Page 21 of House of Gilded Nightmares

“Where did you get that? That is no ordinary blade.”

I shake my head. “I-I don’t know. I just remembered it from a dream, and then…” I can’t explain it, and I know I sound crazy.

“You’re saying you summoned it from a dream?”

His brow wrinkles, and I nod.

Zyren looks like he’s about to say something more, but then he steps away from me. “We need to get out of here. Come on.”

I don’t argue. I want to get out of this town, as far away from the violence we’d just wrought, and the strange dreams, and the even stranger manifestation of an object from one of my dreams. This place seems to hold nothing but peril. A numbness creeps over me and I let it, trying not to look at the bodies of our attackers as we step over them and continue to the stable. I don’t know what to feel right now, and I can’t afford to dwell on it.

A quarter-hour later, we’re mounted up on our new horses and riding out of town. We have water skins and small satchels packed with bread, hard biscuits, cheese, and a bit of grain for the horses. I’ve tucked the dagger into my boot. Instead of the cool kiss of steel, it gives off a slight radiant heat. I try to shove it from my mind as we pick up a gallop and head for the mountains. Their peaks are all I can see, all the way to the horizon.

Somewhere in those mountains is my chance to escape. And when I do, I’m going to make sure that no one traps me in a life I did not choose. Not ever again.

I spend the day getting a feel for my black mare, how well she steers, how fast she can turn, and the length of her stride. I observe the same characteristics in Zyren’s horse as well. Once we get back into the mountains, there are fewer places we can move at speed, but the occasional valley or pass offers a chance to pick up the pace. The mare came with the name Tildy, but I decide to call her Arrow instead because she’s so fast.

We don’t gallop the horses full out, but at a controlled canter my mare can easily keep pace with Zyren’s chestnut gelding, even though he’s a full hand taller. He’s bulkier, too, not quite as nimble as my mount. I’m not sure we could outrun them in a straight line. But in a place with lots of turns, we definitely have the advantage.

It’s late afternoon when the perfect opportunity presents itself. We enter an area between high peaks cut by not one pass but many. It’s as if a great bolt of lightning struck the earth and splintered it, creating a maze of narrow canyons for at least a mile. Each has high, steep walls, and most aren’t big enough to ride side-by-side.

I don’t know what I’m going to do after I lose Zyren or how I’m going to find my way through the mountains alone. But I’m not going to willingly marry some king I know nothing about. I must do something. If I hadn’t just succumbed to my fate before, if I’d left the Amethyst Palace after being Chosen, none of this would have happened.

My heart races and my hands grow sweaty on the reins as we travel through the spiderweb of canyons. I wait until we’re deep within them, Zyren in the lead, before I turn Arrow on her hindquarters and kick her into a gallop in the opposite direction. Wind tears at my hair and her mane flies into my face as I lay low along her neck. I turn her down the next branch in the canyon and she switches paths nimbly, without slowing at all. I don’t dare look back to see how close Zyren is.

Holding the reins tightly, I turn her down another side canyon, then another, taking as many splits in the path as I can to lose Zyren in the maze. There’s no way his horse can handle the turns at the same speed as Arrow, so he’ll be losing ground each time. After taking several quick turns, I push her for all she’s got down a long stretch of canyon. I finally risk a glance over my shoulder about halfway down. I see Zyren’s gelding lunge out of one of the side branches and start after us, but we have a substantial lead.

The path we’re on is ending, branching left and right. I steer Arrow to the right, then down another path to the left, then right again. Zyren is still far behind. He can’t possibly guess which route we took since he doesn’t have a clear line of sight. My heart begins to race even faster than the mare galloping beneath me. I might actually pull this off.

I continue zigzagging through the valley, making quickfire decisions at each branch in the path. Arrow’s breath becomes labored but her ears are still alert. She’s as exhilarated as I am. We continue cutting through the canyons until, abruptly, the maze ends and the valley opens back up again. There’s a huge lake stretching down one side, a fringe of forest hugging the shore and climbing up the side of the mountain next to it.

There’s no time to waste debating my next course of action. I lean even lower to Arrow’s neck and point her for the forest. Hiding in its depths seems the best option. I have to hope I reach the trees before Zyren makes it out of the canyons. Wind rips past me as Arrow flies across the open space for the forest a short distance ahead.

We plunge into the dense trees, the soil beneath Arrow’s hooves changing from silt to loam, the daylight fading to shadow like a curtain dropped. The earth slopes steeply uphill, so our gallop slows to a canter. Arrow weaves between the branches, their soft evergreen needles brushing her flanks and my cheeks. We startle a bird from its perch and my heart rockets as it soars upward. But it doesn’t break through the canopy of the forest and reveal our location. It merely flies to another branch. I’m forced to slow Arrow to a trot as the incline grows even steeper. I begin to cut across the side of the mountain rather than up it. Glancing over my shoulder, I see nothing but trees.

After a quarter hour, Arrow begins flagging, her head drooping and her chest flecked with foam from her mouth. I don’t want to injure her, so I bring her to a walk to cool off. The forest is silent and still, her hoofbeats in the soft soil the only thing I hear. An hour passes, and then two. I’ve actually done it. I’m free.

Which means now I have to figure out how to get out of these mountains and back to my own realm.

Daylight begins to fade an hour later, and when it dies completely, I get off Arrow and lead her. I know we have to stop at some point, but I want to push on for as long as I can. If Zyren finds me again after all this…

But a half hour later, when I slide down into a gulley, saved only by my hold on Arrow’s reins, I finally concede we have to stop for the night. Only the tiniest glimmer of moonlight breaks through the tree cover overhead, and if I continue like this, I’m going to end up breaking either my leg, or Arrow’s. I backtrack away from the gulley that tried to claim me and find a space between several large trees and a boulder. It seems as good a place as any to rest for the night. Not that I’ve ever slept in a forest before.

I leave Arrow’s saddle and bridle on in case we need to leave quickly, though I loosen her girth a bit so she doesn’t have to sleep with a tight band around her belly. I give her most of the water from my skin and some of the grain also. She needs more water, as do I, but that will have to wait until morning. Hopefully, we can find a creek once we have light. There may even be one down in that gulley I nearly fell in. My stomach rumbles in protest and I eat the last of my cheese, along with a small amount of the bread in my satchel. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to restock my food, so I need the bread to stretch out.

Arrow rubs her head against me and I give her a good scratch underneath the straps of her bridle and her sweaty forelock before tying her reins to one of the nearby branches. Then I settle myself on the ground, leaning back against one of the trees next to her. In the stillness, I finally have a chance to absorb everything that’s happened. Night wraps around me, velvety and cool, and the hum of crickets fills the air.

What I’m doing, alone in the wilderness with only a fool’s hope of getting help, is reckless and nearly certainly doomed to failure. But for the first time in my life, I am choosing my own destiny. And as scared as I am, there’s also something about all of this that feels strangely…right. I don’t know why, and it feels dangerous to even admit it to myself, but here in the darkness, the truth of it shivers within me.

I sit with that wild truth, breathing in the scent of moss and tree bark, until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

Chapter Nine

It does not surprise me when Zyren finds me in my dreams. I’d expected nothing less, considering he’d visited me every night for countless years.

We meet in a field of roiling mist. He can’t see where I am, and I can’t see his location, either. He says nothing at first, just watching me with those silver eyes.

There are a lot of things I want to say to him, but what comes out of my mouth is something entirely different. “Why didn’t you speak to me? All those years visiting my dreams, and you never said a word. Not until the night of the Choosing.”

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