The Dream Walker

Chapter 4: Commands and Carriages

In the blink of an eye, two weeks passed. The same routine as before occupied my days, but it was accompanied with many more smiles. Three days after the first raid, Dailon had spotted another camped in the forest. An attack never came, but instead came groveling warriors begging for a young woman named Nadayah to bestow upon them her forgiveness.

An identical instance came another three days later, then the raids stopped all together. Was I naïve enough to believe a few abandoned raids were enough to end their tyranny over Misery? If I were being honest, I was. I believed Dailon and I sat atop the world.

Afterwards, I felt much more comfortable ordering Dailon around. Initially, his snark had left me hesitant to give any of the silly little commands I had lined up. "Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go," he'd repeated incessantly in my ear the second night. He had tried to fly as far away as he could, but no matter the distance between us, apparently one little call from me would pull him back.

When one week had passed, though Dailon only ever scowled at me like a malnourished dog in a corner, he stopped trying to be set free. It was a bizarre switch, honestly. A night came and went, and all of a sudden his mouth had shut.

None would find me complaining, though. That night, I commanded he visit the dreams of Fyorda Will, the only man in Misery I saw as worth my time. His golden hair matched the sun and his blue eyes were like a rare gemstone. "Just go take a look around," I'd told Dailon. "And maybe, oh, I don't know, put in a good word for me while you're there?"

He had grunted. "Anything else, mistress?"

Despite his defeat, he hadn't lost his annoying playfulness. My cheeks couldn't help but turn red anytime he called me that, especially when mama was present. "Stop calling me that, I mean it. That's, uh, that's an order."

"Then what shall I call you? My lady? Pain in my ass?"

When a chuckle betrayed me, my new name became 'pain in my ass'. Any command I gave, his response was, "Yes, my lovely pain in the ass." At least I was lovely.

Before we knew it, that one week had slipped into two. Sure, Fyorda and I spoke much more often, and he always visited the tavern, but I thought my life would have changed much more drastically than it had. We had a smidgen of extra money after I sent Dailon one night to convince the other citizens to buy our greenberries, but the day following we had attained too much suspicion. Mama and I were still housed in that old, stupid hut, we still worked every morning, and while I still worked the tavern, mama still completed the chores around the house.

That is, until mama and I noticed an unusual clamor rising from Misery as we picked our greenberries one morning. Something in the marketplace was reflecting the sun, a stunningly-polished wooden carriage standing out like a diamond among dirt. The citizens swarmed it, never having seen any vehicle with a roof. Well, aside from Josa allegedly.

As we ended the foraging early and traveling into the heart of Misery, I gulped as the crowd parted for us. All eyes were adhered to us, then. Finally we reached the carriage. Two people, lavishly garbed, pushed off the carriage, trimmed with gold. The woman wore iron armor, clanking with her every move. She held her between her hip and her wrist, and in the other hand a broadsword hung limply, dragging through the grass. The man, meanwhile, wore a high-collared silk tunic with trousers only slightly darker. It wasn't the attire that shocked me most, though.

The woman looked like no one I had ever seen: the color of her skin lie somewhere between mine and the rest of Misery. Her black hair was tied atop her head. The man, though, caused my breath halt in my throat.

He looked just like me and mama.

Both had dark eyes, and each set was trained on me. "Nadayah Sonskyn, I take it?" the man asked, his voice far deeper than any I'd heard before. Afraid to even nod in his presence, I only stared back with a flapping jaw. Mama aided me. "She is. What is the meaning of this?"