Dreamstrider (37 page)

This is my eternity, hard-earned through my failure. If only I had never left the tunnels. If only I had never dared to dreamstride. If only I had been a better operative for the Ministry. If only I had never dared to fall in love.

But the Dreamer dares us. This is what Hesse meant, I think, when he said his works were inspired by the Dreamer and not an affront to him. We’re meant to chase such impossible dreams; we’re meant to bring our nighttime longing to reality through our actions and deeds. The Dreamer fills our heads at night with dreams of what we could become in the day. He does not shape our world. Perhaps what he does is better—he shows us, instead, that the world is ours to shape.

I cringe as another painful memory lances me through, but the blow is lessened, somehow, by my thoughts. This knowledge may bring me pain, but at least I dared.

I dreamed.

The dreamworld is already mine.
Nightmare’s words smother me, thicker and even more insistent than the Nightmare Wastes.
With your blood, I shall devour your nations and cough up the bones as scraps for those who freed me. Surrender, lost soul. Suffer what you’ve wrought.

“No,” I whisper. But I’m lost deep within Nightmare’s body as he flies across Oneiros, rot and misery sloughing off of him like dead skin. I have no body and no path back to the real world. I am trapped in these nightmares, in the brambles of my failure. Still, I whisper it. “No. No.”

The last I see of Oneiros are the oozing black monsters consuming every scrap of land. The sky shimmers before us—instead of the brilliant hues of Oneiros, I see Barstadt’s muted gray tones through a tear in the atmosphere. The towers of Banhopf University, the sprawling palace grounds, the Dreamer’s Bay.

And then we punch through the veil separating Oneiros from the real world. Oneiros’s bloody sky bleeds into a star-spattered night as Barstadt City shimmers before my eyes.

Nightmare tosses back his lizard-like head and snaps up a handful of guards in his mossy teeth. I see from within him now, a prisoner behind his draconic eyes as the blood offerings of the three nations’ leaders swirls around us. Red sprays across the craggy mountain face. My body looks up at us, laughing, unafraid. And why should Marez be afraid? It’s not his body that’ll be lost if Nightmare betrays him.

You shut me away; you sink your fears and your doubt into the Nightmare Wastes. I’ve feasted on your dead, those who failed to dream, but I can hold no more. Agony needs a new home, and this world suits me just fine.

“It’s yours, Nightmare,” I hear my voice shout. Marez. “A gift from the Farthing Confederacy.”

So the Wastes is replete with miserable souls who lost their way, who never claimed the dreams that were theirs, granted by the Dreamer. No wonder they smell of despair and crave the taste of suffering, like an urchin salivating at the thought of steak.

And Nightmare hungers most of all. Will I become another lost soul who failed to dream? Will he gobble my soul up too? Can I resist? Already I feel his thoughts mingling with mine, his flesh seeping into me; my lungs fill with chilled air that longs for others’ demise. I crave and crave to suck the happiness and will from every last being, like marrow from the bone.

I am one with Nightmare as we soar. Our claws tear a rift through merchants’ shops. Tunnelers pour from a nearby grate, makeshift weapons brandished. Down another street, Farthing soldiers cower behind their cart as our shadow swallows them up.

Our skin drips across the streets of Barstadt, smoldering and smoking, like acid etching Nightmare’s brand into the stone. But out of each brand erupts a new shadowy fiend. They flood the Palace Square in Barstadt City and rake through a clump of constables, drinking up their dreams and hopes. For every soul the monsters absorb, our heart beats louder; our roar swells across the valley, spewing out the stench of hopelessness.

This is all there is, and all there shall be. Feast on the prison bars that slam shut before the eyes of every soul.

But I won’t.

I know what it is to crawl the tunnels all day and night, dragging a question behind me like a ball and chain: Why bother? Why fight? Why not curl into that corner and let the gang’s favored scrape their hands upon me and seize my every last tithe and crumb?

Because someday I will slip out of the grates and never come back.

Why dreamstride for the Ministry when Minister Durst shrugs his shoulders at my victories, and Vera and Edina bicker, and Brandt questions my every step?

Because someday I will do my country right.

Why long for a boy who lives in a different world, whose life of privilege I can never compare to? Why kiss a boy whose lips have been signed away to another?

Because love is worth more to me than rules.

Why pray to a faceless Dreamer, a set of golden arms on a monolith stone? Why scream louder when he doesn’t answer? Why walk his empty lands, night after night, knowing that you will never be faithful enough to earn his greatest gift?

Because maybe my dreams are enough.

Maybe it’s not for the Dreamer to make them come true.

Maybe—just maybe—they’re for me to turn into reality.

It starts as a humming in my soul, like a summertime insect choir. A warmth unfolds inside me like feathers. Nightmare senses it; his flight falters, and he clips the Banhopf tower, piercing the webbing that keeps him aloft. But he doesn’t hear those desperate words quaking through me. It’s not the Dreamer’s voice. It’s not anyone’s voice I’ve ever known.

Except for mine.

Dreamer,
I whisper, but it is not a prayer. Dreamer. I am a dreamer, the one who can make all my dreams and hopes and wishes real. We are each our own dreamers. The golden arms reaching down, the faceless figure of mercy.

It’s me.

Nightmare screeches. The minions stop falling from him; his skin is evaporating on the furnace of his bones. The monsters look up from their feast, eyes glistening with an eerie reflection.

“We are all dreamers,” I whisper. “Your greatest gift, Dreamer, is the gift of hope—and you planted that seed in every last one of us.”

Nightmare’s mouth is a jagged scar, zigzagging through his siege-engine face. It opens wide to scream, but he can produce no noise. Like in so many of my own nightmares, his throat fails him. His body moves against his will. I plunge my hands through his quicksand skin and into his festering, ill-fitting heart.

And squeeze.

Golden light rushes through me. My arms are engulfed in the Dreamer’s resplendence. My resplendence. I burn away the suffering and hate that crusts Nightmare’s core like barnacles. I cauterize the rotting flesh so it can drip no more misery onto our world. I am a dreamer, a dreamstrider, and I will keep the embers of hope alive with my glowing embrace.

I squeeze the Nightmare’s heart and he wails; his monsters cower under the painful cry, their human prey abandoned. His flight wobbles and we dip lower, tossing hulking shadows over the mass of tunnelers who have flooded into the streets. Some wield weapons, sticks, chains—beating back the Farthingers. But I swoop away before I can get a closer look.

Every beat of Nightmare’s heart forces my grip tighter. I embrace my own strength that was waiting inside me for me to accept it. I embrace the Dreamer’s teachings and every unanswered prayer that forced me to fight on my own.

Because I am the Dreamer—not because I was born with a gift, or because he blessed me with dreamstriding, or anything else. I am the Dreamer because I choose to be, forging my place from my own strange mix of talent and pure luck. Only doubt could stop me—did stop me, for a time.

I squeeze the oily, cold, shriveling heart.

The Dreamer didn’t choose me for anything.

I chose to dream.

You cannot stop us. The Nightmare Wastes will fill to bursting with misery and despair. It is your failing as human beings. We will always be ready to drink it up and thrive.

I press my eyes shut and twist my grip on the failing heart. “Then I’ll just have to give them hope.”

Nightmare crashes against the mountainside, a few leagues north of his first resting place. Every last sinew evaporates under the watchful stars. His heart bursts into a thousand flaming chunks, flinging themselves to the far corners of the world as his body withers away, back to a pile of bones.

But as each element of Nightmare is sucked back into the Wastes, I lose my grip on the real world. I have no body to grasp.

I fade. And fade.

Chapter Thirty-one

I hover on a column of earth inside Oneiros, the land around it collapsed into the nothingness far below. Even in their diminished state, the Wastes call to me. I am a bodiless dreamer, a wanderer, and Oneiros is not inclined to kindness right now. The minions have eroded so much of the dreamshapers’ work, and even though I cast them back into the Wastes when I slew Nightmare, the damage has already been done.

My soul aches. Its incorporeal limbs and muscles cry out for rest. I want to cry; I need to purge this exhaustion from me. I’m overwhelmed from the Dreamer’s powers rushing through me and the echoes of Nightmare’s poisonous thoughts. But I cannot let myself slip into the Wastes forever. I have to carry on.

I don’t know what I’m looking for—my own body’s manifestation in Oneiros?—but I have to trust that I’ll know it when I find it.

I dive from the pillar of earth and soar up instead of down. I feather through the clouds, no longer gorged with blood, and let the mountaintops of Oneiros act like cobblestone streets to lead me home, wherever it may be. My heart sings out as I draw closer—a magnetic reverberation steers me toward my soul.

I have awakened the dreams within me.

My throat catches as I approach an unassuming grove of trees. In their midst lies a cleansing pool, like in the Dreamer’s temples. There’s no gilded and carved monolith, and no censers to spew out sharp, wintry smells. No priests in white gowns wait to brush my hair and offer up platitudes about my dreams. Only the promise of purification. I’ve never seen my sleeping form inside Oneiros before, but I feel a familiar tug pulling me toward the pool. It’s me. I can cleanse myself, if I only have faith.

But, of course, my pool is not undisturbed. A sword sticks upright from the center of the pool, pinning down the trailing strands of the Emperor’s soul and the others whose blood was shed. So Marez takes the more direct approach—not happy to merely brush against his target’s thoughts, he instead skewers them and demands they cough up their secrets. No wonder I remember so many of my alleged “dreams” when he stole my skin. I should have caught on earlier.

I grasp the sword by its hilt. It’s a pale shade of gold, thick with scrollwork depicting screeching birds of prey. It suits him all too well. I grip the hilt with both hands and yank.

But the sword won’t budge.

“Problems?” Marez’s voice slithers in my ear, as if he stood just over my shoulder.

Shadows dart around the pool, threading through the trees. The first Commandant and Lady Twyne glide forward. The color is back in her skin, her hair glossy and styled once more. “If we can’t have the real world just yet…”

“… then this one will suit us fine,” the Commandant says.

I tighten my grip on the sword’s hilt, pressing into Marez’s consciousness. Colors bleed through, strung across short bursts of sound. Screams, the march of boots. I can almost see through my body’s eyes—almost feel the pinch of shoes at my ankles and the rough scarf tied at my throat. Then the sword pulses and throws me back to the edge of the pool.

Marez’s easy honey-smooth laugh rings in my ears. “And this body suits me just fine.”

“Professor Hesse was a fool, same as all the Dreamer’s priests,” Marez says. “Who was he to keep the secrets of Oneiros for himself, or one hopelessly broken nation? They should be there for the taking of those bold enough to master them. Oneiros belongs to the dreamstriders, not these pathetic priests.”

“You’re lying.” My voice is fuzzy; I fear it might get lost over the roar of the water as it churns around me. A whirlpool centers on the sword. I flail for purchase, but I am incorporeal. I’m lost to the whims of Oneiros.

“Give up, little girl,” Marez growls. “You can’t suppress nightmares forever. This is the punishment Barstadt has earned. For centuries, Barstadt has crushed hopes and dreams. Why shouldn’t they pay? Barstadt doesn’t deserve its power!” Marez laughs.

“That isn’t for you to decide.” I gasp for air. “Even Barstadt can be changed. The right way—not like this.”

“Don’t be so certain. When I joined the Dreamer’s priesthood, they threw me out for asking uncomfortable questions. Hesse locked me out for rubbing his nose in his own disgrace. But I knew what they refused to acknowledge—Barstadt’s weakness. Its failure. It’s time to stop hiding from the truth.”

“What truth? What is the truth to you?”

“The tunnelers and the Dreamer’s priests and men like Hesse are all part of a larger machine. They feed endless death to the Wastes so the Emperor and his chosen few can revel in luxury and sweet dreams.”

“And you think the Farthing Confederacy can do a better job?” I cry. “You’re no stranger to using people for your needs.”

Marez’s consciousness turns jagged; the sword’s blade hums. “Because I’ve earned this. I
deserve
control. I understand what you fools refuse to see!”

“We will become the Dreamers,” Lady Twyne says from her perch at the pool’s lip. “Why merely suggest a path to mortals through their dreams? We can command. Control. We can be gods.”

The first Commandant nods. “Look what life is like without a stern god at its helm. Nightmare has nearly destroyed your home for a second time, and your dreamland is in ruins. You are a flock without a shepherd. The Dreamer only suggests, while Nightmare
commands
. This is the way of the Iron Winds—to take by force.” The Commandant laughs. “What has the Dreamer ever given you? What have you ever claimed as your own?”

“Nothing,” Marez says. The sword throbs with painful heat. “Not even a body to call your own.”