Dreamstrider (21 page)

My mind whirs. “But if Edina fancies—or fancied—Vera…”

Brandt’s smile fades, and he sits up straighter. “She—she fancies…” His face burns a deep crimson. “Um, she fancies men and women both. I’m—this isn’t a sham—”

“Look at you.” I laugh. “You can’t even
talk
about it without getting flustered. How will you ever survive marriage?”

The truth of my words hangs heavy between us. His marriage to Edina. A whole lifetime with her, away from the Ministry. Away from me. Brandt twists away from me, and I’m sinking, deeper and deeper into the cot.

I don’t want to lose Brandt, but perhaps it’s already too late. I can’t forget how he left me the night after Hesse’s death, how his duty was already calling him away when I needed him most. No matter how skilled of a dreamstrider I become, I can’t bring him back to me. I can’t keep my friend forever. Perhaps it’s time I worry about what comes next.

Brandt reaches for Hesse’s journal again. “How about I—let’s—let’s look for a mention of this key.”

“Let’s,” I say, too loud.

01 Tremmer’s Month, 618 AN

35, 36, and 39 are the best batch of recruits thus far—their grasp on their own dreams is uncanny, and 39 has already showed an aptitude for remaining lucid, owing in my mind to his exceptional piety and contrition in the university temple. He correctly described the general layout of the temple at the heart of Oneiros after a fortuitous albeit brief slip out of his shallow dreams; tonight I will give him a sample dosage of dreamwort elixir.

I don’t know if I can keep going through with this. I try to put on a brave face for 12, because she has trouble enough trusting in herself. But the weight of my failure is crushing down on me. Souls are surprisingly heavy things.

Subject 12. That must be me. Eleven others died before he reached success through me? I suppress the groan clawing its way up my throat.
Why, Dreamer, why did I deserve to live?
I skim through the next few entries until another one catches my eye, later the same year.

09 Juliar Month, 618 AN

35, 36, and 39 are still progressing in the trials. They are responding positively to the dreamwort potion and have thus far successfully entered Oneiros with it on two occasions each (three for 39), but even 12 was controlling her trips to Oneiros at this stage in the trials. Sadly, she remains the sole bright light in this zealot’s folly. I don’t want to push them too hard, but against the only dreamstrider I can compare them to, they are already lagging behind. But they’ve survived Oneiros as it is; this seems proof enough to me they have a chance.

Long discussion with Durst about 12’s performance and his desire to produce more dreamstriders to better expand the Ministry’s capabilities. He is certain 12 is only the beginning of what can be achieved. 12 proved the concept, but he wants more dreamstriders—skilled ones, experienced ones, instead of clumsy youths. He wants to see what a fully capable dreamstrider can do. I pray to the Dreamer every night that he’s right, that I am not giving fuel to Nightmare’s remnants, feeding the Wastes without cause.

I fear my research has led me astray once more. The binding ritual, the technique of transference … I worry more and more, now, of what could become of them if the research fell into the wrong hands. Not only for the heresies I’ve uncovered about Nightmare’s death, but for the power in these truths …

I lean back, head swirling. The binding ritual? Hesse had never mentioned any such research to me. What is it he was trying to bind? And what did he mean about Nightmare’s death?

Despite his slow progress, 39 has all the makings of a skillful dreamstrider, but his earlier piety has been replaced by an insatiable quest for power. I will take him off the experiments for the rest of the month and see if that cools his heels. If he survives what is to come, the Ministry will be thrilled. But it is too much to hope for at this stage.

So Minister Durst is “satisfied” with me, but was continuing to look for someone better. What sort of someone? A man? An aristocrat? Someone with strength, a strong voice, a keener mind and quicker wit than mine? I can’t even refute it. I’m at best an instrument on operations, a somewhat cumbersome tool that must be brought to the site but only performs adequately. But as everyone on this ship knows, I’m a disaster, a liability, the stuck cog in an otherwise fluid device.

Why can’t I be more?

“Livia?” Brandt asks, lifting his head. “Did you find something?”

“No.” The page blurs before me; I squeeze my eyes shut and try to steady my breathing. “Well … yes. Maybe.” Calm down, Livia. After a count of three, I open my eyes and am composed once more. “These mentions of Nightmare’s remnants. What I’ve been experiencing in Oneiros of late…”

And that horrid dream I had after Lady Twyne’s execution. Surely it was a rebel priest, playing a prank on me. Or maybe I was not in Oneiros at all, and only believed myself to be.

“Hmm,” Brandt says.

I lift my chin. “
Hmm
.” But it stings my heart to jest with him like we always have. I don’t know how I will continue like this, acting as if our connection is what it’s always been. I force myself to frown.

“This is an odd one,” Brandt says, bending back the cover on another treatise. “The Echoing Soul: Efforts at Preservation Via Oneiros.’”

I sputter, thinking of what the informant told Marez and me about Lady Twyne. “Go on.”

“Joint research by Professor Hesse and an unnamed assistant on whether one’s soul can be preserved in Oneiros after death. Their conclusion is that it is possible, but imperfect; they were unable to test it on any live subjects.” He wrinkles his nose. “Too speculative for my tastes.”

“And yet we hear that Lady Twyne attempted it all the same,” I say.

Brandt rubs at his chin as he studies the notes before him. “So if Lady Twyne found a way to preserve her soul inside Oneiros…”

“But she couldn’t have done it alone.” I cast my thoughts back to Marez’s and my conversation at the Dreamless den. “She had to have someone helping her. Someone who knew Hesse’s research.” I suddenly catch myself wishing Marez were here, to help me parse through the informant’s tale for further clues, and my face flushes.

Brandt sits up straighter. “One of his students at the university, maybe. Or another professor. I know he kept the dreamstriding research a secret, but these other treatises—we don’t know how many people know of them.”

I wrack my memory for the names and faces of some of Hesse’s top students over the years. Two are priests in training at the High Temple now, and a handful more at the other temples throughout the city. Then there are the aristocrats who went back to their families after they completed their studies. None leap out at me as prime suspects to take part in such an awful conspiracy as this.

Edina pokes her head into the cabin. “Ahh, there you two are. The sun’s about set. Mind helping out with dinner? Jorn’s fished us up a few snapjacks.”

Brandt swings his legs over the side of the cot. “As my lady requests.” He swirls his arm and sweeps into an exaggerated bow. I stifle a giggle, and Edina regards him with a faint twist on her lips; I feel jealousy’s prickle once more.

“Your lady requests fewer theatrics and more actual work. You can gut and dress the fish with Vera,” she tells Brandt. “Livia, won’t you help me prepare the tartlets?”

I catch Brandt’s gaze out of the corner of my eye. “As my lady requests.”

Brandt joins Vera and Jorn on deck while Edina and I duck into the mess. She pulls a wad of dough from the storage casks and spreads it out on the counter. “Forgive me if I come off as too harsh,” Edina says as she rolls the dough with a pin. “Brandt can have all the fun he likes with his work, but I don’t have that luxury. It’s no easy feat for us, proving our worth to the Ministry as women.”

“Minister Durst’s fairer than most I’ve seen,” I say, automatic as a ritual prayer. But I wonder if there’s truth to it. I’m sent on countless missions because I’m the dreamstrider, but operatives like Vera are confined largely to parlor chatter and masquerades. Edina’s rarely out in the field, instead left to tug at her puppets’ strings from far away. She seems to enjoy that work, but if she wanted to be an operative, would Durst even give her the chance?

“He has his moments. I’m honored he’s finally given me a chance to accompany you all this time, rather than trying to manage the mission from afar.” She shakes her head. “A pity it’s now, when I’m preparing to depart the Ministry.”

To marry Brandt. I imagine Marez’s voice in my head, how he might react to Edina’s situation. Doubtless he’d condemn the minister’s treatment of women the same way he condemns all the other rules of Barstadt society. Marez enjoys forcing people to confront uncomfortable truths, and I’ve yet to decide if it’s a virtue or a nuisance. I’m certain he’d force me to confront my feelings for Brandt, if he knew. But there’s no use, I keep telling myself. I keep rubbing that reassurance until it’s raw.

“I know how much you mean to Brandt.” Edina’s speaking slowly now. “How he hates that he’ll have to leave the Ministry. I can’t imagine it’ll be easy for you, either. But I hope you understand that it’s not my choice. His parents, my father—” Edina rips the thin dough in half, and squashes each half into a new wad. “Well, it’s for the best. We all must do our part for the Empire.”

Not long ago, I would accept this without question. But now my mind is churning on thoughts of the looming war and Nightmare’s possible return—of faraway lands and the Dreamer’s silence and Hesse’s reckless experiments and … Marez. Marez, who urged me to question the way things have always been done. To decide for myself.

“Brandt told me what happened to you, before,” I say. Edina’s shoulders tense. “I know it isn’t my business, but … perhaps love is worth the risk.”

Edina hands me a wad of dough to form into a tartlet. “I once thought so. But this is—it’s safer. I’ll be content with Brandt. I hope he feels the same about me. No, it isn’t the sparks and passion I felt before, but I got burned plenty before, as well.”

As if I’d expect anything less from Vera. “I do hope you find happiness,” I say, because it sounds like something I ought to say.

“We’ll be content. A solid enough life.” Edina raises her chin. “But will you be all right?”

Her look—it isn’t harsh, but it’s unmistakable. She knows what I feel. My earlier confidence that I’d shoved down my feelings for Brandt fades away under that gaze. “I don’t know what you mean,” I say stiffly.

Edina sighs, and leans over to fix my lumpy tartlet’s shape. “All right, Livia. We’ll speak on other things. What did you learn in the journals?”

I tell her about Hesse’s other research projects—the binding ritual. The Treatise on Transference. But my mind turns over and over on her question. Will I be all right without Brandt? What will I do once my citizenship papers are secured?

I’ve used my tunneler instincts thus far to survive. For a long time, I thought the ministry was key to my survival. But there’s a whole world out there—beyond Barstadt and its colonies, beyond all of the Central Realms. Perhaps there’s somewhere where survival won’t seem such a struggle to me.

Perhaps, as Marez suggested, it’s in Farthing.

Chapter Seventeen

I awaken to a scratching noise, and at first I draw my blanket tight around me, thinking the ship’s rats have come out to play. But there’s something too rhythmic in the sound, and it’s nearby, not deep within the ship’s innards. My eyes adjust to the fuzzy gray darkness, and I see light glinting off the whites of Brandt’s eyes as he stares at the wooden post where he’s scratching patterns with a pocketknife.

I swing my legs over the edge of my cot, ropes creaking, and stand slowly. I’m in loose trousers and a tunic, which must gleam like the moon in this darkness. Brandt’s eyes flicker toward me, and I’m sure he’s seen me up, but he turns his attention back to his lazy scratches.

I sit down on the floor beside his cot and rest my head against the post, just below where he’s carving. He slowly folds up his penknife and lets his fingers dangle over the side of his cot, near my shoulder.

“You’re afraid of something,” Brandt says after a while. His voice rumbles through me, even though it’s soft enough the others shouldn’t be able to hear.

I’m afraid of a great many things. Nightmare, and the Commandant, and most of all, losing Brandt. But I can’t be afraid. Like Brandt said, fear is how I ruin a mission—how I don’t push hard enough to reach for what we need most. Fear will only get me hurt. I have to build a thick wall between me and Brandt to keep out the pain and fear.

“I’m afraid of whatever is to come.” It isn’t a lie, but I can’t tell him the whole truth. About my feelings for him, or my specific fears of Nightmare and the encroaching Wastes.

“You shouldn’t be. You’re going to do great works. You’re the strongest person I know, Liv—truly. The Iron Winds should think twice about blowing against you.”

That elicits a weary smile from me, despite my best efforts to the contrary. I hide it behind my knees. “But I’m not as strong as when I’m with my—my partner,” I say.

I want to be angry at him because it’s far easier than accepting the truth: that not all of my dreams can come true. That if I’m losing him, it must be because the Dreamer wills it. I can feel it itching under my skin, the delicious righteousness of my anger, carving a path like a whirlwind and smashing all my other feelings for him to bits. But it’s not fair. Brandt’s only doing his duty; he’s done nothing wrong. I can’t blame him any more than I could blame a hound for killing a rabbit; he’s only done what he, as a son of an aristocratic House, was bred to do. Perhaps it’s the Dreamer I should hate.

I love you, Brandt.
The words wash ashore in my thoughts as the tide of anger recedes.
I love you, and it’s torture to me.

But what I say is, “Dream with me.”

He raises his head up off the cot. “Are you certain?”

I nod. “If Lady Twyne hid her soul in Oneiros, then we should investigate.” I finger the silver chain around my neck and fish the vial dangling from it out of my tunic. “If you drink the dreamwort potion, it will put your consciousness in Oneiros while you’re fully awake.”