"Cry it out and eat this." Something was shoved into my hand, a sort of cake the size of a cookie.  I took it and gasped out as the feeling of loss grew.

"I need to make sure a certain someone didn't heal himself wrong," snorted the healer. "You just sit here and eat." she released my chin and moved away. 

I couldn't look up, so I stared down at the cake in my hands. My entire being felt wrong, like I'd been ripped into a thousand pieces and reassembled. The ringing in my ears faded to a dull hum, and it echoed in my body like a drum in an abandoned auditorium. The emptiness in my core consumed what had remained of the euphoric bliss.

"Eat!" I heard her voice again, and, feeling like a robot, I raised the cake to my mouth. It tasted like almonds, but vanilla flavor lingered on my tongue when I swallowed. It didn't do much to quell the dread. My body felt like it was moving in slow motion, as if I was trying to run in a dream. My teeth were weights, straining my jaw as I took a bite. My tongue was too large for my mouth, numb and full as fumbled under the food.

It took for me to chew each bite, and yet, like no time was passing at all when I swallowed. I vaguely realized I was holding the waterskin in one hand, and I did my best to wash the cake down when I could remember to drink. When the cake was gone, I let the empty waterskin rest in my lap. I tried to find my voice, but I had no energy left to talk. Everything from the smallest twitch of my finger to a shift of my leg felt like a chore. So, I let my head loll against the back of the chair and observed the woman as she worked on Belenus. 

He was reclining in what would have been a cot if it hadn't looked so comfortable and been as large as my queen-sized bed. Shimmering lines crossed his muscular torso, and I realized with a heavy daze, they matched the claw marks his stone had healed. The woman moved a crystal along each line, and the crystal glowed green as she did. Belenus' jaw was clenched, and his fingers were tight in the sheets. That gray-blue gaze met mine, and I could see the pain in it. My chest tightened at his expression. 

I thought he healed himself better than that, the slurred thought slogged through my mind.

"Do I look that bad?" he asked. I couldn't nod or shake my head, but my eyes bounced up and down. "She's just making sure my healing spell worked. The pain will be gone soon. Don't worry about me, Grace." I tried to offer him an encouraging smile, but I doubt it came across as more than a grimace.

"You didn't fix this rib correctly," the woman said. Then Belenus grunted in pain, and a strange snap noise filled the tent. "That's why you don't take shortcuts on spell stones." Somehow, I understood this was not the first time the woman had that conversation with the half-elf man panting across the tent from me. "Now, where is that uncle of yours with more water?"

"Two tents away." 

At the mention of water, my throat felt parched. Yet, I couldn't summon enough energy or emotion to ask for any.All I could do was drown in the feeling of freezing emptiness. The blanket wrapped around me was useless, and when Faolán reappeared carrying three waterskins, the feeling only got worse. Without warning, the ground rushed up to meet me, and the chair was off to my left. The vine-carved legs were surprisingly beautiful, but they began to fade from focus.

Where before I had felt freezing emptiness, the all-consuming dread from the ride had returned with an intensity. It tightened my whole body up, and the silent tears that had been leaking from my eyes blinded me. The world spun, and it became almost impossible to put air in my lungs. It felt like there was a vice grip on my chest, and my mind was existing apart from my body. I tried to curl in on myself, tried to hug myself back together, but I couldn't. I couldn't make anything work right. All I could do was silently gasp for air as the world became less focused around me. Some part of my mind recognized, with a detached numbness, that I was having a panic attack.

"If she maintains consciousness, it'll be a miracle," the woman said from her spot.  Faolán crouched over me, his fingers at my neck. "Surprised she's made it this long; if I'm honest." Cherish’s words only served to make it harder for me to breathe.  Faolán's lips moved, but I heard nothing. There was just the sound of ringing in my head, mingled with my pulse.

"Nobody's had to treat this in almost three hundred years," the woman said. She shoved Faolán away. "Grace, it's okay. You don't have to fight it. Just sleep," she assured me. I choked on the tears and phlegm that crying had left in my throat. I was afraid if I closed my eyes the darkness would never let me go. "You won't die, I promise. Sleep." I shook my head, terrified of what waited for me beyond my closed eyelids. I didn't want to be lost in the rocking darkness ever again.

"Okay, then back in bed with you, Belenus," she snapped. I blinked only to find Belenus had knelt beside me, and he cupped my cheek. He spoke gently to me.

"Trust me, Grace, and rest," he said. 

"Scared…" I choked out, and he nodded once. 

"I know, but you're safe. Just surrender to it." His thumb ghosted over my eyelashes, and with a spin of the world, I knew nothing but warm, sinking, darkness.

I didn't dream at first, not that I remember anyway. Occasionally words pierced the darkness, and they brought with them flashes of colors or flickers of images. Those moments made me acutely aware of the warm, comforting abyss that I drifted into. When I found myself riding in a car with my ex-husband, I realized that I was, indeed, dreaming.

He was mad, as usual, over something I had no control over. I couldn't remember what, exactly, but he ground his jaw and stared out at the windswept road.

"You're so stupid," he growled, and the tightness in my chest grew. I was always doing something to disappoint him. "You just had to go and interfere."

"I'm sorry," I said and fought to keep my tears from spilling over. I knew what he would say if I cried. "I just wanted to help."

"Yeah, and like usual, you just made it worse," he said and slammed his hand on the wheel. "Life isn't one of your stupid books, Grace. Grow the fuck up." I had to look away, so he wouldn't see the hot tears escaping my eyes or hear me try to force air through the hulking rocks in my throat and chest. 

"I did help-" I started to say, but he cut me off.

"Did you? Did you really? Because you always just make shit worse," he snorted. His disbelief filled the air in the car between us. I turned to him, clinging to a fragile scrap of confidence, in an attempt to defend myself. He glanced at me, his blue eyes cold. "My God, Grace. Plug it up, nobody wants to hear or see you cry. Nobody gives a fuck that you can't keep your own life in order," he snapped. The anxiety overwhelmed me, suffocating me in his words and my doubts.

You always make it worse. You always fuck it up. That's why he cheated. The sarcastic voice of my self-esteem had done it again, like she always did when I was trapped in the dreams. She had given me my lifeline.

"We're divorced. This is a dream," I said, feeling more confident in that knowledge than I ever had in our marriage.

I opened the door of the speeding car and stepped out into the black. I stumbled into an oak grove instead of the rough asphalt. Yellow torchlight spilled over me. 

I looked up at the torch. Its yellow flame was reassuring, almost encouraging. Why was I dreaming of a yellow torch? Had my ex's insults at my reading preferences somehow twisted my memories of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? No, they hadn't, but the torch was why he'd been so mad.  I knew the torch because I'd interfered. Howls echoed around me, unlike any animal I knew. Yet, I did know them. I had heard the howls. My stomach twisted, and horse-sized wolves stalked toward me. I lifted the rifle that appeared in my hands and fired.