A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(27)

Gregor scrambled to his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. "Sir," he gasped, his voice shaking. "Sir, it wasn't Sleep Briar! I sometimes take an herb to calm my nerves. Ever I was first dragged into Zerkalo, I've had troubles with tremors and it was just to still my—"

"Enough!" Koshmar said. "You were attempting to get into the dream world."

"No!" Gregor gasped, his eyes wide with panic. "It doesn't put me to sleep, it only calms me!"

 "I made it abundantly clear that no travel was to be made between the worlds. I told you why this was so, and the dangers of it. I told you the consequences. And yet, it seems my words were not clear enough. Perhaps actions would be clearer." Koshmar stepped toward the guard that stood at Gregor's right.

Before anyone had a chance to move or think or do anything but watch, Koshmar reached across the guard's body, drawing the sword that hung on the man's waist. The metal gleamed as it slid free of its sheath, a thin and graceful weapon. And as he stabbed through the air, it was as calm and perfect as a dancer. It punctured Gregor's chest and withdrew again in a matter of two seconds, and before Gregor's body could even fall to the floor in front of Lucy, Koshmar had handed the blade off and spun on his heel to walk toward the door at the back of his room.

"Prince Joon sacrificed everything to keep Strana standing," he said, as he waited for a maid to bring him a handkerchief. He dabbed at the few speckles of blood on his hands and face. The stunned silence of the room confirmed just how much power the man now held. "I cannot rest until that sacrifice has been repaid. Any Dreamwalkers even suspected of entering the dream world will be executed immediately."

He disappeared into the hallway, and with him it seemed like a button had been pressed to return everyone to life. Alisdair and Saul rushed to Gregor's side, trying to revive him. Saul pressed his hand against the small puncture wound on the older man's chest, but there was not much blood to even stem. Gregor's heart had stopped beating. Saul closed his eyes and sat back on his heels. Alisdair muttered a prayer.

"How could he do this?" Morrigan gasped, tears streaming down her face.

"He has Strana under his thumb. I have a feeling that he can do much worse, and we are only on the cusp of what he has planned," Bijal responded, her face grim but dry. She was not looking at Gregor, like everyone else, but at the door where Koshmar had exited. "I wonder if perhaps Prince Joon really knew who his adviser was."

Lucy clenched her jaw so tightly that her teeth creaked. No, Joon did not know who his advisor really was. Joon was trapped in the dream world with no memories of this place or the people in it. But even if his memories returned, she knew he would not—could not—think that what Koshmar had done was right. The Joon she knew would have been devastated to see Gregor dead on his palace floor, and she knew he would have done something about Koshmar. Whoever Koshmar had been when Joon was around, it was beginning to be clear that was an act. The wise, caring, peaceful man they had all thought Koshmar was... that was lies. He was ruthless and cold and unpredictable. He could not be allowed to rule Strana if Joon never returned. 

While the others clustered around Gregor, sobbing and trying to make sense of something that was senseless, Lucy stepped back. And then back again. And again. Edging toward the door and then slipping out of it, all without the guards noticing her as they focused on Bijal's angry yelling and the others' tears. 

Lucy kept to the shadows, for once thankful that the light had left Strana. It would hide her, be her friend, as she sneaked out of the palace and to her home where her stash of Sleep Briar would wait for her. In the cover of the darkness Koshmar hated so much, she would slip away from his grasp and into the world where the true prince was waiting for her. More than ever, Lucy was determined to rescue Prince Joon and set the world right.

The rush of cold barely even registered on Lucy's skin because she too focused on moving as soon as possible through Zerkalo to find Joon. It would be impossible, but she had to make it possible. She needed him back in Strana, back ruling, no matter what.

###

After a long and hard trip back to her house, she ran to her room and gathered up the Sleep Briar. She'd stopped by the barracks Koshmar had kept them in, and taken her supplies with her. Now, she popped the Sleep Briar in her mouth and dropped on to the mattress.

A moment later, she arrived in Zerkalo. She opened her eyes to see... nothing. Darkness surrounded her as thoroughly as it had back home. In fact, if it wasn't for the freezing cold of moving from world to world, she might have wondered if the Sleep Briar had even worked at all. Because if this was Zerkalo, she should be standing in the Denizen village, not in darkness.

After a moment of confusion, she reached down to her belt and lit the lantern hanging there. She'd brought her carpetbag of supplies and extra oil, so she could spare what she needed to navigate. The orange flame flickered into life, and she slowly turned to take in her surroundings.

It was indeed the Denizen village. There were the flat buildings, and the familiar roads. There was the way to her territory, and the posts where they sometimes hung lanterns for Dreamwalkers who came without their own. Yet, the entire place was blanketed in the thick darkness, pressing down on Lucy as heavy as water. Which meant that it had spread over every part of Zerkalo. No wonder the darkness was melding with things in the real world. There was no more room left in the dreams.

Lucy's hands shook as she held her lantern up to find her way through the village. Somehow, with this one last bastion of light falling, she felt terrified. Nowhere in Zerkalo could she breathe easy and feel safe. Now it was all darkness, hiding strange creatures that seemed to grow from nothing. This was not the world she had been traveling in for eight years. This was not the place where she had bonded with other Dreamwalkers and felt like she belonged to something. This was something else. A true nightmare. Her safety and comfort turned strange and twisted.

It was harder to find her way without being able to see more than a few feet in all directions, but she eventually made her way to the village's edge. Her territory stretched before her, a sea of black that hid unknown horrors. She paused on the edge of the road, really wondering if she could ever find Joon in that forest. He had said it wanted to confuse them. That it didn't like them. That would still hold true, even on her own. She worried that, without even a compass, the trees would consume her.

She took one step into the gray grass before she noticed the glowing white eyes to her right. Immediately, she froze, remembering the last time she had run into Denizens in Zerkalo. They'd split their mouths, and tried to attack her. Not something she wanted to repeat right now.

Not taking her eyes off the pair of pinprick eyes, she slowly backed up into the village again. She knew she couldn't get into any of the houses, but she could possible use the roads to lose the Denizen if it attacked. Not that she thought that was at all a good plan, but it was better than nothing.

She had only moved a few feet before the eyes moved closer, but still stayed outside of her circle of light. She tensed, ready to run, but instead of the unhinged laughter and toothy grin of the Denizens from before, she instead was startled to hear a voice out of the darkness.

"Hearstore One." It was the voice from before. The one that had talked to her each time she'd seen Joon, and right before she had been forced back by the Samg. Her head snapped up and she saw the pinprick eyes watching her from the blackness.

"You were there! Right before I left! Do you know where Joon is?"

"You came back, Heartsore One," the voice replied. A ripple of laughter hung beneath it's words, like a discordant note interrupting a lovely tune. It made Lucy's skin prick. Whatever this creature was, Lucy knew nothing about it.

Yet, Lucy couldn't bring herself to lose the one lead on Joon that she had. Even if it seemed alarmingly like a trap, and she had no guarantee that Joon would be the payoff for the risk, she still felt like she had to look for him. He'd been left alone, terrified in the darkness and surrounded by demon dogs that wanted to devour him, and she felt guilty. She knew she had to save him to stop Koshmar from destroying the real world with his brash acts, but she also found that she wanted to save him because he was alone and scared and a bit like her.