Page 20 of House of Gilded Nightmares

I jerk upright in bed, clawing at the air. It’s pitch black, and it takes me a moment to realize where I am. In my bed, in the inn. Not on a lake with a monster. My eyes move to Zyren, sitting in a chair in the corner, chin to chest. He jerks in his sleep.

I know why the boy in the nightmare looked so familiar. And with that realization, another: it was not my dream. It was Zyren’s.

Icy dread creeps through my veins. How did I enter the dream of another person? How is that even possible?

I try to slow my breathing as I recall it in my head, every detail. It had been so vivid, so brutal. Was the other boy in the dream his brother? They’d looked so much alike. Was it really even a dream, or was it a memory?

As I stare at Zyren through the dark of the room, he abruptly straightens and his eyes open. They lock onto mine, and we hold gazes for several long moments. I cannot tell from his expression if he knows I was there, in his head. He’s impassive as always, impenetrable in every way.

I break eye contact first, slipping back down beneath the sheets and turning away from him. Sleep does not find me again for many hours.

Chapter Eight

Dawn has not yet broken when I’m shaken awake. I punch upward as I rise from sleep, expecting monsters, but it’s only Zyren. And somehow, for the briefest of moments, I am relieved.

“It’s time to go,” he says gruffly. “Get dressed.”

My relief turns just as quickly to frustration. But then I remember something important: today, we get our horses. I’ll have a real chance of escaping.

I dress quickly. Zyren faces the other way as I get my clothes from behind the screen where I’d left them. He’s already gotten a small loaf of bread and several thick slices of cheese and fruit from the kitchen, which are sitting on the small table in the room. I wonder if he woke the innkeeper in a similar manner and hope for the poor man’s sake that he’d already been awake. The latter seems to be the case as the bread is warm from the oven.

The inn is quiet as we leave a short time later, few yet awake. When we step out into the misty streets of Yiltsa, the morning holds an icy chill, and I’m grateful I now have pants, a tunic, and a cloak rather than the thin white dress I wore before. As Zyren strides beside me, my mind flickers back to his dream from the night before. I’m still unsettled, both by the dream itself and the fact that somehow I entered it. I feel like an invader, yet I have no clue how to ensure it never happens again.

We cross the town square and turn down a narrow side street toward the stables. We’ve only taken a couple strides when I see several men step onto the street, coming toward us. When they fan out and block our path, my gaze darts to the man in the center, focusing on his face. It’s the man from the tavern the night before, the man Zyren threw into the street. My chest tightens.

Zyren’s arm moves out in front of me, blocking my forward momentum and placing himself between me and the men. He does not speak, though his eyes narrow and the tendons on the back of his hand flex. His head pivots just a moment before I hear footsteps approaching. Four more men enter the street behind us, blocking any chance of an exit.

“I don’t take kindly to disrespect in my town,” the drunkard snarls. In the light of day, he looks slightly more sober than the night before, but not by much. “You may be fae, but around here, I take what I want. You’d know better if you were from around here.”

I look over at Zyren, but he’s gone deadly quiet.

“Me and my crew are going to teach you a lesson,” the man continues. He leans slightly to the side, making a show of catching my eye around the bulk of Zyren’s body. “And then I’m going to teach quite a few lessons to your woman.”

Zyren does not so much as blink. He stands perfectly still as the men on either side of us charge. It’s the air around him that moves, or rather, the shadows.

There is a cracking sound directly overhead, as if the sky is splitting and a tempest breaking through. A roiling blackness surges in either direction, along with a shimmer of darkest purple. I feel a great rush of wind and pressure as if all the air has been sucked from my lungs. The storm-star taste of his magic rolls across my tongue.

I whirl to face the men rushing up behind us as Zyren continues to face the others. For some reason, my dream from the other night, the last one I had in Eldare, moves through my mind. When the monster attacked me, I fought it with a black blade. I wish I could be that dream version of myself now, that fearless, wild thing, but instead, my heart climbs into my mouth and my throat runs dry.

Two things happen next, at almost the same moment.

First, the rolling darkness Zyren summoned transforms. The shapeless black mist sharpens and becomes a throng of ravens, dozens upon dozens of them. Eyes of obsidian, beaks like daggers, wings that cut the air itself.

Second, I feel a weight in my hand and I look down to see that I do hold a black blade. One of the men lunges for me, diving beneath the cloud of ravens that assaults his comrades. I lift my blade as I fall into a defensive crouch. It connects with his abdomen at the same moment that Zyren spins and removes his head from his shoulders with his sword.

The rush of ravens circles us, a maelstrom of wings and magic, impaling our attackers. In less than a minute, Zyren and I are standing in a circle of bodies on the street. His magic swirls, the ravens spiraling upward and disappearing into the tear in the sky. With a final flash of purple light, they are gone as if they were never there at all.

The shaking begins almost immediately.

“Dark goddess,” I murmur, blinking as I look around. My fingers tremble so hard I nearly drop my dagger. “I killed him.”

“He fell on your blade. A fate of his own creation,” Zyren says.

“I-I killed—” My teeth are chattering now, too.

Strong hands grip my shoulders and Zyren pins me in his gaze. “You killed no one. I am the one who took his head.”

His tone is firm but holds a softness that pulls me from my shock. My shaking stops. Zyren’s eyes travel down my body to the hand holding the knife. They widen as they take it in.

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