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The sweet memories stoke my fears about Valerian fighting the Overtaken in the waking world. With effort, I shake it off. I have to believe he can handle himself—and that Asha and I will be able to defeat Phobetor in time.
Young Valerian chases the young me all the way to the garden.
Asha and Kojo soon show up as well, and we play a Soma version of tag until the memory terminates.
This is it.
In this sped-up memory, Asha and I are in the dream world, in her childhood version of the memory gallery.
“Two as one, remember?” young me says to Asha with a small pout. “You and Kojo ran away for a whole hour. I want to know what happened.”
I remember what’s about to happen, and stagger as if from a blow. “We’re so pucked,” I say in horror as everything to do with the game clicks back into place.
Young Asha creates a painting so that the young me can leap into it.
“This is all there is to that game,” I say to the wide-eyed grown Asha. “We made a pact to share every single breath with each other, so when circumstances tore us apart for a few minutes, we’d create the memory of what the other missed.” As I say the words, dozens of super-cute memories of Asha’s experience paintings replay in front of my mind: her playing doctor with Kojo, her getting a stubbed toe healed in the medical bay, and on and on.
Grown Asha’s face blanches. “How can this help us with Phobetor?”
“It can’t.” I look at her mournfully. “This is the game our family heard about—and it has nothing at all to do with the god of nightmares.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Asha’s eyes are enormous. “But the prophecy—”
“Must be about someone else. Or ‘Two as One’ means something else that we didn’t discover.”
The memory of the game terminates, and the ones that follow are too fast to register. I don’t need them, though. I remember everything. In a way, locking away my childhood preserved the memories for me. Usually, people remember only bits and pieces of theirs, but I recall it all. It just doesn’t help with our predicament.
Still, if we survive, I intend to enjoy savoring each memory, finding a place for them in my palace. Then again, surviving is a big if—
Asha and I are back in my dream palace lobby.
The bullseye in the middle of the target in the ceiling is no longer black.
“Should I unlock yours?” I gesture up.
“Later,” she says. “After we make sure there is a later.”
“Smart. Do you have any semblance of a plan?”
She begins to pace. “Some of our selves have reached Phobetor. Why don’t we have those selves become singletons once again? This way, we’ll be near him, and with our powers intact.”
“But the monsters will tear us to shreds,” I say.
“We’ll recreate our constructs and have them protect us. Hopefully they’ll last long enough for us to do the next part.”
I arch an eyebrow. “And that is?”
“We attempt to become a single being again,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone. “That has to be what the prophecy was about.”
“You mean that technique we tried during the training? We failed at it, remember?”
“We’re more motivated now,” she says grimly. “And have more emotions we can channel into it as well.”
That last bit is true. If emotions were electricity, I could power a small town with mine.
“Hold on,” I say. “The last time we tried that trick, we got insanely tired.”
“I know.” She scrubs a hand over her face. “It could be our last move. Do you have a better idea?”
I shake my head.
“Then let’s do it. Remember, start with the molecule trick you used to grow big, then tell your molecules to mix with mine as we hug.”
“Got it,” I say and teleport back to the battlefield.
Asha joins me in a second.
As Dad had warned us, teleporting back here puts us at the edge farthest from Phobetor.
But that is only true for these versions of us.
In the far distance, millions of others are much closer to the looming target, and two of us are exactly where they need to be.
“Time to make some of ourselves disappear,” Asha says and poofs out of existence next to me.
This version of me does the same thing, as does one that’s just finished killing an extra-large tardigrade. Same for a nearby me who’s just beheaded a nail-swordsman.
Millions of poofs later, only one of me and Asha remain—the ones closest to Phobetor.
My full dream power is coursing through me now, no longer used up by the multibody technique.
“We need to stall the creatures,” my sister shouts. “Quick!”
The creatures in question turn our way and prepare to attack en masse.
Channeling the pleasant emotions from the memories I’ve just recovered, I recreate every single one of my dream constructs in one giant use of power, bringing back both fictional characters and people I know in real life.
