Prince of Dreams Read online

  “I’m… It’s all right. I’m okay.” But I wasn’t. The itch to fight him off and find a way to end my life was still there. A blade, a piece of rope. I could ask in the kitchen and they would gladly supply me with something deadly to drink. Damn Faerie and its terrible ways.

  Sirius maneuvered me around and sat me on the bed. He wrapped his cloak around my shoulders and knelt so we were eye to eye. “While the poison is in your system, you must remain here. Sleep, if you wish. Despite the Dreamweaver waiting for you, it is likely the safest place. The poison will not follow you there.”

  In the gardens, he had tried to choke me. Now he was protecting me? I looked up into his gaze. The wildfire was gone, replaced by a softness I’d only seen in him a few times before. He had lost control in the garden, and it had frightened him. Few things frightened an immortal more than the prospect of death, and Oberon would surely punish him for the things he had said.

  “It is probably better for the both of us if you sleep.” He moved across the room once more, putting the maximum distance between us, and took up his usual place, leaning against the wall beneath the window. “Don’t get comfortable,” he grumbled. “The bed is still mine.”

  I settled on my side and watched Sirius drop his head back, casting his gaze toward the ceiling once more. What was he thinking? How he could survive me? Or was he contemplating the terrible truth he had spoken in the garden and how long he had before the whispers reached Oberon. You’re Oberon’s madness!

  But Oberon wasn’t insane. The king had a plan. It had something to do with me and the marks and the polestar, and I had to find out what it was.

  Sirius’s delicate lashes fluttered, and for a moment he softened, becoming someone more. Then he ruined it all by saying, “If I discover you’re conspiring with the Dreamweaver, I will take a saru from the kitchen and execute them for your treasonous acts.”

  And there it was, the arrogant, self-righteous sidhe guardian. “Bastard.”

  His eyebrow twitched, and then his lips curled into a smile. “Sweet dreams, Wraithmaker.”

  Chapter 7

  Kesh

  * * *

  A single candle flame was all that danced in the dark. Such a little thing, it seemed too small to survive alone in this place of darkness, but there it was, flickering defiantly on its wick. I approached, knowing this was a dream, but as the flame and I were alone, I saw no harm in it.

  Closer and the candle became the centerpiece of a table, a simple metal one like the one I’d owned on Calicto. The darkness clung on around me, but for the table, two chairs, and the candle. It might have been romantic if not for the loneliness chilling my skin.

  When the Dreamweaver had held me in his clutches before, I hadn’t been aware of who he was, not in the beginning. I’d fallen into this world, fearful but hungry for everything he gave. Once I learned what this dream place could do, I let him answer my every desire. Then I learned how everything he gave he would steal back when I ached for it the most. Here, he was always in control. This world was his, no matter what he let me believe. When he’d held me prisoner in the real world, he had offered me a glass of water, though water was as scarce as wood, knowing how I would eventually drink it. Control. He coveted it. He’d cast an illusion over his entire Arcon workforce, making them believe they worked for a man. Control was his weakness. Control and loneliness.

  Now, stepping into this dream, I knew the Dreamweaver better than most. I knew his games, what he desired, and how he was trapped, craving freedom. He’d been away from Faerie for over a thousand years, and now he was locked away, achingly close to home. This dream world was his, but I held his heart in my hands. I controlled him.

  The chair nearest me was of a sweeping metal and leather design, just like those in his Arcon office. Not a throne like I’d expected, and this wasn’t Arcon either. As far as dreams went, this one was empty. How did this quaint vision fit into his schemes?

  “It’ll be a dull twelve hours if this is the best you can do,” I said.

  My words sailed into the dark until the quiet gobbled them up, leaving me alone with only the sound of my beating heart. Maybe I’d rushed here for nothing? Maybe he had reneged on the deal? I’d been so sure he wanted me here—

  “Make it yours.” The whisper touched my ear and trickled inside. A flash of anger at my own reaction had my heart skipping a few beats. He stood behind me—the dreaming prince—so close I could taste his honeyed magic and feel his heat.

  The things we had done together in this world, the things he had made me do… Memories surrounded us, hot and lurid, sizzling sins. I swallowed and hated how loud that small gesture sounded in his perfect silence.

  “Dream your desires,” he urged.

  His voice pushed at my subconscious, tempting the worst of me out of the dark. The scene shimmered, swirling apart and rebuilding itself. Walls moved in, the room narrowing, and at one end, a window opened onto stacks of Calicto’s rusted containers. Calicto’s filtered air and B sector’s chemical scent that had kept the tourists away drifted to me, sparking memories to life like fireworks. My container had never been much, but it had been a home for five years. Calicto was gone, half eaten by Faerie and abandoned when I slaughtered the fae at the Game of Lies. My home was buried under a jungle, but I hadn’t forgotten it. Seeing it now reminded me of who I had been and what I needed to do. Sirius had been right. The poison had racked my mind in the real world, but here, my thoughts were clear.

  Eledan sauntered into my galley kitchen and danced his fingers along the countertop. His dark hair spilled down his back, rippling as he walked. His pretend crown was gone, but his black pants and simple shirt had the same frayed appearance I’d noticed before. It couldn’t be real. It was an act, a lie, to make me see him as weak.

  “How uninspiring your dreams are,” he remarked.

  The candle remained, as did the table, sitting in the middle of my tiny living area. Eledan flicked his fingers changing the display into two elaborately carved high-backed seats with a matching table between them. The candleholder spawned graceful arches, turning into a grand candelabra. A set of fine dining plates and bowls appeared, overflowing with plump, colorful fruits, vegetables and mouthwatering meats.

  He pulled out a chair and beckoned me to sit. His mouth had curved into a knowing sideways smile, and although he didn’t laugh, I heard it all the same.

  This was all very civilized. I doubted it would stay this way for long, but I would play along while it did. I had agreed to this, after all.

  We sat and ate the bounty of food, content to be present in the moment. Time passed differently here. A minute might be an hour on the outside. Or an hour here might be a second in reality. There was no point in rushing this or wishing the time away. Eledan controlled everything. It would be over when he was ready for it to be over.

  “Tell me of Faerie,” he asked casually, but an intense need glittered in his blue eyes.

  “Nothing changes.” I plucked a grape from among the fruits to give my hands something to do and popped it into my mouth. “The sidhe are all stuck up their own asses, the pretty is exhausting, and the air tries to smother you in your sleep.”

  He blinked and then laughed his delicious, rolling laughter that sent a dart of lust deep enough to make me squirm in my seat. “Your honesty is a delight!”

  His wicked laughter tickled my own. I twisted my lips, banishing the grin before he could see it. The game here wasn’t the dream; it was him and what he wanted me to see in him. Right now, he was on his best behavior, reminding me of how charming he could be. “Mab thought so too.”

  Still chuckling, he leaned back again, the motion fluid, graceful, and almost hypnotic. “I do not miss the court. That was always my mother’s domain and Oberon’s desire. I had no wish to rule. I was the wild prince, always on the front line, fighting the Dark Legions or questing through Faerie. My heart was too wild for the pantomime of the crystal palace.” Whether it had been a slip of the tongue
or he’d meant to mention his heart, his mood soured and his focus drifted, turning distant.

  I dropped my gaze and flicked it around the small living container, looking anywhere but at him so his sadness wouldn’t gnaw on my hatred. He was a powerful fae, a master of illusion, and he had made me feel things—terrible, wonderful things—for months on end. I could not fall into the trap of thinking him wounded, of seeing him as a victim. He was no victim. None of them were. I could not afford to sympathize with him, no matter what my wretched heart told me.

  I had to harden myself against all things Eledan or I would not survive these hours in his company. I was no longer his nothing girl, nor was I the Wraithmaker. I was the Messenger now, and I had a job to do.

  “Where are they keeping you?” I asked.

  He jerked his gaze to me and clicked his fingers. The container, and the feast vanished in a blink, and darkness flooded in. Above, below, and all around was suffocating darkness. I reached out, for something to hold on to.

  “There is nothing,” he said from somewhere. I couldn’t see Eledan, just my own reaching hands.

  “Endless nothing…” His voice drifted.

  I turned on the spot, looking for something, anything. My senses told me I was falling, but nothing moved. Nausea turned my stomach. Vertigo or motion sickness had my senses upside down. This wasn’t a real place. How could Oberon be keeping Eledan here?

  Then it dawned on me. This darkness was Eledan’s prison. Oberon knew his brother could dreamwalk and manipulate. He would never let Eledan see where he was holding him, because the Mad Prince could slip into saru dreams and convince them to save him. Eledan had no idea where he was. They’d probably kept him unconscious since I’d torn his heart out. How would I find him if I didn’t know where to start looking?

  The blackness smoked away, revealing Eledan’s Arcon home and the simple, tek-free bedroom. Light poured in through the windows and spilled over the bed, his desk, and the shelves of leather-bound books, their spines glittering with elegant fae text. This had been his sanctuary, and now it was my gift. I’d dreamed it up to get us out of the nothing place.

  Eledan stood at the desk, his back to me, hands spread on the desktop, head bowed. “My brother has my heart,” he said. “Without it, I am nothing and nowhere. To free me, you need to find my heart, find my body, and make me whole again.”

  I had two days to do all that.

  Oberon would never tell me where his brother’s heart was. He didn’t trust me enough. Nobody did. This task was… impossible.

  “You see why I did not make this deal before.” Eledan sighed.

  “Do you have any idea where—” I swallowed the knot in my throat. “—your heart is or your body? Any idea at all?”

  “None.”

  “Who would know?”

  “Only Oberon’s most trusted advisors.”

  “Would a guardian know?”

  He turned, sensing hope. “Perhaps.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you know any Royal Guardians?”

  “Perhaps,” I echoed.

  Would Sirius tell me if he knew? He had made it clear he didn’t want me scheming with Eledan. If I asked after the prince’s heart, he’d see right through my lies. There had to be another way. Could I convince Oberon to tell me? The king needed me. For what, I wasn’t sure, but he wouldn’t risk losing me. I needed leverage, something on the king that would make him reveal Eledan’s location, but what weakness could Oberon have?

  Eledan was watching me think, his expression curious. When my gaze met his eyes, his expression slid into something sly. He approached with purposeful strides. I lifted my chin and locked down the fear, keeping all emotion far from my face. I am the Messenger. I am in control. The Dreamweaver has no hold over me.

  He touched my shoulder and circled behind me. His fingers scooped up my hair and drew it to one side. Cool air kissed the curve of my neck. I could resist this, resist him. All I had to do was ignore how my body tingled beneath his touch and how forbidden desires crawled out of the places in which I’d hidden them. I hated him, I did, and I’d kill him again, but here, in this world made of fantasies, it was different. This wasn’t real. Here, there were no rules. Just him and me. Here, there were no consequences.

  “How did you know to cut out my heart?” His words brushed my neck, sprinkling goosebumps across my flesh. “Did Oberon tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why the heart?” His lips touched my cheek, sizzling hot.

  “Because it’s your weakness. Because you had exposed it. Because I wanted to.”

  “What did you feel when you cut it out?” Deeper his voice went into the memories of the months I’d spent with him, unearthing all the terrible secrets I’d hid from Kellee and Talen. “When you plunged the blade in and severed the strings holding me together…”

  My eyes fluttered closed. It had felt good, so damn good. My heart thumped too hard, and my breathing quickened. I was losing this battle, and he knew it.

  “How did it feel to kill me, Kesh?” My name was a hiss on his lips, on my skin, in my head.

  I have control.

  I licked my lips.

  He pressed all of himself against my back and switched his hand to the other side, gathering my hair again and twisting it around his fingers. “It felt good. You liked it. More than that… it felt right.” His other hand circled around my waist, fingers spreading across the flat plane of my stomach. He yanked me in tight, eliciting a gasp. “As though every step of your nothing life had led you to that moment.”

  I opened my eyes and saw Kellee leaning against Eledan’s desk. Saw his long, dark, messy hair partially captured in a ponytail and the hidden laughter in his green eyes. The star on his chest shone with the same kind of righteous judgment as the expression on his face. If he saw me with Eledan, if he knew the extent of the games the Mad Prince and I had played in dreams, he would hate me all over again. But Kellee couldn’t be here. He wasn’t real.

  Eledan’s hand slipped from my hair and ran down my arm to my hand, where he placed a knife. He wrapped my fingers around the handle, his touch so gentle.

  “The hunt, the kill, the fear, the lust… you feel it all because it’s who you are.”

  Don’t listen.

  “Nothing can hurt you here.” Eledan’s words poured into my ear and sank to a primal part of me. “This is your dream. You remember what it felt like to be free with me. I know you do.”

  Kellee wouldn’t hurt me, but he looked at me now as though I were the monster he had always believed me to be. The knife warmed in my hand. I’d killed him before in these dreams, time and time again. Eledan had witnessed the worst version of me.

  “Whatever the name you go by, you cannot change your nature, and I know exactly who you are. What you are.”

  I tightened my grip and held Kellee’s glare. “You have no idea who I am!” I whirled in Eledan’s arms and thrust the blade into his heart, driving it in so deep it touched his rancid soul.

  The Dreamweaver stumbled back, the knife sticking crudely from his chest. He closed his hand around the handle, face slack with shock. But that shock soon melted away, and behind it, his smile lurked. He pulled the knife free. It turned to smoke in his hand. And he laughed…

  That laugh. It was all around me, under my skin, in my head. On and on it tumbled, trying to burrow into my soul and feed.

  I had to get away.

  The dream swirled, and I was running through Arcon, running even as the vines grew from the floor and snatched at me, running as the floor heaved and glass shattered.

  Run, run, run.

  But this was his world. Nowhere was safe. I could run forever and never get free.

  I couldn’t let him do this.

  I wasn’t his nothing girl to tease with these mind games.

  Not anymore.

  I stopped, planted my feet, and let Arcon swallow itself around me until there was nothing left but smoking rubble to the horizon and that stretched the starli
t sky above. Faerie’s sky. A sky that never changed. In the sudden quiet, the twinkling soothed my racing thoughts and slowed my heart.

  “The Light fae stole a star from Faerie to banish the Dark Legion for good, but their own light blinded them and their efforts unbalanced all of Faerie,” Eledan said as he crossed the rubble, effortlessly making his way from rock to rock until he stood high on an outcrop, backlit by the star-speckled sky. He spread a hand to cover a tiny corner of the starscape. “My mother realized her mistake too late. Faerie refused to take the polestar back, so Oberon shattered it, or so the story goes…” He tore his hand from the sky as though he’d captured a fistful of stars and pressed his fist to his heart. “The pieces were hidden. One in Valand …” As he spoke, the star above us representing Valand throbbed red. “One in Sol.” Another system lit up, this one green. “One in Halow.” Blue. “And one here…” He turned. I couldn’t see his face, cast as it was in shadow, but I felt his gaze on me and the weight it carried. “On Faerie.”

  He jumped down from the rocks, into the clearing where I stood, and smiled his Mad Prince smile. The mess in my head muddled my feelings around him, but they didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered. I needed Eledan on my side to survive this, for countless saru to survive this, for Halow and Arran to survive. I needed the Dreamweaver working for me.

  “You know where the pieces are, don’t you,” I said.

  He smirked. “I’ve had a long time to look.”

  Not an admission, but it might as well have been. “If I give Oberon that information, he will free you.”

  Eledan threw his head back and laughed. He spread his arms and turned, admiring his cold, quiet dreamscape. “He’ll never free me. He has no further use for me. But he might release your gladiator friend.”

  Eledan approached, his stride casual. He had always stalked me before, as though I were his prey, but now we were back to being “friends” like during our little candlelit dinner. He stopped and held out his fist, urging me to look down. His fingers unfurled, and there inside four tiny shining fragments were nestled. They looked like wisps, only sharper and brighter.