Page 52 of Dream Reaper

Everywhere she turned, monsters rose out of the shadows. Spiders with long legs. Wolves with sharp teeth. Wyrms with mighty tails and bulging eyes.

She woke often, rolling over only to fall almost immediately back to sleep, back into the nightmares.

She wandered the Shadewood in her dreams, looking for Echo and Jerrid. She even called out for Dragon in her delirium, but no one responded.

She was alone, cut off, with only the black trunks of the trees to keep her company. Even the wind had abandoned her, the air thick and heavy and lifeless. The forest felt unnaturally still, completely void of birdsong and insect activity. The only sound she could hear was her own heavy breathing.

Even the leaves were silent beneath her feet.

Her breathing quickened as she tried to break into a run, but the invisible ground seemed to tug at her ankles, as if she were trying to wade through thick sludge. She yanked her feet forward, one after another, but her progress grew slower, more difficult.

Was the forest trying to swallow her alive?

Panic rose in the pit of her stomach, blossoming and expanding to invade her chest and then the back of her throat. She feared she might choke on it, on this nameless fear.

Was this what the nightmares had been like for her prince?

She recalled his screams in the middle of the night, when even the sand healer from the Dunewatch struggled to wake him and keep him calm. That was how she felt—like screaming. It rose in the back of her throat. She tried to hold it in, but it choked her.

At last, it tore out of her throat as she stumbled forward onto all fours in black shadow. She crawled forward, but now the invisible sludge pulled at her hands, reaching up her arms, to her shoulders, to her throat⁠—

I’ve found you, little elf, a ragged, coarse voice whispered through the mist and shadow.

It echoed around her as if they were alone together in a cavern and not in the woods. In that moment, she realized that the trees had indeed disappeared, leaving her in empty, impenetrable darkness.

Yes, I can see you.

Laughter rolled over her, not amused, but dark and cruel. Laughter meant to pierce. To hurt. To wound.

The monster wanted her to be afraid.

Tears streamed down her face, and her chest tightened, lungs aching for air. She needed to breathe. She needed air—now!

Clawing at her throat, she searched for an invisible hand trying to strangle her, but there was nothing there. Her fingernails clawed at her own skin, tearing into her own flesh, and yet her windpipe continued to constrict. Tightening, tightening. Oh flames, she needed to breathe!

Beg for air.

She would have, if she had enough breath left in her lungs to form words. The invisible hands tightened around her, now pulling her wrists away from her throat. She arched backward, blind instinct taking over, but she found no relief. She was going to die.

She realized it then.

Just as she realized this was real. It wasn’t a dream. There was no waking up from this nightmare. The invisible darkness choking the life from her was somehow real.

Killing her.

Killing…

If only she had a blade to stab out at the darkness. She pulled her hand back, imagining the weapon in her grip, and she plunged down the make-believe blade in one final, desperate attempt to free herself. Heat unlike anything she had ever known—blazing, blue heat—exploded around her.

A scream echoed through her brain.

The darkness recoiled, laughing, and vanished. Like a puff of smoke in the wind, it disappeared, carried away on waves of mirthless laughter. Ava opened her eyes, and firelight painted the trees above her. She choked in a breath, a desperate and wild one.

It felt like bliss in her lungs as they expanded to welcome the life-giving air.

Something beside her writhed.

Panic surged anew as she rolled away and scrambled to her knees, ready to flee…