Page 145 of Curse of Darkness
“You’re the Dream Thief.” Another Old One, long since locked away.
Though Maren’s mirror provides access to his powers.
“I am. Maren thought she could control me, but she should have known better,” the Dream Thief purrs. “The spiritual and the mindscape are my realms. The second she summoned me, she granted me access to this world again through the mirror.”
I hover above the bed, a long silvery cord linking me to my body. “What are you doing here?”
“We don’t have much time,” the stranger says. “Maren’s locked her mirror away for the night, but if she feels the urge to peek into her guests’ dreams, she may seek to glimpse into the mirror.”
I stare at his hand. “Where are you taking me?”
“Into the Tower of Dreams, where your friends steal inside. The prophecy is about to be woken, and the Mother of Night wants you to hear it.”
I glance back.
It’s a shock to see my body lying there in Thiago’s arms. He curls around me as if he senses my distress even in sleep, and seeks to sooth me.
“You’ll return me to my body, safe and whole? By morning?” Never bargain with an Old One without setting the terms.
The Dream Thief seems to smile. “You will be returned by morning. I will protect you, Iskvien.”
“Alright,” I whisper.
Though really, what choice do I have?
* * *
Maren’s courtis never quiet.
There’s a youthful element to it—one I’ve not seen replicated in other kingdoms. The young nobles of the court squabble and plot; they gamble and drink and dance; and their malicious games bring about the ruin of more than one innocent.
Maren turned a blind eye to such cruel games long ago. It took me a long time to realize that she does so deliberately; Askans can be vicious and cruel, and how better to keep them from sticking a knife in her back than keeping them too busy driving their claws into another’s vulnerable underbelly. She nurtures blood feuds and stirs treason. She breaks hearts and shatters alliances with her dreams and her whispers. She promises allegiance to a lord in one breath, and then instructs poison to be slipped into his cup the second he leaves her chambers. The bottle, of course, will be found upon the person of his dearest enemy.
And none of them see it.
It was only as her lady-in-waiting that I gained a powerful insight into the way her mind works.
“This is a snake pit,” I whisper as we glide along the hallways.
“Yes,” says the Dream Thief.
Card games fill the rooms. Fae bucks laugh and crow, casting down winning hands as lovely young ladies curl around them and coo.
It’s an echo of the real world, but it’s a powerful echo.
One in which I can stare right between realms.
A pair of young fae females lie dreaming in the corner, smoke curling around the chambers. Their astral selves giggle and spin in the air above them, flickering and vanishing as if they step halfway into the world of dreams before losing their grip upon it.
Next to them, a randy young satyr fucks his way into a redhead who throws her head back and screams.
And there, right in the heart of it all, sits Etan of the Goldenhills.
Thousands of rooms away, my heartbeat starts to thunder. Even in this astral form, the sudden chill I feel is real.
Shaking the die in his hands, Etan casts them across the gleaming mother-of pearl board in front of him. His shirt sits unlaced halfway to his navel, and his wheat-gold hair is somewhat more unkempt than I’ve ever seen it before, but as he lifts the golden reed of the dream smoke globe to his lips and breathes in its wretched smoke, his vicious blue eyes are exactly the same as I recall them.
Etan looks up and then freezes as if he can see me.
