Exile of the Clave

Exile of the Clave - Chapter 8

Sera tossed restlessly in her sleep.

Her fingers knotted in the white cotton sheets of her bed before relaxing once more. She rolled over to her shoulder, her arm flung out searchingly to the empty side of the bed. Her eyes flitted fervently under her eyelids as she drank in the nightmare laid out before her in the world of dreams.

Rayce descended on his fiery black steed from a swirling tempest of storm winds, aiming for a battlefield. He clutched at the reins desperately to keep them in hand, but they threatened to tear out of his control with each new lash of wind. A heavy black blindfold was tied around his eyes, and it contrasted sharply with the white splash of his hair.

Howling shadows surrounded him in the gale and nipped at his cloak hungrily, but he twisted and fought his way free until he could land among the bodies of the slain.

Parched fields were flattened and torn haphazardly by the passage of clawed feet, and dozens of Mundanes lay amidst the stalks waving lazily in the wind. A man who couldn't have been more than thirty years old was sprawled at Rayce's feet when the Faerie steed vanished. Sera's brow furrowed in her sleep as she saw the tiny girl buried in the man's arms. His flannel shirt was a splash of red that only partially disguised the horrible gouges that had brought his life to a violent end as he tried to protect his daughter from the monsters that had come in the night. The vision was so stunningly vivid that Sera put a hand to her head to steady herself and closed her eyes; wherever this was, it was going to happen soon. Not now, but soon.

When she looked up again, she found Rayce crouching down at the man's side, oblivious to the blindfold he wore. The Hunters around him laughed and taunted him from every side as he reached out toward the man's body. His fingers skimmed over the red flannel until he jerked his hands back from the razor wire he couldn't see, and blood welled up from the cuts.

One of the Hunters lunged forward to finally tear the blindfold away from Rayce's eyes, and Sera's heart sank when she saw the mixture of contempt and confusion in his gaze. The trampled crops had faded to allow the spectre of Alicante to loom up from a field of twisted trees with lush foliage. As Rayce watched, the shadows around him hissed under their breath and he saw the Glass City erupt into flames. The haunting forest shuddered and shed its leaves in shock from the expenditure, and understanding filled Rayce's eyes. The winding, snaking roots of the trees crept through the farmers' fields in search of new victims to replenish its energy, but Rayce whirled away from the fallen man and stomped his foot down to crush one trailer as it approached.

The Hunters shook their heads and muttered mutinously, but Rayce snarled and barked orders at them. Without a backward glance, he stormed away from the slaughter and left the shadows murmuring behind him. He didn't see the dark cloud coalesce over him to throw a swath of menacing darkness over his path that whispered of pain and suffering.

A deafening clang ripped across the dreamscape and Sera screamed, clapping her hands over her ears even as Rayce faded from view ahead of her. The discordant cacophony echoed thickly across the fields, sweeping up the Hunters like bugs under a broom, and Sera willed herself forward to be carried with them deeper into the nightmare.

In a flash, her vision changed and hurtled her deep underground to an unfamiliar, indistinct cavern. The rubble of a shattered stone table lay scattered across the floor carelessly where it had been broken in haste to reveal a faintly-glowing depression in the dark stone beneath. The Unseelie King sat heavily at the edge of the flickering light and breathed shallowly as a courtier waited patiently by his side. His attendant had dark green skin and hair, and yellow eyes glowed out of a face that scowled under a crown of branches.