Page 19 of Hearts Lost

ALOSERIN

ANOTHER NIGHTMARE

It’s another nightmare.

I freeze, trying the trick my nursemaid taught me all those years ago when we lived in the Worlds Above and the coin-shaped fire in the sky filled our lives with warmth and light. I’m in a nightmare, I tell my frantic, racing brain. I’m in a nightmare. I’m in a nightmare. I hold my breath, waiting for the ringing bell that always threads through my nightmares.

But the bell doesn’t come. I let my breath out in a low, slow stream. This is a very strange nightmare. There’s something dark above me that almost looks like cloth. Slowly, I turn my head to the side. Grass tickles my cheek. Blue grass. A field of blue grass beneath a violet sky.

Cold fear washes over my arms and legs.

“It’s a nightmare,” I whisper.

I close my eyes and listen to the thud of my heart and the hiss of my breathing. Something is still tickling my cheek. I frown, then raise my hand to brush it away. It feels like grass. Very slowly, I ease my eyes back open. Blue grass waves in the field before me, bowing beneath the violet sky.

Voids, no! I slam my eyes shut as fear spikes inside my chest, making my heart jump.

“Nightmare,” I whisper. “Nightmare.”

I’m at home, in the palace. I’m in my own bed, not in my parent’s estate. Not in a damn field. I force myself to remember taking off my boots and my cloak. I remember—

No. No, in fact, I don’t remember taking off my boots. Or my cloak. I remember standing outside the Crystal City’s teleportation hub, watching the king’s magicians set up their equipment and trying to think of an excuse to get out of the summons I’d just received to join my parents at their estate this evening. I remember telling that strange woman, that spy the Royal Guard had been following for the past two weeks, that I was planning on standing outside of the teleportation stones. I remember—

I frown. Light like an explosion shatters my memories, a blinding white light surging from inside the teleportation hub, something cruel and magical that looked and felt and even smelled wrong. I remember fear pulling low and tight in my gut even as I leaned forward to run toward them, to help because something had so clearly gone horribly wrong, and then I remember seeing something else, something dark and twisted rearing to life inside the teleportation hub, closing over the figures inside. And then a punch to the chest, something solid and merciless that lifted me and shoved me backward like a bolt shot from a crossbow.

I open my eyes. Not a nightmare, then. It’s not a nightmare, and there really is something strung above me, something dark and soft and oddly familiar. I squint at the fabric.

Yes. It’s my cloak. Someone suspended my cloak over me, but why? Another cold tremor ripples through my body. Who? Who would have done this?

I turn my head away from the familiar indigo of my Royal Guard cloak, knowing what I’ll see. Still, the blue grass and violet sky make my mouth go dry as fear curls inside of me. Voids below, how many times have I heard this place described? How many paintings have I seen of this exact scene? I remember the blue grass blades pressed between glass at my parents’ estate, one of the gems of their extensive collection, and I try to swallow the fear climbing up the inside of my throat.

Sound threads through the air, something low and soft. My muscles pull tight. I hold my breath. That sound came from somewhere behind me. Slowly, and as quietly as I can manage, I run my hands down my chest.

My weapons are gone. Fear winds through me like a silver thread, pulling me taut. My weapons are gone, and my cloak is off. Voids, I’m only in my undershirt and my pants. I pull in a low, soft breath. I could have frozen to death.

Except the air here is thick and damp and almost stiflingly hot. I’m truly not in the Outer Ring, then. Hells, I’m probably not even in the palace; it’s hotter than the Crystal City here. Still, who would have taken my weapons? And why?

That sound comes again, light and airy. Fear squeezes the breath from my lungs. That’s a voice, and it’s getting closer. I press my head to the ground and peer through the undulating stalks of blue grass. There’s a line of trees beyond the grass; of course, they’re the strange, pale, serpent trees I was expecting.

And there’s also a woman.

She’s close, this woman, and something about her tugs on my memory. Ah, yes. She’s the spy King Grathgore sent with Princess Elanerill. The spy I’ve been watching. The strange purple light glints off something metallic at her waist.

My dagger. Of course, she has my dagger. Fear travels up the back of my neck, as cold as ice despite the hot, heavy warmth of the air around me. She’s disarmed me and, voids, she’s undressed me as well. What in the nine hells is she up to?

I hold my breath as the woman, Ithronel, turns slightly toward the trees. She’s talking, although whether she’s talking to herself or to some other person I can’t tell. She shifts her hips in a way that’s irritatingly distracting and then reaches one bare arm up toward the trees.

Something in the forest shifts in return. My blood freezes in my veins.

There’s a shadow in the woods, something massive and darker than my wildest nightmares. Screaming voids below, I’ve heard hundreds of descriptions of these things. I’ve seen paintings and sketches of them that looked like the delusions of a madman.

This is worse than all of them. It’s worse than a nightmare.

The monster pulls closer to Ithronel’s upraised hand, moving through the trees, flowing around and obscuring them like a river of ink. Stars save me, it’s almost as tall as those pale, twisting trees. It’s towering over the woman from the Kingdom of the Summer.

And she’s not moving. Ithronel just stands there, beside the trees, one arm raised toward the violet sky as the massive void beast slides closer to her, moving like smoke, its body like a screaming, shifting hole punched through reality. Time slows, as it does in a battle, and suddenly this nightmare world breaks into brilliant, painful clarity.

She doesn’t know. Ithronel has no idea what she faces or what these monsters can do. I picture black tendrils of void-touch covering a corpse, leaking like a spreading ink stain over pale blue-tinged skin, and then I’m on my feet and exploding out of the grass before my mind can catch up to my muscles.