Page 64 of Dream Reaper

“You mean, the reason it has been visiting everyone in their dreams…is because it’s looking for a new host?”

She winced but nodded. “And I suspect the connection between you and Dragon has made you vulnerable to him. I think he can visit you while you’re awake because one of you is always, well, kind of asleep. In a state of partial unwakefulness. When you go to the…other place in your mind. Wherever it is you go.”

“Darkness,” he said grimly, his thumb grazing along her jawline. “We go into darkness.”

A chilly feeling washed over her, settling in the pit of her stomach like an icy rock as she imagined them being trapped in this other place, this prison in their mind.

A prison they themselves had created.

“I don’t think it’s going to go away,” Jerrid said as he shifted his right hand down her neck to rest on the curve of her shoulder. “It feels…content. In a totally malevolent, mean sort of way.”

She flicked her eyes closed briefly. “Then Prince Haryk’s nightmare creature has found a new host.”

“Yes,” he said grimly, his hand squeezing her shoulder tightly, “I believe it has.”

CHAPTER 16

JERRID

Footsteps thudded toward them, loud against the ground.

Ava flinched away from him, and Jerrid hugged his blanket tightly as he turned to a red-faced Brynja. The girl’s arms swung angrily at her sides.

“Where is she?” she demanded. “One of the girls is missing. Why has this thing suddenly attacked? Before, it just harassed our dreams, but then you show up, and suddenly monsters are being spewed all over the place. Where did it take her?”

Jerrid eased to his feet, weariness tugging at his limbs. “When was she last seen?”

Brynja glared at him as she shrugged one thin shoulder. “How should I know? I’ve been running around the forest with you being chased by giant wyrms.”

“It was only one giant wyrm and a baby one,” he reminded her, rather curtly. “And if you remember, I was the one who dispatched it for you.”

She snorted. “Your dragon did, you mean. But what about Ylsi?”

Cold fingers touched Jerrid’s clenched fist, and Roar’s eager face peered up at him.

“I saw her!” he said, bobbing up and down on his toes. “She went that way, into the forest. While everyone was screaming and carrying on, she ran into the woods! And shades and salamanders, was she fast! She shot off like an arrow blasted from a bow⁠—”

“Roar,” his mother snapped, approaching from behind. “Leave them alone and come back to your bed.”

“Aw, Mum, I want to help find Ylsi. There might be another wyrm to battle. I have my knife. I could hack its legs off while the dragon eats it whole.” He made a stabbing motion with an invisible blade. “Or I could stab out its eyes⁠—”

“Thank you for the offer,” Jerrid interrupted, the pain in his temple pounding, pounding, pounding. “But your mum is right. You need to stay here. I’ll go find the girl.”

He didn’t know why, but he felt like it was his fault she was missing. Was it as Brynja had said? Had they brought the monster from Eroth and set it loose on the human camp?

Or had it already fled to the north to lick its wounds, and had it been an unfortunate coincidence that Jerrid and Ava just happened to stumble in the same direction?

Not coincidence.

Dragon’s voice was barely a whisper in the back of his mind, and it sounded strained.

Behind him, Ava cleared her throat. “You, um, need to find some more clothes.”

Shades. He’d forgotten about that already. He hugged his blanket a little tighter and looked helplessly around the camp.

“At the rate you’re going,” Brynja muttered dryly, “we’re all going to be naked before the week’s out. Which defeats the purpose of trying to keep you covered, because then we’d all be in the same boat. We can’t keep giving you clothes just for you to rip them apart ten minutes later.”

His face flushed hot.