A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(24)

Now that Lucy's gaze was directed at the palace, she saw the guards spilling from the servant's door. They didn't seem as if they had seen whatever the shadowy figure was, and instead walked quickly down the path and toward the gate with determination in their stride.

Lucy pushed back off the portico and into the bushes on the ground as they passed by. No one even glanced toward the Dreamwalker building, and instead their eyes trained forward as they kept completely silent. Their footsteps finally faded as they disappeared into the darkness, and Lucy finally crept out of her bushes and looked back toward the palace.

For a split second, she saw the shadowy figure again as it materialized out of the darkness. It slipped through the still-open palace door in the space of a breath, and Lucy was left wondering if she had really seen it at all. But she knew she had to. Why would she imagine a strange animal that slithered low to the ground slipping into the palace?

With a hesitant glance back at the Dreamwalker building, Lucy started toward the palace, her hands bunched in her skirt. Her boots sounded impossibly loud on the gravel, but no one looked out windows or shouted to her from the darkness.

Holding her breath, she climbed the stairs to the palace and approached the open door. The woman who normally greeted them was nowhere in sight, and only a few lanterns lit the hallways as Lucy stepped in. She glanced around to make sure no more guards were coming, but instead saw the shadow figure cross the hallway toward Koshmar's study.

Heart pumping, Lucy picked up speed and raced after the shadow as it turned a corner. She followed it, only ever catching a blur here and a smudge there. She never saw it plain and clear, even as she ran after it.

Finally, she reached the end of the hall, but there was no sign of the shadowy figure. It had disappeared into thin air, seemingly. Spinning in circles, Lucy took in the whole hallway to see if the figure was hiding anywhere. But none of the beams boasted any mysterious animals and none of the doors were opened.

Perhaps she had imagined the creature after all. Her mind was stuck in Zerkalo, running over and over the image of Joon's frightened eyes in the tree as the demon dogs surrounded him. She still felt the throbbing in her foot from their bite. It wouldn't be a stretch to think that she had created shadows in the real world to match those racing in her thoughts.

She waited a moment longer, peering into the shadows along the ceiling and wondering how she could have imagined a creature so vividly, but then decided that being caught in the palace was not in her best interests.

Stepping backward, she started to head toward the main hall, but as she turned she noticed that the door to Koshmar's study glowed with light through the paper. As she watched for a moment longer, she noticed that shadows moved slowly and methodically behind it.

Edging toward the door, she reached out and grasped the frame, slowly moving it to one side so that she could peak through a crack. Looking through, she saw Koshmar's study the same as it always was, and Koshmar seated at his desk. The lantern behind him cast his shadow against the door and Lucy's face as she watched him move his arms in arcing waves in front of him.

His eyes shut and his legs crossed as he sat on the ground, he seemed as if he should be meditating. But his moving arms in graceful curves and sweeps seemed to indicate that this was something else entirely. In fact, as she watched, his brow creased and his movements became tighter, faster. His breathing picked up until she could hear it from across the room, and his hand movements turned into swipes and shoves, as if he was fighting against something.

No, not fighting.

Struggling to pull back something.

His movements all arched into himself, as if he was trying to find something or capture something. His face crumpled even more and his eyes twitched until she saw slivers of the white.

Lucy watched Koshmar struggle in silence, enraptured by the strange beauty of his movements and the eerie feeling that charged through the air as he worked. She was ready to try and sneak a little further in, perhaps hide in the shadows to try and see if she could work out what he was doing, but a sudden scream from outdoors broke the spell.

Koshmar's eyes flew open as more screams joined the original, and Lucy bolted backward from the door and into the dim hallway. She wasn't sure he had seen her, but she wasn't ready to find out. Taking off down the hall, she ran into the main room and out the servant's door into the courtyard. And there the screams fell on her like rain.

Nobles rushed in from all directions, heading toward the palace or the buildings behind it. Their faces were filled with fear and panic, and they pushed against each other so violently as they run that a few fell and almost couldn't get back up again amongst the crush of the crowd.

Lucy jumped away from the servant's door just as the nobles scaled the steps and pushed their way through the opening and into the massive hall beyond. They came so quickly that they tore the door from the hinges in the crush, and a few fell through the wooden planking and to the floor beyond.

As the nobles streamed into the palace, Lucy rushed along the lawn toward the Dreamwalker building where the others were peeking out of the door. Lucy spotted Bijal and raced up to her as they looked out among the ocean of people fleeing from the homes and buildings that lay nearer to the gate.

"What's going on?" Lucy asked.

Bijal shook her head. "We know nothing. Guards have been running by, but no one will tell us anything."

Lucy bit her lip, watching as the nobles screamed and fled. It was perhaps the best time for the Dreamwalkers to slip away with the crowd and get back into the city. Lucy could find somewhere to return to Zerkalo and find Joon. Whatever was causing this panic, she would hope that Koshmar wouldn't have enough time to think about the Dreamwalkers until Lucy could get Joon back into the real world somehow.

She was just opening her mouth to tell Bijal her plan when she heard a familiar whisper somehow cut across all the screaming and noise in the yard. She spun to the side, looking out into the empty blackness of the side lawn that ran behind the Dreamwalker's building, but saw nothing at all. Yet, the voice continued, filling her mind in its strange echoing tones.

"Heartsore One," it said. "The worlds are merging."