The Dreamfarer

14

Mae stared at him, his words buzzing around her ears. She refused to allow them true admittance.

"By Kroma?" she asked, her voice hushed with restrained anger and disbelief. 

Folco clenched his hands into fists and looked up at her, his eyes burning once more. This time, however, she knew what it meant: he was furious with himself. Remorse was dragging the edges of his mouth down, his expression sagging into a terrible frown.

"Don't try to pretend you didn't hear the rest of what I said, Maeve," he growled, the volume of his voice intensifying as he slowly began to rise to his feet. "It was my fault! My fault that Kroma found your mother, my fault that he knew of her connection to you, my fault that he was given the opportunity to hurt her!"

Mae slid off the bed, getting to her feet as well so that they were more on the same level. The top of her head still just barely reached his chin.

"How?" she demanded, refusing to believe that Folco was as inherently evil as the rest. "How was it your fault? Explain it to me."

Folco looked down into her face, and there was a storm raging in his irises, the golden specks appearing to flare brighter with his anguish. 

"I was put to sleep; I told you that. All day long I was supposed to be searching through dreams, trying to find a trace of your subconscious so that I could convince you to come with us peacefully. You never fell asleep until you met Ayvy, however, and that was the first chance I got to sneak a peek at you. By then, the rest of the warlocks were already planning their attack, and there would not have been anything I could do to halt it, even if I had truly introduced myself to you then.

"Early in the morning, though - before all of that - I managed to access the subconscious of someone close to you. Your mother," he explained. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking the tempest inside of them from her view. She did not interrupt him, and soon enough, he began to speak once more:

"I didn't realize who it was right away. She was so close to waking up to prepare for the day that her dream was sporadic and hazy, the scenes she was dreaming shifting so quickly it was like her mind was a flip book. However, when I caught sight of Dael in one of the scenes, I used my power to slow it all down. 

"And then I saw you as well. You, your sister, Dael, Araminta... you were all together at a table. Araminta was berating you for something, and your sister was giggling. It seemed like a pleasant dream, until she heard screams from outside.

"As I watched, creatures of all shapes and sizes flooded through your windows, burst through your front door... They snatched you and Vivienne up faster than your mother could even push her chair away from the table and get to her feet. Dael leapt after you, but the creatures had already left. It was a fairly terrifying sight, and I wondered what had spurred it on in Araminta's mind. Her dream-self steeled herself and launched out the door, rushing after the creatures, a knife in her hand. I was impressed... but as I did not follow her, the dream dissipated; she was no longer dreaming of the place I was standing in."

Folco paused, his frown as evident and deep as ever. "I pulled myself out of my trance and went to inform Kroma of what I had seen. I wasn't sure if it could help in any way, but he seemed interested enough in the information. He thanked me, but scolded me for waking up, saying that I needed to be as watchful as any of the other warlocks right now, and that my talent could prove more useful than all the rest together. So I went back and I allowed a warlock to press the drug against my nose - the same one they used on you when we snuck up on Dael - so that I could drift back off."

After a few long moments, it became clear that he had no intention of carrying on with his explanation. Mae narrowed her eyes at him.

"I still fail to see how that makes it your fault that my mother was killed," she said.