hear me. “Hurry!”
Chapter 35
Bodin
Ijolt awake, muscles coiled tight. Straw crackles beneath my palms, grounding me in reality.Where am I?A pitiful whine cuts through the darkness . . . followed by snuffling . . . heavy breathing. The pungent musk of horses and manure assaults my nostrils—the stables.
My gaze darts around the dim space, seeking familiar anchors. Heart hammering, I drink in each shadowy shape, desperate to prove this isn’t another nightmare. Inevitably, my gaze locks on the cage housing the Wild Hunt pup. Its liquid black eyes bore into mine as it whimpers, pleading for release.
The little bastard pissed all over Fox’s statue. But that’s not why I’ve imprisoned it. No, the real reason is far more terrifying.
Phantom echoes of a woman’s taunting voice slither through my mind:“You’ll always kill the fragile, beautiful things you long to covet, to keep, to treasure.”
Shame lances through me as I recall Willow witnessing my terror. The Echo Wraith barely had to scratch the surface to find my deepest fears. I’ve exiled myself here because those blood-soaked golden feathers morphed into crushed strands of moonlit silk in my last dream—Willow’s hair.
The memory of Styx’s words haunts me: I once killed a bird, a canary. But the visceral sensation lingers—the sickening give of delicate bones collapsing within my fist, the crunch that still echoes in my nightmares. The soul-crushing realization of what I’d done. Something so small, so fragile, so trusting . . . it must have been a cherished pet. There’s no other explanation.
In my desperation to possess that bright, beautiful thing, I destroyed it.
I scrub my face with a calloused hand, glowering at the caged pup. Its presence reminds me of my fear—that I might somehow hurt it, too. And if I did, how could Willow ever accept me?
A chill races down my spine. She’s alone in the castle, at the mercy of a nightmare made flesh. The Echo Wraith must have slithered through a nearby watergate, drawn by our fears like a moth to a flame.
In my misguided attempt to protect her by keeping my distance, I’ve left her defenseless.
Fool.
My mind races, grasping for a strategy. Two things weaken an Echo Wraith: strong social bonds make it harder to isolate its victim, and light. If only Willow had been safely ensconced in my bed . . . or Varen’s . . . or anyone’s. She’d have been overlooked.
