Page 5 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

He had watched her marry. He had stood in the crowd and watched a tall male leap between two moving carriages to reach her, then carry her up the palace steps despite her laughing protests. He had watched the two of them face each other and pledge themselves for eternity and beyond. He had watched it all from the crowd, and he had ached so badly that the ache was still in him now.

So why was she here, holding his hand?

He was dreaming again.

She spoke then, her voice familiar and beautiful.

It did something to him he could not describe, because he had no words for it. Everything in his body loosened, and all the aches faded. She spoke gently, precisely, and he should have understood her, because he had in the dream, but now her words washed over him more like a melody than meaning.

He knew that tune.

He knew it better than he knew her face.

The voice belonged to the one who had told the story, and the face belonged to the bride the story was about.

How could she do both? How could a person be in two places at once and tell a story while being part of it?

Nothing made sense, so it had to be a dream. He was either still under or he had climbed out into another layer, and the woman had followed him from one dream into the next.

That was almost comforting.

He tried to ask her why she was following him, why she was a constant in his dreams. He shaped the question with his mouth, but nothing came out.

He tried again, harder, and felt his throat working, felt the air moving through it, and still there was nothing, no sound at all.

Fear washed over him.

Somewhere off to the side, something began to make a noise, a rapid, insistent chirping that had not been there before. He did not know what it was, and it frightened him even more.

Another woman came, on the other side of the bed. Her hair was a darker shade of flame, and she spoke, but her words were just strange sounds arranged in a pattern that seemed like a language yet meant nothing. Her tone was kind, reassuring, and he understood that she was trying to tell him not to be afraid.

When she was done speaking, he looked at the one holding his hand. She spoke again, and hers was the voice that mattered, the voice he wanted to hear.

She leaned so close that her hair swung forward and brushed the blanket.

He watched her mouth shape words, and the sounds formed a familiar pattern, but he still could not make sense of them. The meaning slid past him and was gone, leaving only fragments.

There was so much kindness in her eyes, love even, but why would she look at him lovingly?

He was no one to her. She was the bride from the story, and her groom was the tall, handsome male in fine clothing and a big smile, who thought he was the luckiest male in the world.

He had envied that groom in the dream, and the dream had decided to be kind, giving him a tender moment with the beautiful bride. Dreams did that sometimes. He did not know how he knew that either.

She kept speaking. He kept watching her mouth, chasing the sounds, and one sound came around again and again, the same shape, offered to him each time with the same weight.

Khiann.

She said it and waited. Said it and waited. As if it were supposed to mean something to him.

He had heard that sound before.

Khiann, son of Yaeni and Navohn.

It had been the groom's name. The voice had said that name in the story when the bride had put a ring on the groom's finger and pledged herself to him for eternity and beyond.

Why was she giving him the prince's name?

Now he was certain he had been dreaming this whole time.