Prince of Dreams Read online

  He pulled his hand away, and the sparks hung suspended between us. “For thousands of years they’ve remained hidden,” he said. “But outside Faerie, time decays everything it touches, and the Dark Legion emerges from its prison. My brother will stop at nothing to reunite the pieces of the polestar and hold back the Dark once more. He is blinded by his desire for the Light to rule Faerie. So blind he cannot see the damage he has done… and continues to do…”

  “He’s afraid you’ll find the polestar before he does.”

  “I already have.” He grinned. “The first fragment I discovered on Valand a long time ago, but it was stolen from me when I was betrayed during the first human war. The second…” His eyes sparkled. “The second found me when I needed it the most. The third was a seed planted on a jewel of a world, far from Faerie, and the fourth…” He tilted his head. “The fourth was hidden in the most unlikely of places.”

  I knew that last one. “A saru.”

  “A worthless saru bloodline, to be exact. Somewhere no fae would think to look. Passed down through the generations… to you, where Oberon found you again. Mylana.”

  Talen had said as much, but to hear it from Eledan too…

  My fate, one I didn’t understand, was closing in. “You always knew?”

  “Once I drew Mab’s power from your veins and had you in my dreams, I knew. There is a light inside you that should not be there. Oberon tries to hide it behind the warfae marks designed to keep the Dark at bay, but in your dreams, you are unguarded.”

  He gently caught my hand and lifted my arm. With his eyes on my face, he danced his fingers over the warfae ink marking my skin. I looked down and watched him trace Oberon’s work. He didn’t need to look; he knew where the lines were. He’d admired them a thousand times in our dreams.

  The marks kept the light inside me hidden? All this time I had thought they were rewards for my service, and now I knew for certain they weren’t gifts from my king. They were a device, of sorts. A means of hiding me.

  “Why does Oberon not free you if he’s so desperate to retrieve the polestar?” I asked, gently pulling my arm from his grip. “What does it matter if you find it first? You both want the same thing—to save Faerie.”

  “We are not the only ones seeking the polestar. The Dark Legion seeks it too. And it is the Dark my brother fears more than anything else. He won’t risk me making an… alliance.” Oh, he liked that word. Had he allied with the Dark before?

  “Why?”

  “My brother drove the Dark Legion away, but he did not do it without help. He has debts to pay. Death stalks him. Tell me, does he leave the crystal palace?”

  “No.”

  Eledan’s smile grew. “Faerie’s king is afraid of the dark.”

  Talen—as the Nightshade—had been bound by his word to help Oberon, but in secret, Talen had worked against the king. Did Oberon fear the Nightshade’s return, or was this “dark” something else? Something worse? So many questions, and Eledan held all the answers.

  “I can fix this,” I told him. “Tell me where the pieces are. I can bring them all together and make it right.”

  Eledan swept the shining stars up in his hand and tossed them back into the sky. “I think not, Messenger.” His musical voice echoed far and wide. “A weapon like that in your hands? I might be mad, but I’m no fool.”

  I was beginning to think he wasn’t as mad as he let the worlds believe. “So… now what? Will you languish here in the nowhere spaces while the Dark returns and consumes all of Faerie and Halow with it?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps it is all they deserve?”

  He had worded it as a question for a reason.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t I? Something you said to me at Arcon … Your words dug into my head and took root there…” He pressed a finger to his temple and made a painful twisting motion. “I’ve not been able to remove them. They chase me around the dark, like the ghost of your cutting out my heart haunts me. You said that I’ve lived so many human lives that I’ve begun to care.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve had an epiphany and suddenly care?” Now it was my turn to laugh a dry, bitter sound. “After I said that, you brought the defense net down. All of Faerie attacked Halow. Billions of Halow humans died. If you’d cared at all, you would never have let the fae back in.”

  He spread his hands and plastered an innocent look on his face. “Can’t a fae change?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Not you.”

  “Fine.” He huffed. “You’re right, of course. I don’t care. Not about humans. I care that I’m no closer to home than I was a thousand years ago. I care that I ache to have that wretched tek heart back, even if it pained me with every beat. I care that my brother sits on the throne while it rots around him and he does nothing to stop it!” Eledan’s teeth flashed behind a cold smile. “I care that I am in some forsaken hole in the ground with no room to breathe and that I am blind outside these dreams. I am drowning and suffocating and dying and I cannot survive this torture a second longer but I have no choice.” He whipped his hand into the air. The dream swirled around us. Red lightning forked across a churning sky, and Faerie turned to dust. “I can make worlds.” He lifted both hands, and the ground lifted with his gestures. Buildings clawed at the sky, brick by brick. Enormous skyscrapers soared above. “And break worlds!” He clicked his fingers and his creations exploded into clouds of dust. He whirled on me, danger present in every gesture, every snarl. “I care that I can do all this… but none of it is real.”

  I stumbled backward under the pressure of his approach and hit a wall that hadn’t been there before. He was on me in seconds. He clamped my face between his hands and pressed his mouth to mine. Fire and magic and memories of the times before poured through me, terrible times, wonderful times, times without boundaries or wrongdoings, times without sin or mistakes.

  I tore away from the kiss and shoved him. “Stop.”

  He pressed his forehead against mine, pinning me, and when I turned my head away, he spoke against my ear. “I want something real before I forget what reality is.”

  He wouldn’t force me. That had never been his way. He’d never needed to. To my shame, I’d always wanted him, and he’d been deprived of company, of Faerie. But I had changed. When I pushed again, he eased back and braced his hands on either side of me. He thought he had me trapped. And perhaps, in some way, he always had. But I had him too.

  “Tell me where the fragments are,” I said, blinking up at him. My whole world had become Eledan. Having him so close would have crushed me before, but here, now, he studied me, his gaze darting over my face.

  “If you free your gladiator,” he asked, “what then for the Wraithmaker?”

  “I’ll free all the saru.”

  An eyebrow lifted. “And Faerie, what of her children?”

  I almost lifted my hand to touch his face but caught that desire and locked my hands at my sides. “I’d kill all the fae if I thought I could get away with it.”

  “And there’s that refreshing honesty. But it’s also why I can’t tell you where to find the greatest weapon Faerie has ever created.” He was gone in a blink and reappearing several strides away with his back to me. I was losing him and, with him, the deal to free him and save Arran.

  I pushed off the wall after him. “C’mon, Eledan. Give me the information I need and I’ll do everything I can to make you whole again.” Sirius could find Eledan’s heart and body, and he’d do it for the polestar, for a chance to save his precious Faerie. “I came here, didn’t I? We can help each other.”

  “Was twelve hours in my company such a torturous idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sweet, sweet lies…” He turned and fell backward. A chair poofed out of the air and caught him. No, not a chair. A throne. “You’re asking me to trust you with information that could, and has in the past, topple worlds?”

  “Tell me where the pieces are
and I’ll free you. You might be immortal, but your mind is dying here. Forget everything else, you won’t survive this prison.”

  “I cannot trust a single word you say. Free me first and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll pull every star from the sky for you if you wish it. I’ll even sweeten the deal. Together, we’ll free your precious saru. But you must Free. Me. First. The rest will follow.”

  He would… free the saru? I fought the hope from my expression, careful to keep it hidden so he couldn’t use it against me.

  All of Faerie would follow this prince. The sidhe adored him, their mad hero. But he was asking me to trust him, trust a prince of illusion. If I did, he’d free the saru. My saru. Hope and anticipation set my heart racing. “I can’t free you without the information about the polestar’s pieces. I need it to bargain with.”

  “Do what you do best.” He leaned forward. “Lie.”

  Dammit. He was making this impossible.

  But I wasn’t alone outside this dream. Sirius might help me if I promised him the polestar. The guardian served Faerie above everything else.

  I needed time to think and make sure I’d covered all the possible angles. But Arran didn’t have time. I might not have time. Nightfall was coming. Halow’s people were dying. Time was not my ally. I had to decide now. Consequences be damned. This was the only chance I was going to get. “All right, I’ll free you, and then you’ll give me the location of all the polestar pieces?”

  He nodded.

  “But I need you to do something else,” I added.

  “A queen, a king, a dreaming thing, she thinks to tame me for her whims. What menial task will my Queen of Hearts ask of me this time?”

  His words held too much weight, his little rhymes worming their way beneath my skin. I shook my head to clear his voice. “Find Kellee if he’s alive. Tell him… tell him I didn’t abandon him. Tell him I was taken.” If Kellee was alive, then so was Talen, but I couldn’t risk Eledan going anywhere near him. “Tell Kellee, no… don’t tell him. He doesn’t like to be told… Ask him if we’re still okay.”

  The Mad Prince gave me a droll look. This task was clearly below him.

  “Unless you’re too weak to dreamwalk a vakaru’s simple mind?” I added.

  “It was not torture enough that I had to share our nine months together with you dreaming of the vakaru, but now you must have me enter his head?”

  I shrugged and admired my nails. “If it’s too much for you—”

  “I can’t torment the saru.” He sighed. “I might as well visit the vakaru to pass the time. I’ll need your help… your Light … to do it. Just a little. It won’t hurt you. But without it, I can’t span the distance between the vakaru and me.”

  I nodded and dampened my relief at knowing Kellee would hear from me.

  Eledan fell silent and studied me through his lashes, thinking up something more. “If I do all this, I want more from you, Messenger. When I am free and you have my heart in your hands once more, I want you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.

  His blue eyes sparkled. “I will give you the stars if you wish for them. I will free your saru, all of them, and withdraw Oberon’s forces from Halow. But you, in return, will be mine. You will stand beside me. You will come when I call. You will be present in my dreams and in reality. You will, in every way, be mine. Your little saru life for those of your entire race. Freeing the saru will destabilize Faerie, the households, the sidhe lords, and the courts, all of which I’ve never been fond of anyway. Your life in my service is a small price to pay for saru freedom, don’t you think, Messenger?”

  It would be the ultimate sacrifice. Give my life in servitude to Eledan for my saru and for Kellee to know I hadn’t abandoned him. For Halow. I’d wanted to be the Messenger, I’d wanted to herald change, to make a difference, to make up for my past, and Eledan was offering me that chance here and now. I swallowed hard. If I truly was the Messenger and intended to end a war without getting more blood on my hands, I had no other choice.

  “Isn’t it time you stopped killing and started saving people, Messenger? Freeing all those saru… why, it would certainly balance the scales for all the death you wrought upon them. I can help with that, or… not.” His crown appeared on his head, and he drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair in the same way I’d seen Oberon do. “Or is the Messenger just a fairy tale?”

  Unlike him, I did care about the people. I cared about the people of Halow and all the saru on Faerie. About the lives lost and lives yet to be saved. Kellee had once shown me a starscape littered with countless frozen bodies. I could prevent that from happening again. If I did this, it would right the wrongs. And all I had to do was give up a freedom I’d never had. That and love. I’m sorry Kellee, Talen, Aeon. “You’ll stop the war and free the saru?”

  “Every. Single. One.” His smile said he knew I’d already agreed.

  Lives spent in cages. Humans grown for Faerie’s whims. Freeing them was a dream I’d never imagined could be made real. An end to their suffering. I owed them that. I owed Aeon to make that dream a reality. Talen had once told me I didn’t know what love was. He was wrong. I knew it now. I loved my people and my friends. I’d give them all up to save them. “I agree.”

  So simple a thing to deal with the devil.

  Eledan’s smile grew. “And for such a fine arrangement, I’ll give you a gift.”

  “A gift?”

  “Indeed.” He stepped down from the throne. “They don’t call me the Dreamweaver for nothing…”

  His image blinked in front of me, and he kissed me quickly, once on the lips while his hand pressed against my chest. I felt a tug on my ribs, and then he vanished, but his smile and the chaste kiss lingered in my memory, leaving me to wonder what gift awaited me.

  The barren dreamscene melted away, revealing a chamber I didn’t recall ever seeing before. Brightly colored cushions were scattered around the floor and over couches, and they continued their play over a bed large enough to accommodate at least five. What game was Eledan playing now? If he thought to seduce me with pretty cushions and Faerie wine during these last few hours, he didn’t know me very well.

  I ventured around the cushions, drawn to the window where crisp white drapes rippled in the breeze. Outside, green stone pyramids erupted like teeth into the purplish skyline—a skyline I knew. Valand.

  But why show me this…?

  I heard Eledan behind me.

  “If you think to seduce me somehow…” The words lodged in my throat.

  “Kesh?” Kellee blinked, looked behind him out the door, and then turned back to me as though expecting someone to interrupt us.

  Seeing him surprised was a rare sight, but he wasn’t real. Just like the Kellee who had judged me earlier, this Kellee was Eledan’s illusion too. There was no way the real Kellee would have chosen to appear to me as his old self, with those feathers tied into his long, wavy locks. And the clothes? All wrong for Kellee. He might have worn that leather and cotton outfit as a warlord on Valand, but it wasn’t how I remembered him.

  I folded my arms and leaned against the windowsill. “Is this the best you can do?”

  Kellee’s eyes narrowed, but his smile ticked, turning sly. He closed the door behind him and sent that long look my way as he crossed the room, untying the laces at his shirt collar to loosen it. His smile grew with every step.

  “What is this?” he asked, like I was the trick here.

  “You tell me.”

  He brought a booted leg up, resting it on the edge of the bed, and began to unfasten the buckles. He chuckled. “This isn’t real.”

  I rolled my eyes and shoved off the sill. “All right, I’ll play. This is my dream, after all, so I can do as I please.”

  Kellee loosened the buckles on his other boot, glancing at me the whole time. “Your dream? You think so?”

  “I know so, Marshal.”

  Next, his fingers worked at his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves past his
elbow, revealing corded bronze forearms. “Considering your scant attire, I disagree. This is my dream.”

  My… attire?

  I looked down while feeling, for the first time, air kissing my midriff. Oh, cyn. I had a strap covering my breasts and a long skirt split at the sides, revealing my legs from foot to hip. Warfae designs snaked across my skin. Almost everything was on display. Eledan’s idea of a joke, no doubt. Ha-ha.

  “Kesh would never wear that,” Kellee grinned.

  “I wouldn’t?” I might have for the real Kellee, had he asked nicely.

  “Not enough places to conceal weapons.” He was suddenly in front of me, his hands scorching my hips. “A dagger here.” He pinched my hip, and then slid his hand inward, following the v between my thigh and crotch. “Her whip… here.” His other hand pinched my other hip and then swept around to cup my ass. Now that he had my attention, he stepped in, deliberately plastering himself against me.

  Heat pulsed between my legs. Damn Eledan. This wasn’t fair. He knew Kellee was my weakness.

  “Marshal—” I tried to pull free but stilled when his breath warmed my neck.

  Being this close to Kellee had always been dangerous. But not here, in a dream. No sins, no repercussions, no guilt. Here, nothing was forbidden. He couldn’t accidentally tear my throat out, but he could come close. I ran my tongue across my teeth, riding out the sudden, hungry lust and failing.

  I wasn’t sure what Eledan was doing with this gift, but I’d take it, like I’d taken it all the times before.

  “You smell like I remember, like fire and metal and vengeance.” He caught my chin and held it firmly, trapping me as his eyes glowed golden.

  I hadn’t noticed how my heart was racing, but did now. I tore my chin free and drove my hand against the front of his trousers. He was firm and ready. Using the ball of my thumb, I rubbed downward and watched his lips part and his eyes lose focus.

  “Seems you’re a hungry vakaru,” I purred.

  He locked a hand around my throat. I’d been expecting it and slammed my free hand up, under his chin, whipping his head back. He swore and backed off a step, rubbing his jaw, but that smile grew, and something of a purring growl rumbled from inside him. “I won’t go easy on you, Kesh.”