Page 110 of Whisper of Nightmares

Euphemia’s head bobs with understanding.

She does not voice it.

Does not dare to disturb anything in this place.

Emotion seeps into Kelda’s weary face. A shadow of grief hardens her features.

For once, the severe lines of Kelda’s face soften, and without the knife, the tattoos, or the hard set of her shoulders, Euphemia can almost see the woman she must have been before grief took hold.

Then she sniffs through one nostril and it’s gone.

Her blue eyes shine bright again as she says, “I thought I had tried just about everything, but Maryam tells me there’s a ritual in the west, a way of trapping bad dreams that she thinks could help wake him.”

Euphemia’s mind catches on the word dreams.

Not the ritual Kelda continues talking about.

The dreams.

It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore. And now that the thought has entered her head, she cannot understand how she failed to see it sooner.

Then again, she has barely been in Dagfinn’s presence at all. She has never seen his face until today. And what little time she has spent in Thorfell, she has been preoccupied with everything else happening around her.

Curiously, she looks down at Dagfinn, trying to imagine him with a skull for a face.

The man from her dreams.

The creature who follows her through Helheim.

The one who has saved her from monsters she could never have survived alone.

But also the man she currently hates.

The one who brought the nightmare into her life, watching from the shadows as it destroyed everything she ever loved.

Euphemia studies his face again.

It is impossible to reconcile this sleeping man with the beastly one who stalks her. There is no brimstone voice. No hollow eyes. No skull. Only a pale, beautiful face and a body that has now moved in months.

And yet…

The coincidence is too great to dismiss.

“—not that I’m doing any of that today, though,” Kelda continues, seemingly unaware of Euphemia’s temporary disappearance. “I don’t have the dream ward yet. Maryam is still working on getting one over here for me. Could take a few days. Could take a few months.”

Euphemia’s stomach twists.

Their eyes meet then, mutual understanding passing between them.

They do not have months.

They barely have days.

If Dagfinn is not at the town assembly by week’s end now, Percival has made it clear there may be no manor left for him to return to.

They need a way to wake Dagfinn up. And they need to do it quickly.

But Euphemia is no longer thinking only of the sleeping man in front of her.