To Dream Is A Pity

The gaping hole his uncle had left immediately ripped open again, striking him with an agony he hadn’t felt since the night the Priestess fell.

The deception was akin to a highly concentrated salt, pressing against the memory that was still so fresh in his mind. Administered with involuntary anaesthetic, only effective in its ability to make him forget.

No relief was worth forgetting.

The illusion was long gone now, broken into shards too fine to form into anything significant again. He’d found himself situated upon the forest floor, pines and needles pricking at him through his clothes.

Nico had dissipated into nothing. Not even a piece of clothing left to prove his presence by, nothing beyond the ghosting words that echoed in his brain.

Lost to time once again.

But the space Daphne occupied told a different story.

Standing in place of where she had laid, the woman from the balcony glared down at him, a satin veil still strewn over her face.

When he looked up at the woman, the tubes in his stomach fought to spike at his insides, jittering in nauseous anticipation. Goosebumps erupted upon the surface of his skin, nipping at the fuzz that clung there.

This was the current ‘Priestess.’ A false heir to the role, one that most certainly had not originated from White Lily City. Most importantly, it was one that Daphne had likely never known at all.

“You’re a dream eater.”

Kael let go of a shaky breath, shuddering as it left him.

Coming so close to the pathetic end to a second life, doomed to another death with an empty funeral. He’d almost fallen completely under the spell, lured into an escape forced upon him.

Until her slip up, he really had been none the wiser. Just a dream. One born of agony, out of the shock of his uncle.

No. Any thought of that scene would be pushed away.

Dream-eaters didn’t typically land upon a person’s radar. Until now, he’d believed them to be more of a myth than anything else, a creature of old tales meant to scare children and keep ancient song alive in taverns.

But the reality of the creatures was ever so frightening.

Leading victims to slumber with dreams of what they desired most, they’d manipulate the illusion until the victim agreed to stay forever, enchanted by the world unfolding before their eyes.

Once they’d agreed, the bond was complete and the deal was sealed. After that, there was no way out, their soul belonged entirely to the hands of the caster.

“I’m a Priestess,” She murmured, an airy wonder to her tone.

Like shit you are, Kael thought to himself as his hands fumbled over the spiked floor, clamouring to the safety of his feet.

What kind of Priestess would prey on the weak minded, possess such an evil ability and cast it so freely?

None that were worthy of the title.

“And a dream-eater,” He asserted through gritted teeth.

“Only of those who are willing,” She retorted, her tone unchanging despite the provocation.

From beneath the sheet, there was no face to fuel his resentment.

“I was not willing,” Kael bit back, the flicker of his friends a painful reminder of what he’d lost, what could never be brought back.

To taunt him with adventures he would never get to follow, that were impossible to exist.

When he’d already lost so much.

“You remain untouched,” She pointed out, as if it meant something.

It didn’t.

“Untouched? You tampered with my head, let yourself venture into somewhere you weren’t welcome. You can’t judge something psychological by physical standards,” Kael emphasised, drawing a clear line between them. It was so so real. How was it that real?

He knew nothing of her. Even if she believed to understand him from the snapshot she’d stolen, it was meaningless. Those memories weren’t entertainment for a stranger’s amusement, they were the lashes and scars that covered every free inch of his skin.

“It is not possible to travel into the past, therefore what you saw was not real. You knew that, but you wished to covet that time again. You were certainly willing then.”

Two hands slid out from under the fabric.

It began with just a sliver of bony fingers, crawling out of the sleeves that hid any presence of skin. Until the white cloth slid down her forearm.

Stitches. Her limbs were held together by twine, intricately sewn over aged thread.

The very glint in his eye seemed to drain away into the gutter, struck by the horror of what he witnessed. Boots slipped on the damp undergrowth.

As those dead arms raised, they peeled back the veil that obscured her, but Kael wished she hadn’t.

In place of eyes, two black cavities dominated her face, drawing an onlooker into the endless vortex that they held. Black liquid seeped from the pits, slow enough of a trickle that the ink had dried before it could reach any further than the cheeks.

More stitches.

Skin had greyed in colour, much like Kael’s had after all that time in the shrine, but to a degree that defied what seemed possible. Rather than anything fit to be labelled a diviner, she was more like a walking corpse.

“Who the hell are you?” Kael stammered, unable to help the carnal fright that sparked within him.

Not human. Not a demon. Not a beast.

This was something entirely other, the frayed result of forbidden magic.

Maybe he had no idea what he was really up against.

The dream-eater kept her mouth in a firm line, those black cores staring straight into him as if they might tear his frail body open.

“You’re no Priestess. You're nothing but an imitation,” He provoked, but the tremble was evident in his voice.

It was a dangerous game to play, toeing the line of a monster’s lair. But what choice did he have? He needed her to bite. To be resentful enough to give something away, anything!

“Imitation? How ever could I be such a thing?” She spoke simply, nothing bitter about her tone.

“You’ll never hold a candle to the High Priestess.”

If the tips of her eyebrows were able to move more than a half inch, he thought they’d allude to a confusion.

“I wouldn’t try to. I was fond of her, that girl. So peculiar. Of all the diviners that braved my attention, she was the only human. Perhaps she soon realised how little the human gods care for their own, and noticed me listening. Not to all, but certainly to her. Such saintly thoughts, boundless potential. Her end is one of my greatest regrets.”

The wind whistled as it crept between the gaps in the forest, filling the silence as he let the woman’s words sink in.

There was no purpose in asking for an identity, it was pretty clear to him who this stranger was now. She defied expectation, that was certain. Nothing like the Alistair that screamed god or the Kallista that made sure none would forget her.

There was no subtlety hidden in extravagance, pain hidden in humour like Faelan.

The dream-eater was of a time that had passed, belonging more to a grave than to a balcony that overlooked the city.

Why ever would she become a Priestess in this state? What business would a god need to take on the role of a diviner? Wouldn’t that be completely redundant?

“Lenore, you’re not really living, are you?” He breathed out a deep sigh, troubled by the variables that he couldn’t pull apart from the masses.

In a strange way, they were much the same. Of all the people that swam in the basin of his life, no other seemed to quite compare to this circumstance. Living a second life, belonging to the grave. An inconceivably low level of any real autonomy.

Not so long as the mystery of that night loomed over him. Not until he truly knew what had led his sword to her body.

And the answer was right in front of him - he was sure of it - always just an arm's length out of reach.

The woman shook her head.

“Not remotely. It is merely to make my sister feel better, even as this body rots and faces a second death. I could not defy her even if I tried, no more than a doll could escape its owner.”

The crack of a twig. The sound of shoes upon creaking undergrowth.

A rustle in the forest saw Bloodseek Blade flying from its sheath, glittering in anticipation of who might come for him this time.

His conversation with Lenore would have to wait until the intruder had been dealt with.

“Kael!”

A voice laced in distress called out to him through the clearing, much higher and expressive than its usual tone.

Miria stood with a hint of wildness in her hair, the first signs of tangles and imperfections that had never betrayed her prior. Her dress had gathered stray pieces of moss at the front, most definitely from a fall, evidenced by the scrapes across both of her knees. Red splotches arose upon her cheeks, earned from her over exertion.

His mouth opened, ready to explain the stranger behind him.

But when he turned back, the dream-eater was gone.

“Miria,” He spoke, tone softening at the introduction of a real friend - not one that his mind had manufactured. His sword lowered in the absence of a threat, and for a moment, he waited for the other companion to follow suit. Running had never suited the noble man, more likely to arrive by horse or chariot than extending the extra effort.

It appeared there wouldn’t be that kind of novelty. The forest had fallen quiet, nothing beyond the ambience brought by the winds against tainted leaves.

Lenore had vanished like she’d never been there at all, gone like the wisp of an owl’s wing in the night.

“Lucian?” He managed, hopeful that he might appear at the summon of his name.

The acolyte shook her head, eyebrows sliding together to almost meet in the middle. Beads of shiny sweat dripped down the curved surface of her forehead, her lips angled down and pressed into a firm line.

“There’s a fire in the city. They said… They said it’s your sword’s doing. Your sigil. He stayed to fight it.”

Miria’s face had scrunched together, but even she was unaware of the weight of her words.

Of everything they meant.

Falling leaves were left to feel the silence. Not even the tweet of a lone bird dared to break it.

A spark of anger caught against dry tinder. A jaw tightened as teeth crunched together, knuckles growing whiter as his grip shook the tool.

The fraudulent irises stung as they filled with water, blurring as he blinked them away. But they wouldn’t fall this time, not anymore.

His sword.

His sigil.

His doing.

A story he’d heard once before.

Another drop landed within Kael’s basin, so full that it shook under the pressure. Any moment, it could spill over, fall into cascading waves that took the city out with it. And maybe he didn’t care anymore if it did.

A bitter laugh fell from his mouth, a sickening sweetness in it that burned the back of his throat.

Five years.

He’d carried that weight, dead or alive, for five years. Even his soul wasn’t willing to wake until forced, too miserable to peek open an eyelid.

It was a shame that wasn’t worth surviving. The people he’d protected, bled for, died for. To them he was nothing beyond a dastardly crook, a beast whose good deeds belonged to pages on history books that had been burnt to ash.

But now the bait hung right in front of him, next to the innocent life of his uncle. It was as if he stood at the mercy of the Priestess, who swung his life like a pendulum.

To suffer or to be freed?

To mourn or to remember?

That sigil, the one which had set her house alight all those years ago. The sword that had cut her down, brought her life to a treacherous end. A mystery to even himself, for how could one besides himself cast his very own creation?

But it was possible. It was happening as he spoke, weaponised against the very city he’d given his whole life to foster and protect.

Perhaps he’d been lying to himself from the very start. Even the dream-eater had known it to be true, that his greatest desire was not to know what devil had brutalised Daphne, but to return to a world in which it had never happened at all.

And maybe it was easier to blame himself, to believe he could spend a lifetime atoning for the crime of taking her life. To think that another had torn away her future and stamped on his own, even now feeling not a hint of remorse. To continue on with the taunting.

Such a hell did exist. Not commanded by the authority of a vengeful god, but in the barbarity of the living.

Faced with it all, Kael couldn’t possibly decide: was it a blessing or a curse to know that it was not he who had condemned the Priestess to death?