Page 11 of Nightmare's Dance

I practically leaped out of the cell, as much as my legs—still tingling with pins and needles—would let me.

The dog creatures stood, quiet growls rumbling in their throats. I scooted away from them, hurrying after the guard when he turned and strode down the hallway. The dogs followed, and I imagined I could feel their hot pants on the back of my thighs. I couldn’t, however, smell their breath.

We wound through narrow gray stone hallways. The initial surge of adrenalin faded, and my steps dragged, exhaustion tugging at my limbs and warring with fear for dominance in my body. I ached to have my knight at my side. Not knowing what had happened to him was worse than not knowing what was going on.

The hallway ended in a narrow stairway that seemed vaguely familiar, and I mentally tried to prepare myself for a long climb. My guard went up ahead of me and the dogs trailed behind, not able to go side by side in the narrow space. The ceiling was barely tall enough for the guard to walk upright. I could easily touch it if I wanted to put my arms over my head.

Worn valleys in the middle of the slick stone tripped up my feet, and I almost rolled my ankle. Falling was one of my bigger nightmares, ironic for an aerialist. Trembling with fear, I practically wept with joy when the guard pushed open a door set in the wall to the side of the stairs and ducked to step up through it. There was no landing, just continuous stairs upward and this door that allowed escape from the terror of a staircase.

The narrow hallway we squeezed through opened into another excessively gray corridor. This one was much larger, however.

I still couldn’t tell where the light came from. It was about as bright as a full moon on a snowy landscape, except there was no obvious source of illumination. The shadowy fog was especially prevalent, cloaking the ceiling in mystery and shifting through the deep corners where there would normally be actual shadows.

Another door led into a bigger hall. This one, finally, had some color. A red runner down the middle, which my guide avoided walking on. Feeling contrary, I took to the center of the hall, and my feet sank into the thick carpet. It felt like some of my color bled back into me with the addition of the red to the landscape. My multi-colored sweater looked less gray, and the red in my yoga pants seemed to perk up. My skin no longer was a sickly gray, and the dried scab on my knee looked normal instead of washed out.

This was weird as fuck, not gonna lie, like I was in my own personal nightmare.

The dogs had no hesitation about following me onto the runner, but my guide continued to walk on the bare stone. Up ahead, more guards lined the walls. They all looked similar to the one who led me, though some were more female in appearance. Their skin tones ranged from chalky to black and every shade of gray in between. They were clearly not human.

They all held some sort of weapon and stood at attention, unnaturally still. I saw their eyes flick toward me then straight ahead, though they could almost have been decorations. So creepy. They all had flat gray eyes that reminded me distantly of Geraint’s. His were anything but flat, however. No, his stormy gray eyes were full of vibrant life.

My skin crawled, and I pressed my hands against my stomach, though not too tightly, as I really had to pee.

Two of the weird not-human guards stood at a set of large doors at the end of the hallway. These also had color, a rich brown, banded with straps that looked iron. The guards dragged open the doors, and my guide walked through. I followed since the dog creatures still pressured me from behind.

We entered some sort of chamber where the only place to sit in the entire room other than the floor was a throne sitting on an elevated stage. Three other thrones still sat on the dais but lay knocked onto their sides. The room itself was the same unrelieved shades of gray with shadow lurking everywhere. Stone pillars lined the hall, but nothing adorned the walls. Rich red fabric padded the standing throne, contrasting with the dark wood. I wouldn’t be surprised if the others were similar.

Interesting.

“Kneel here.” The guard pointed to a spot in front of the empty stage.

I stood where the guard had said to kneel. He stared at me impassively. I glared back.

“Stand down. She’ll be on her knees soon enough,” a deeply resonant voice said, approaching from the side.

Anger pushed away my fear. What a fucking dick thing to say. Aware that I was in a precarious position, I kept my mouth shut, but I wanted to give whoever spoke a piece of my mind.

“Your Highness.” My guard bowed and stepped away. The dog creatures went with him, leaving me alone in the middle of the room while the owner of the offensive words came toward me.

If I didn’t already hate this Baz guy, I’d have found him very handsome. The normalcy of his appearance contrasted sharply with all the gray-scale people. He had rich mahogany brown skin and short-cropped black hair. He was taller than me by several inches, broad shouldered, and had a fantastic voice. The only thing odd about this guy were his gray eyes. Did everyone here have gray eyes? Unlike the guards’ his were not flat gray and contained depths of life. The cruel smile on his face stole any warmth I might have felt toward someone who at least looked human. He dressed in a black suit with crisp lines and a deep red tie over a black dress shirt. Not a lot of color, but the tie stood out after all the gray.

“Hello, Princess,” the guy said.

I glared. “Where the hell am I?”

He turned, hands clasped behind his back, and stalked around me, studying me. “You, my dear, are now in the Dream Realm, and here you will remain.”

“No, I won’t,” I replied firmly. “I will go home, and where is Geraint? He’s going home with me.”

Baz—this had to be the Prince Baz asshole the guard had mentioned—chuckled. “You’re a mortal, and you’ve come to Dream. You’re bound to this realm now.”

I wanted to argue, but much like with his name, a fragment of a memory tickled at me. I wanted to brush the feathery feeling away from my mind, but it wasn’t a physical thing to push away. Something about what he was saying reminded me of a story from my childhood. What? I had no idea.

“We are looking for our princess. Perhaps you are she?” He seemed to ask me to confirm I was this princess, but something told me there wasn’t going to be a fairytale ending if I was, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Time will tell. Until then, you’ll entertain us.”

“What?” I blurted out.

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