A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(14)

Lucy dropped the strange young man's hands to cover her mouth. Prince Joon was in Zerkalo. It was impossible. Perhaps the most impossible thing that had happened so far. He was not a Dreamwalker. He was not a dream creature. There was no way for him to be in the dream world. And yet here he was. The boy she'd saved all those years ago. He was here. He was talking to her even though he had long ago forgotten her name or her face. What were the chances that all that time in the real world he had not even known she existed, yet here he was being saved by her once again?

Her heart shivered behind her ribs. "Prince Joon. You're Prince Joon?"

"Prince?"

She reached up, her hands cupping his face. She traced his jaw, feeling how his cheekbones rose high under his eyes. His cupid's bow was sharp and precise, the corners of his lips curled down, and his eyebrows were thick and square. It was Prince Joon. Sad, cold, mysterious Prince Joon. The boy whose panicked eyes burned into her skull right before the bad men had held him under the water. Except now he was older and stronger, and shivering in the darkness.

"I can't believe it," Lucy said, her hands shaking as she held his face between them.

"I don't understand," he replied.

"You disappeared overnight a few months ago. Everyone has been searching all over Strana for you."

"I don't remember being a prince."

Lucy exhaled. "Oh. Yes, you've forgotten everything," she said. "But are you sure you can't try really hard to remember? You're a prince from the real world. Can't you try and see if you have memories of what happened to you? If you really try, maybe you can remember your past life." She left off that maybe he might remember more than he had before. That he might remember the scrappy little girl who rushed to his aid when no one else did.

For a moment he was silent, and Lucy took it that he was trying to recover his lost memories. But after a few more seconds, he shook his head in her grasp and sighed. "I'm sorry. I only remember the name."

Lucy dropped her hands. "All right. That's fine. We can work around that. Koshmar will know what to do when we get you back home." She got to her feet and held her hand out into the darkness for him to take. "Come on. Let's find my lantern and then we can figure out what to do."

Joon grabbed her hand and walked beside her as she kicked around in the soft fallen leaves. His fingers were longer than her stubby ones, but they threaded easily through hers and warmed her skin. She wasn't used to touching anyone, much less a man. She hated to admit it, but it made her heart beat a little harder to have his palm against hers. It was a stupid, school girl way to feel, but she still was glad for the darkness that covered her heated cheeks.

After a few more moments of searching, Joon suddenly pulled up short. "Ah! Is it metal?"

Lucy pulled in close to him. "Yes, copper."

"Then I think I found it." He slowly lowered to his knees, bringing Lucy with him, and guided her hands to a cold metal object by his feet. Lucy felt along the edges of the item, until her fingers ran across the familiar latch of the lantern door, and the little compartment where she kept the matches. She breathed a sigh of relief that it was not a Finding, and that they wouldn't have to worry about whatever backfire it had in store for them.

"All right, let me just light it and then we can see where we are," she said, taking out a match.

"Ah, wait," Joon said, his hand stilling Lucy's before she could strike the match.

"What is it?"

"I'm a bit exposed. I didn't think..."

Lucy nearly choked as she remembered that he was not wearing anything. Transforming from bird to man seemed to not include clothes in the bargain. "Oh. Yes. Sorry. I'd forgotten." She cleared her throat and replaced the match. "Um. Here, just wear these until we can find you some real clothes."

She sat down to peel off her winter bloomers and handed them over to him. He slid them on, and as he did, she pulled off her jacket and offered it to him as well. While it was always chilly in Zerkalo, it was not as cold as back home. And she still had her scarf to keep her warm. She'd rather Joon was covered at this point.

"Ready?" she asked, pulling the match back out.

"Yes," Joon replied.

Lucy struck the match and held the flame to the wick of the lantern. The orange glow felt like returning home from a lifelong journey. It washed across her winter-white skin like a summer sun, and revealed branches and leaves surrounding them on the ground. The fear already began to melt away now that she could see again, and Lucy felt that the air suddenly became breathable.

Picking the lantern up, she turned to inspect Joon. He stood just behind her, huddled in her coat and blinking against the light. His black hair, once so carefully trimmed and combed, now hung longer than usual, and was filled with twigs and leaves. He stood nearly a head taller than her now, and he looked thinner than she remembered. But it was definitely his face. There was no doubt.

"It really is you, your highness!" she said. She hesitated, unsure if she was supposed to curtsy or bow or otherwise grovel in his presence. But he didn't at all look like he expected her to acknowledge his lofty position, and instead grimaced and shook his head.

"I told you. I don't remember being any prince. Please just call me Joon."

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "You're all right with me treating you normal?"

Joon nodded his head. "I'd rather you treated me like you always have."

Lucy smiled, but then her eyes trailed down his face and down to his neck. Sharp ridges rose in his skin, blood oozing from them. Streaks ran across his neck and face from where he and she had smeared it by accident, and it soaked into the collar of her coat. She looked down to his hands, seeing blood drying in rivulets along his knuckles and dripping off his fingertips. He looked down as he noticed her staring and pulled away the edge of her coat to reveal a sliver of his torso. Lucy didn't even have time to feel embarrassed at seeing his stomach, because she saw the claw marks of the Denizen running from his navel to his lower ribs. Blood covered him nearly head to toe.

"We need to get you back home to have those taken care of," she said. "I don't understand, though. These kinds of wounds would have sent any of us back by now."

"Us?"

"Dreamwalkers," Lucy replied. "We are the only beings able to travel between the worlds. Zerkalo and our world."

"This place is called Zerkalo?" he asked.

"Yes. It's not a real world, just one that exists in dreams. I don't remember where the name came from. Maybe it just appeared like we did," she said, and then clenched her teeth as she realized what she was saying.

She was coming dangerously close to the truth about the Dreamwalkers. While many of the common people in Krov Korol knew the secret of the Dreamwalkers, Lucy had in front of her a person with no memories of their home. In his eyes, she was nothing more than a girl who could do the same things he did. In fact, in his eyes he was probably stranger than her. And that was something precious to Lucy. Something she didn't want to let go of yet.

She hedged around her explanation, hoping he'd see it as only something inexplicable. "We all woke up one night and we were all here in Zerkalo. No one really meant to come here. So maybe the name didn't really mean to come to us, either. It just was always there."

There was a silence and Lucy glanced over to see Joon staring down at the ground, the orange lantern light flickering against his skin. When it became clear he wasn't going to respond, she thought it was high time they left this world and go home. Koshmar would be sure to lift the ban if he found out Prince Joon has been in the dream world all this time. Perhaps they could find answers to that mystery if he allowed the Dreamwalkers to continue their explorations.