A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(37)

Lucy woke in a flash of pain, scrambling to stop the blood from pooling and sliding down her sides. Tears sprang out of her eyes, along with an involuntarily yelp, as she looked down the length of her body... and saw only that her dress had been ripped into pieces to reveal her pale stomach, un-touched. Confused, she pushed herself to her elbows as the memory of the pain faded. But she remembered clearly the feeling of shadowy claws sinking into the muscles and the feeling of hot and sticky blood smeared across her sides. Yet, here she was, feeling stronger with every second and beginning to forget what such pain felt like.

She lifted her hand to touch her temple where she'd hit it on the floor, and no blood or swollen knot met her fingers. She felt fine, with no headache or blurry vision. Her eyebrows drew down and she slowly pushed herself up higher. She wasn't sure what had happened to her back in the catacombs. She was fairly sure she wasn't dead, but she had lost consciousness somehow and was presumably in Zerkalo somewhere. Which meant now her body was laying, unprotected, in the tunnels with a creature of darkness. Hopefully, Saul and Alisdair had gotten out of there, preferably taking her unconscious body with them. But there had been that voice... one that didn't seem concerned with the presence of a creature born out of the darkness.

Lucy rubbed her face, but as she gathered her strength to stand, she heard a voice. Not the one that had told them they had made a mistake as she was being killed, but another one. A soft and relieved one that she would have done anything to hear again.

Raising her arms, she wrapped them around Joon's neck as he slid into her embrace. She buried her face in his neck, uncaring of the bandage or his skin slick with sweat. Pressing her lips against his shoulder, she pulled him close, shaking as she thought of the dead version of him, sitting cold and forgotten below the palace. This Joon was alive, moving, speaking. She pulled back to smile through her tears and place her hands on either side of his face. It was covered in black veins, but he managed to smile back at her.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you," she whispered.

"Not as much as I am to see you." For the first time, she noticed how weak his voice sounded, and how the skin around his eyes was tight. His whole body seemed to shake with tension, like not a muscle wasn't clenched and about to break.

"How did I end up here, and not at the village?" she asked, using Joon's hand to help her to her feet. She struggled to close the hole in her dress around her stomach, but found it was useless. She held her hands over it for a few seconds, but then realized that Joon was standing in front of her in a pair of women's bloomers and a coat. She didn't have to worry about her own stomach peeking out from her dress.

"I think, perhaps, Zerkalo senses that we are going to help it," Joon said. "It feels like the land is begging me to save it. It wants me to get rid of this darkness that is eating away at it. I think it knew I needed your help."

Lucy pulled close to Joon, looking around the cave. Now that she had seen the source in Krov Korol, she saw that it was remarkably similar to the cave system they stood in now. A few branches broke away to deeper in the cave, and the slab was similar in shape to Joon's. The only difference was the open cave mouth, and the young woman with golden curls. She still lay there. Lucy glanced at Joon, but he looked anywhere but at the girl. He stared at anything that wasn't the girl's wispy body and candle-flame hair. 

"I don't know how we can destroy this," Lucy said, walking close to the girl. The dark tendrils grew from the rock, hovering over the girl in preparation for if Lucy tried to take her. "She could have a body still in Krov Korol."

"What makes you say that?" Joon asked, his voice quavering. Lucy glanced at him to see a sheen of sweat had broken out on his skin, and that his hands pulled on each other as he stared at the floor.

"Because I saw the source of darkness in the real world," she replied.

"What was it?" Joon asked, then paused. "N-no. I don't think... I'm not sure I'm supposed to know this. I feel like this is forbidden. All of this is forbidden."

"What?" Lucy took a step toward him, but he was already breathing hard and fast. He crumpled in on himself, cradling his head in his hands and groaning.

"This is all wrong! I shouldn't be here! This is forbidden. If I'm here, everything will end! It will consume me!"

Lucy, forgetting the girl, lurched forward to try and grab Joon, but he moved away from her and toward the entrance of the cave.

"I have to get out of here," he said.

"No! We have to figure out how to stop this darkness, because... Joon, your body is the source in Krov Korol. You can't return because you're lost in the darkness."

Before Joon could say anything in return, they were interrupted by a strange sensation of warmth rolling through the cave. It wasn't a pleasant warmth, like the sun or a blanket, but instead a sticky and unsettled warmth that came like a fever. It filled the cave, draining Lucy of her energy and nearly sending Joon to the floor as the black veins jumped forward a half-inch closer to his heart. Whatever this warmth was, it was not giving life. It was taking it. Lucy forced herself to take a step forward, reaching out to hold Joon up.

While Lucy was busy trying to stabilize Joon, she didn't even notice the figure who seemed to melt out of the shadows, until it spoke. "I tried to warn you that you'd made a grave mistake in entering the catacombs back in Krov Korol," it said. "But instead of heeding me, you headed here instead. It is so much worse for you that you came here."

Slowly rotating, Lucy saw that the voice belonged to Koshmar, dressed in black and ruby red, and standing over the girl with golden curls. He was unarmed and seemed harmless, except that the darkness had peeled away from the girl and allowed him to brush his hand across her cheek, as tender as if he was stroking a baby bird.

"How are you here?" Lucy asked, her voice breathless and broken. Fear pulsed through her. "You're not a Dreamwalker."

"I'm not," he said. "I don't have to be, because I'm not a mere tourist through the lands beyond sleep. My dominion is over dreams."

"What does that mean?" Lucy asked.

Koshmar brushed his knuckles along the girl's cheekbone, staring down at her still face instead of looking at Lucy. "In my country, I was one of the ancient druids who were able to contain and manipulate dreams. I came to Strana when my country collapsed, and I served the royal family with everything that I had. I married, had a child, and lived here as happily as I could. My powers over dreams helped the king keep his people hopeful and happy. When they fell asleep, I simply sent them dreams that made them more likely to listen and not question. I was willing to pledge these services to Joon when he was born."

Lucy glanced at Joon, who stood shaking at her side. His eyes were glued to the ground, wide and unblinking, as if he saw something there that had struck him to his core. She propped him up, scared by his violent shaking and silence.

"Is that what you did to my friends?" Lucy asked, remembering when he'd summoned them and made them live in the barracks. They'd been so placid, so willing to listen to him. They'd all fallen asleep, dreaming dreams he could reach and shape. Only Lucy had been in Zerkalo, away from where he'd been looking, and Bijal hadn't slept at all that night. 

"Of course. Though I couldn't find your dreams," he said, his head cocking to one side.

"Joon knew about this power?" she asked.

"Yes. But he won't remember now," Koshmar said. "That was unfortunately part of the curse."

Lucy's blood stilled and she felt a rushing in her ears. "What?"

"It seems that you bringing him here is jogging his memory, however. Perhaps I have something to thank you for, after all."

Lucy looked from Joon to Koshmar, beginning to feel like she was horribly out of her depth. "Do you mean you know why Joon is here in Zerkalo?"