Ani startled awake.
Rafe’s bloodied, swollen face came into view. “Ani,” he whispered in relief, lifting her from where she must have collapsed on the floor. “What happened? Are you hurt anywhere?”
She blinked, feeling muddled and stunned. Looking around, she saw the cluttered office splayed on top of the fallen bodies of the woman and man she remembered being called as M and R. With shattered glass everywhere and the overturned oak desk, the room’s mess was baffling. What had happened? Why did she feel so strange? And why did it feel like she was missing something again?
“Where’s the man?” she mumbled, frowning intensely.
Rafe helped her stand, holding onto her so she didn’t waver and fall. “Man?”
She swiveled her head around, counting the unconscious bodies. One. Two. But there were three. “The silver-haired man,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”
Jerking her hand to her neck, she glanced down, expecting to see and feel the bloodied scratch he had left on her collarbone before the earth started trembling. A black smudge was all that remained, and the stone necklace was fastened around her again, as if it never left. When she looked at M and R’s bodies, they had black marks staining their skin as well. Was this similar to the dream of the abyss she had just this morning? It was strange she wasn’t submerged into it again when she lost consciousness. How did it work?
“Ani, we have to go,” Rafe gently urged.
She finally looked up at him, really seeing him for the first time since she woke. Although his banded mask was secured in place, his hair was tousled, his lips were bust open, and bloody, bruised wounds were scattered across his face. When her eyes wandered down, his bandaged torso was completely red. “Heavens, Rafe. What happened to you? How did you get out?” she asked in concern, trailing her hands through every injury. He winced when her fingers touched the tender bruises.
Flexing his hands and glancing down at them curiously, he murmured, “I’m not sure.” He shook his head, directing his focus back to her. “It doesn’t matter. We need to leave.”
She nodded. He was right. “Can you walk? Your wound…”
“I’m fine,” he assured her, but he was looking deathly unwell. But taking her hand, he rushed them out of the office.
Quickly and cautiously making their way through the length of the hallway, Rafe and Ani exchanged silent glances. All the doors lining the walls were thrown open, and in each one, it was the same scene. Scattered messes, fallen bodies of masked Dreamers, and black marks. Perhaps the phantom came to save them again.
At the far end, a door opened into a stairwell. Nodding to each other, they headed towards what they hoped would be an exit. Ascending the steps and with the scent of freedom hanging in the air, moonlight spilled on their faces the moment Rafe opened the door.
Ani’s breath released in relief. They made it out.
Closing the door to what appeared to be a small, unassuming shed in the outskirts of the Imperial City, her eyes surveyed their surroundings. A few lone houses, a stable, and a barn were around, but the streets were quiet as everyone slumbered in the deepening night. It was too serene and still compared to the havoc of the trembling’s remains underground. Another irregularity. Only the Dreamers had suffered.
“Come on,” Rafe whispered, pulling her along the streets and carefully observing the terrain to gauge a sense of their location. “We’re still close enough to the city. I can get you back to wherever —”
She stopped him behind the wall of the stables. “No, you don’t need to do that. What you need to do is get yourself treated.”
“Why are we having the same conversations again?”
“Because you keep getting yourself injured,” she pointed out with a raised brow.
His lips twitched. “Not by choice.”
She sighed. “I really am sorry, Rafe. I feel like this all my fault.”
“There you go repeating yourself again,” he replied, gently knocking his knuckle against her covered face.
Gazing at the moon’s trek across the night sky, it was almost the break of dawn. “I need to go.”
“I know. So do I.”
Too many unsaid words still hung in the air. Nothing was revealed, and they were still in the dark. “The Master,” she started, hoping this little piece of information was better than nothing. “It appeared like he was the head.”
“The silver-haired man?”
Ani nodded. “It’s like you heard. There’s something about this necklace that’s connected to all this,” she admitted, showing him the stone.
When Rafe reached out to touch it, he hissed in pain. “It burns.”
“What?” she asked, astounded. She ran her thumb across the smooth surface. It was warm, but not hot enough to burn. She recalled the mark she found this morning. “It tainted my skin too, but it doesn’t burn me now.”
Rafe nodded, contemplating. “It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
But it wasn’t enough. The Dreamers were far more dangerous than she ever thought. The hope for healing or magic seemed further and further away from her now. “Rafe,” she began. “We need to stop meeting.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line. “For now,” he added.
Practically, they should drop this masquerade right here, go back to their normal lives, and forget about the Dreamers. How much easier and comfortable would that be? But her mother was waiting for her, and it had been days since she had received word from Haven. And if Rafe was right, something terrible was on its way to Theolos.
“For now,” she agreed.
“If you need to contact me, there’s a bookstore right in the heart of the city. It’s busy, closer to the Palace so the City Guards will be on patrol, and it’s private. Ask for the ‘Book of Nowhere' and slip a note into it. Someone will get it to me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Take care of yourself, Rafe. No more running into spears or abusing your body.”
“Be safe, Ani. Until we see each other again.”
As they bid each other farewell and she walked away, one thing bothered her. For a second, under the moonlight, the glint of his grin seemed too familiar — a smile she had definitely seen before. But where?
She couldn’t quite place her finger on it.
The next few days passed by in a blur. Back as Princess Helene and the future bride of the Crown Prince, she was overwhelmed with her duties. Whether it was taking tea with the Empress and the noble ladies of the empire, beginning her studies in her role as a Crown Princess, or planning a wedding she knew she wouldn’t go through with, everything felt pointless and a barrier to her purpose.
Prince Alexander was said to be recuperating in his chambers after suffering a case of insomnia and migraines, and while she told herself she appreciated her independence, a part of her was curious for him. But he never failed to send Smyth to check on her burns or deliver similar books she had read during their first day together in the Library. As always, he was thoughtful and considerate, but she didn’t let it phase her.
Instead, her mind was troubled from the unexpected silence. The abyss never came for her again and her dreams were left untouched. But the forbidding sense of something forgotten never left her. In her restless nights, when an unexplained heat overtook her body, she squirmed trying to understand what it meant. And when sleep finally took her into a dreamless escape, she could swear she felt someone caressing her cheek and whispering words she couldn’t understand. Yet when she woke, no one was there.
It drove her mad.
So many times she was tempted to go find the bookstore Rafe had mentioned, but Helene recognized she couldn’t be as reckless. Her concern for the unknown condition of her mother and the fear of losing her were ever present, but for just a few days, she had to take her hands off and just pray God was merciful on her mother’s soul.
As Helene ended another aimless day and sat by the windows of her chambers, she looked out into the city lights and played with the stone necklace hanging at her throat. Her mother had given it to her for protection, and she felt it did just that. In the Dreamer’s cave and during her capture, something had come out to help, so it couldn’t be a source of evil, could it? However, images of the familiar black marks on the Dreamer’s skin, the imprints on her own body after her dream of the phantom’s touch, or her mother’s sickness present in the abyss all pointed to the necklace.
Her mother had worn it before her, but if it caused her mother’s ailment, shouldn’t she also be suffering the same illness?
She didn’t have an answer.
But the next morning, chaos answered her.
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