The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 24 🔻 Such Fragile Things

Over the hissing of shadows, Webb shouted, "Did that lunatic leave us for dead?"

A monster detached itself from the Dark and slithered up onto the trailer, clawing for us. I dispatched it with a slice of my spear. At either of my sides, my companions also finished off our deformed attackers. I glared into the desert, searching for our runaway prince. "Where the heck did he go?"

A beak nipped at my hair. Nannāru beat her wings, hovering just over my shoulder. With a caw, she flapped away into the Dark. "Good girl, Nannāru!" I called as I took off after her with my friends close behind.

And there he was, furiously digging into the sand yards away. But I slid to a sudden stop. A shadow stalked Crow from behind. I kept waiting for Crow to whip around and dispatch it easily like he did when we first met. But the hollow was too preoccupied with sifting through sand.

I lifted my spear above my shoulder. My eyes followed the shaft of my weapon down to the spaded red tip that I aimed until I had it pointed straight at the shadow. Then I aimed just a little higher.

I hurled my spear like a javelin. There was a whoosh of wind as it pierced the night. And, for a second, I thought my spear would land.

Then my heart sank when the spear buried itself in sand, a few feet short from the shadow.

But it was within reach of Crow. The man pulled it from the dust and pointed it backward, just as the beast pounced. The creature squealed when the spear pierced where its heart should be. In a matter of seconds, it melted into a bubbling puddle of black sludge.

"Crow!" Webb yelled when the three of us reached him. "What the hell, man?"

"Shush!" hissed the loner. "Dig!"

Vale had her hands on her hips. "For what?"

"Hurry!"

Something about Crow's desperate, pleading tone had me instantly kneeling in the sand beside him. I dug into the sand with my hands alongside Crow.

Webb and Vale exchanged shrugs, but they also gave in.

"Here!" Crow said. He pawed at the deepest part of our hole. "Here!"

We followed his lead, digging until the man let out a little gasp of victory. He pulled something small from the sand. "Ah, there you are, little thing," he murmured to whatever he held cupped in his palms. I leaned in to see a tiny white mouse shake sand from its fur. Its pink tail wiggled, and it sat up on its haunches in his palms, twitching its whiskers at us in curiosity.

Webb seemed to forget how to speak for a moment. "You left us to fight off shadows...for a mouse?"

"You could handle yourselves," Crow said with a shrug. He scratched the mouse's fuzzy head with a finger. "She was stuck. We almost lost her."

The hollow mouse squeaked and jumped from his hands, then scurried off into the desert.

"Well," I said, still struggling to process what had just happened. "Take care out there, little guy—er...girl."

Crow flashed an appreciative smile in my direction. He used my spear to help himself stand, then he handed it back to me. "Here, small fledgling. Your aim was shit." He cocked his head to the side. "Unless you were aiming for me, then in which case...still shit."

To Vale, he presented a handful of tiny lux chunks. "I also found these. Here, tall fledgling. For your troubles." He pulled his hand away when Vale tried to take them from him and uttered a teasing, "Ah!"

"Right," Vale said through her teeth. "Be nice."

Crow cackled softly, sounding much like an actual crow, and let Vale snatch the crystals. He turned an ear to her, waiting.