A Sacrifice of Names

Chapter 24

Everything around me was dark as I opened my eyes. I had grown used to it. I no longer feared it. My dreams remained vague. Sometimes I saw memories from home, sometimes he was there.

I preferred seeing him over the fading faces of my housemates, even my parents.

Something did feel different this time, however. I had offered Keely to come with her. It was perhaps the only way I could pay her back for the things she had done for me over the past few weeks, months? I shook my head and tried to look down at my hands. Time felt so surreal in this place, wherever I was.

The shackles around my wrists and ankles had returned. I knew this dream. When I first had this dream it had frightened me to the bone. Now the darkness embraced me as if I was an old friend. No, as if I was part of it.

Did I want to be part of it?

I was back in the cave, its walls damp and covered in an unpleasant-looking green muck. I scrunched my nose and decided I should be glad this was nothing but a dream. It could not possibly have smelled any good.

"You're hiding," I sighed, allowing myself a few seconds before looking over my shoulder. He was there, the same shadow. My eyes darted up almost automatically. No horns this time. I frowned but waited for him to take a few steps closer towards me.

"I warned you," he said.

"This again?"

There was something sad about his voice, a tone I could not really place. I wanted to move, but the shackles kept me bound to the ground, only allowing me to push myself up onto my knees.

He knelt next to me, and almost instinctively I tried to rest my head against his shoulder. He grabbed my shoulders instead. I could feel a bolt of energy course through me, my lips parting with a gasp.

"I warned you," he repeated with his lips almost pressed against my ear, his words dancing around me.

"I made a promise," I replied. It was the truth. I owed Keely. I had been in her dept ever since I arrived in Aves. "You never made me promise," I reminded him, trying to look up. There they were, the blurred silhouettes of two horns on top of his head. I blinked, trying to recall the statue in the middle of Daleagh.

"Are you..." The words slipped past my lips, but the latter of the question was silenced by darkness. Although annoyed it didn't frighten me.

"I want you to stay in Daleagh." His face had moved, now lingering before me. I let out a soft groan, frustrated by the fact I still saw nothing more than a shadow.

He didn't want me to see him.

"This is the last warning I can give you. Why aren't you listening?"

"I am listening," I huffed softly. I tried to lift my hand to cup his cheek, but it was yanked back by the metal chain. I saw his face move as if he was looking towards the shackles imprisoning me.

"Take this as a warning, don't allow it to become reality."

I was silent for a moment, expecting to wake up from this dream with a jolt. I always did after he would utter words like that.

"Why am I not..."

My eyes widened as I felt the warmth of his hand come to rest against my cheek. A second later I allowed them to flutter closed.

"Because I know this will be the last time."

There was so much emotion in his voice, and although sounding distant as always his voice was more clear than I could remember it had ever been.