The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [44]
I HAD A DREAM LAST NIGHT. I DREAMED I WAS A MOUNTAIN, AND MY FEET PULLED LOOSE OF THE EARTH, AND I WALKED, CRUSHING EVERYTHING BENEATH ME. I CRUSHED THE MASTER. WHEN I WOKE, I WAS FRIGHTENED HE WOULD FIND OUT AND PUNISH ME, BUT HE DIDN’T. I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE COULD SEE MY DREAMS. HE HAS TOLD ME WHAT I DREAMED BEFORE. BUT THIS DREAM WAS DIFFERENT. I THINK SOMEHOW THE MOUNTAINS HAVE TAUGHT ME HOW TO DREAM IN SECRET. THAT WOULD BE NICE.
IT HURT, JUST AS THEY SAID IT WOULD. IT HURT SO MUCH, I ALREADY CAN’T IMAGINE THE PAIN. AND THERE WAS BLOOD, A LOT OF IT. EVERYTHING WENT DARK, AND I THOUGHT I HAD DIED AND WAS IN A STRANGE PLACE. THERE WERE TWO RIVERS THERE, A BRIGHT BLUE-GREEN STREAM AND A BLACK ONE. I STOOD WITH A FOOT IN EACH, AND I WAS TALL, LIKE A MOUNTAIN. I WAS TERRIBLE.
THEN I WOKE, AND THERE WAS MY DAUGHTER, AND I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT MY FATHER MEANT BY THE WORD “LOVE.”
I WON’T WRITE WHAT THEY DID. I WILL NOT. IT IS DONE. But I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill all of them.
Stephen gasped and pulled his fingers away as the lead scrift was suddenly too hot to touch. The purest hatred he had ever felt scalded through him, so uncontainable in its fury that he found himself shrieking. And as that awful rage trembled through him, he turned and caught a motion from the verge of his eye. He spun to find a boiling, kinetic darkness like black oil poured in water and almost a shape. Then his gaze rejected it and turned his head away, and when he was able to look again, it was gone.
The anger burned away as quickly as it had come, replaced by shivering fear. He sat, quaking, for long moments, his brain refusing to tell him what to do. Where was the thing? Was it still here, perhaps a fingers-breadth from him, hiding in the air itself, waiting to strike?
You don’t have to be afraid, a voice whispered. You never have to be afraid again.
“Shut up,” Stephen muttered, rubbing his shaking hands together.
It took a long time for him to manage to stand, and when he did, his body felt light enough to blow away on the wind.
He flipped through the journal until he found what he was looking for.
A little later he heard a slight scuffing and saw that Zemlé was watching him from the stairwell.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “Enough,” he said. “Enough.”
“What?”
“Call Adhrekh. I’ll start walking the faneway. Tonight.”
CHAPTER TEN
THREE THRONES
ASPAR SHIFTED his grip on the knife a bit and licked his dry lips. He’d heard—or thought he’d heard—something coming through the dense bottomland forest, but now all he could make out was the rushing of the stream and the scraping of branches in low wind.
But then, behind him, he caught the faintest hiss of fabric on wood and whipped around to face whatever it was.
He found himself staring down an arrow shaft at Leshya’s violet eyes.
“Sceat,” he muttered, sagging against the rough, twisty bark of a willow.
“I took the longer way down,” she explained.
“Yah.”
She glanced at the corpse of the utin. “You’re still alive,” she said.
“Yah.”
“I’ve lived a long time, Aspar White, and been almost everywhere. But you, my friend, are unique.” She shook her head. “Any open wounds need stopping? Broken bones?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I noticed a rock shelter not far from here. Let’s go there and take a look.”
He nodded wearily.
He winced as her fingers prodded the tissue of his leg, but actually it almost felt good, like sore muscles after a hard hike.
“Well, you didn’t break it again,” she said.
“Well, Grim must love me, then,” he said.
“If he loves anyone, I’d say so,” she replied. “Now let’s have your shirt off.”
He didn’t feel like he was capable of doing much more than raising his arms, but she shucked it off with a few sharp tugs. He felt a jagged pain in his side.
“Need a bath,” she said.
“Sefry bathe too much,” he replied. “Unhealthy