Side A – Yasgrid
Words had fled from Yasgrid’s lips. Staring across the dreamlit clearing, she saw what had to be a figment conjured from her subconscious.
“This isn’t a normal dream,” Kyra said, her face frozen at the balance between fear and rage.
“Nope,” Nia agreed with a nod of her head in the suggestion of a bow.
“And there are two of you?” Kyra asked, her expression clouding over into confusion.
“Not exactly?” Nia said, turning her hands up in a shrug. “She’ll need to explain it when you’re both awake for there to be any chance that it makes sense. And so we’re able to demonstrate what she says.”
Yasgrid glanced between Nia and herself and saw they were both wearing identical Elven bodies, which explained Kyra’s confusion at seeing two of Nia’s body.
Or was Nia’s?
Something in Nia’s eyes didn’t match the form she stood cloaked in.
They weren’t Elven eyes.
Yasgrid knew them though.
She had looked into those eyes all her life.
In every mirror. In ever puddle on a sunny day. In every moment she’d gone back to visit her old body.
But they weren’t her eyes anymore.
Just like the body they shared was no longer Nia’s.
“Why did you bring me here?” Kyra asked.
“Why did you follow?” Nia replied.
“This is a trap isn’t it,” Kyra said, shifting her weight onto her back foot. “I thought I could recognize her magic, but you’re just her projections aren’t you?”
She was a moment from fleeing and the gossamer strands of the dream would shred in her wake.
She would pull away, knowing that even the thought of the Bearer she’d traveled with down the Lost Roads had become a perilous weapon in Elshira’s hands.
And that would be the last she would dare to think of Yasgrid.
Yasgrid felt the string tugging on her heart pulling so taut it couldn’t help but snap. She took a step forward and raised her hand as though she could catch hold of something that could prevent the woman in front of her from disappearing forever into the darkness which surrounded them. At Yasgrid’s movement though, Kyra retreated a single step, her body going rigid with the suppressed rage of a frightened prey animal.
“No,” Yasgrid said, dropping and hand as her shoulders slumped and her gaze fell to the clearing floor.
A long silent moment passed before Kyra spoke.
“You’re not projections?” she asked, belief and suspicion warring over every word.
“I am,” Nia said. “But I’m not Elshira’s projection. What’s happening here? This dream? This is a magic she’s never even heard of. We’re safe here.”
Kyra let a bitter laugh escape.
“I thought I was safe before, but she controls so many things in the Darkwood.”
Yasgrid looked up at that, searching Kyra’s face in the vain hope that she was exaggerating.
“We’re not in the Darkwood, and for as far as her power may reach under the sheltering trees, it can never stretch this far,” Nia said and with a gesture swept away the forest clearing and the night which cloaked them.
Side B – Nia
Daylight in dreams can be blinding, but Nia had no desire to incapacitate her guests. In her dream therefor, the brilliant light of the cold mountaintop was gentle, revealing a world of endless blue and rich green topped with the scintillating white of eternal snow.
She saw the look of recognition that passed over Yasgrid’s face and had to suppress a chuckle at the awestruck expression Kyra wore.
Not that the Fate Dancer’s reaction was unreasonable. Nia had had months to grow accustomed to the Stoneling’s lands and they still took her breath away regularly.
“Where are we? Who are you?” Kyra asked, her hands twitching as though a simple flick of her wrists might conjure forth her customary knives.
“We’re inside her dream now,” Yasgrid said. “She pulled us over her so that we’d be outside even the shadow of the Darkwood.”
“How is that…I…I’ve never been in a dream like this,” Kyra said, relaxing almost imperceptibly.
“It’s more than a dream,” Yasgrid said. “It’s an extension of something she and I can do. Or maybe something she and I are. She’s right that it’s complicated.”
“Complicated and unimportant at the moment,” Nia said.
“Unimportant? Why? Why call me here?” Kyra said.
“Because the two of you needed a moment together,” Nia said. “You’re both in bad situations, but I think we can change that.”
“No! She didn’t catch you too did she?” Kyra said, taking a step towards Yasgrid for a change.
Nia caught the spark of hope that flared in Yasgrid’s eyes and the smile that was struggling to break out across her face.
“I’m still free,” Yasgrid said. “She hasn’t faced me since the first time we met.”
“She’s said you’re coming to join her,” Kyra said.
Nia didn’t bother suppressing her laugh, or hiding its sharp edge.
“She thinks she knows who I am,” Yasgrid said. “She is mistaken about that.”
“Then you’ll be able to avoid her? Can you hide here?” Kyra asked.
“Only in dreams,” Nia said. “Her body is still cradled in the Darkwood. Protected at the moment, but even that will fade when she wakes.”
“Don’t let it!” Kyra said. “Sleep for as long as you can, and when you wake find some spot she can’t touch. My people can shelter you.”
It was Yasgrid’s turn to let a bitter laugh escape.
“Against the threat something like Elshira’s Revenant poses, the Fate Dancers will join with the Bearer,” Kyra said.
“I can’t work with them,” Yasgrid said, her whisper audible only because the dream made it so. “What they’ve done fills me with a rage that is more dangerous than they can possibly know.”
“But you can’t stand against Elshira alone. You don’t know what she is,” Kyra said.
“I’m learning what she is, and I know what she was,” Yasgrid said.
“Then you know Endings won’t aid you against her,” Kyra said.
“Kayelle is carrying Endings now,” Yasgrid said. “I don’t plan to use it against Elshira and I’m no longer hunting Troubles.”
“What are you hunting then?”
“You.”