66
When she opened her eyes again, she was back in the palace gardens – bone dry, and with Ku-sai’s sword still in her hand.
“Joslyn?” Tasia said, looking up at her quizzically. “Why do you have a sword in your hand? You didn’t a moment ago. How –”
Joslyn had hidden herself from Rennus, but he’d find her again soon enough. She sheathed the sword in its normal place on her back.
Joslyn bent down and pulled Tasia to her feet. “He won’t be able to use you against me if he doesn’t know where you are.”
“If who doesn’t know where I am? You’re not making any –”
By time Tasia finished speaking, the gardens were gone, replaced by a grassy mountainside with a hut in the center. Smoke rose lazily from the chimney and hens clucked contentedly outside a simple henhouse.
Tasia gasped. “Where … how did we …?”
“Far too obvious,” Joslyn mumbled to herself.
The scene shifted again, and this time they were deep underground, standing beneath a gateway inlaid with gems before a broad avenue that led across an underground lake.
Joslyn nodded in satisfaction. “You’ll be safe here, with the small men. I doubt any living human has ever seen this place but me. If he hasn’t seen it, he won’t be able to imagine it, and if he can’t imagine it, he won’t be able to find it.”
Tasia stared at the lake, the honeycombed buildings beyond that seemed to grow out of the cavern floor itself, and the strange orbs of moon-colored light that floated over everything. She let out a small gasp, hand covering her mouth.
Joslyn assumed she was gasping at the sight of the small men’s underground city, but then Tasia said, “Mother Moon, Joslyn. How long have we been under that … spell?”
Joslyn’s heart leapt. “You remember? You remember what happened?”
“It’s … coming back to me,” Tasia said. She frowned in thought. “Akella took us to the Kingdom of Persopos and … we snuck into the city, didn’t we? A great white city, spiraling up the side of the mountain exactly as Akella had described it. And – and we made it almost to the palace itself, but then …”
“The Order of Targhan,” Joslyn supplied.
Tasia’s face turned grim. “We lost, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
She smiled wryly. “I take it at least he didn’t kill us.”
Relief coursed through Joslyn’s veins. Finally, Tasia was awake. Finally, Joslyn was not alone in her fight.
“How long?” Tasia asked. “How long did we dream ourselves inside the palace garden?”
Joslyn didn’t have the heart to tell Tasia how long it had been, and she wasn’t completely certain herself. Milo looked to be somewhere between fourteen and sixteen summers. At best, they had been gone for three years. At worst, maybe even five years.
“I have to go,” Joslyn said. “Rennus can dreamwalk now. I injured him, and I doubt he can find this place, but I can’t say for sure. I need to finish him. You’ll be safe here until I return.”
Tasia gave her a puzzled look. “How? When you leave, doesn’t all this disappear, too?” She waved an arm to indicate the enormous cavern and its underground city.
“I’m a stronger dreamwalker than I used to be. Much stronger.” Joslyn hesitated, then decided there was no point trying to deny the truth to herself or to Tasia any longer. “I’m not sure how, but I’ve been connected to the Shadowlands – and the undatai – ever since the first time it injured me on the mountainside. The more dreamwalking I do, the stronger that connection becomes – and the more powerful I become here, in the Shadowlands. I don’t think the deathless king realized that when he imprisoned us inside our own dreams. By putting me back into the Shadowlands, or at least a piece of it, he made me stronger at the same time.” She glanced around the small men’s city. “I haven’t tried leaving a self-sustaining q’isson of this size and complexity in place before, but I’m sure that I can. I wouldn’t leave you here if I couldn’t.”
“I trust you, Joslyn. If you say you can do it, you can. But…” Tasia thought a moment. “You said Rennus can dreamwalk, too. Doesn’t that mean he will find this place?”
“He’ll try.” Joslyn’s lip curled back in a snarl at the thought of the traitor Brother. “He’s become the deathless king’s guard dog, tasked with keeping us in our cage until the undatai regains enough strength to possess us both.” She grasped Tasia’s shoulders and leaned forward, planting a kiss on her forehead. “But I promise you: I will find Rennus before he can find me. Or you. And I’ll kill him.”
“Take me with you,” Tasia said. “I’ve fought in the Shadowlands before, and two against one is better odds.”
Joslyn shook her head. “It’s too dangerous – he’s too dangerous. Right now, I’ve essentially dreamwalked into your dream and changed it. But if he finds you, he’ll be able to do the same thing. He can make you forget again, forget that you’re dreaming. And then use you against me as a bargaining chip.”
Tasia pursed her lips. “I’m not helpless.”
“I’m not saying you are.”
“Then let me fight with you.”
“I know you’re strong,” Joslyn said. “I know you can fight. Tasia, please. It’s not about you being strong; it’s about me being weak. If you fight at my side, I will be preoccupied with ensuring no harm comes to you, and that kind of distraction can cost me this fight.”
Tasia seemed to contemplate this. “All right, but promise me one thing. Promise me that after Rennus is dead, you will come back for me. Promise me we will face the deathless king together, as one. Just as we did in the Shadowlands.”
Joslyn considered it, then nodded. “I promise.”
Tasia threw her arms around Joslyn, embracing her tightly before kissing her. “Just make sure you come back to me.”
Joslyn pressed her forehead to Tasia’s. “I always do.”
Before Joslyn could change her mind, the city of the small men dissolved and the palace gardens reappeared.
“There you are,” Rennus said jovially. He stood beside the picnic basket, sipping a glass of wine. He smacked his lips thoughtfully. “Phenomenal, isn’t it? The difference between a House Aventia red and a House Yount red is subtle – obvious to the connoisseur, but still subtle. Yet even that detail is perfect.” He took one more sip, then let the wine flute tumble from his fingers. “Chosen by the Prince of Shadows. You don’t even know how lucky the two of you are. How envious I am. You will be as if sister to the King. And the so-called Empress will be his Queen.” Rennus barked out a laugh. “A legitimate Empress at last! When the king weds her, you’ll rejoice in their union, I promise. And it will be a union of unions, since you will all be inhabited by the same shadow.”
Joslyn drew her sword. “You still talk too much.”
But as she charged, the gardens fell away, replaced by the familiar battlement of the castle in Tergos. She skidded to a stop, barely in time to keep herself from falling off its edge into the courtyard below.
“And you still think too much like an ordinary mortal,” Rennus said from behind her.
Joslyn whirled to face him. The castle of Tergos dissipated at the same time, replaced by the starlit foothills of the Zaris Mountains.
Surprise came over Rennus’s face.
“Thank you for the advice,” said Joslyn.
A mountain leopard sprang from above, pouncing on Rennus before he could fully process the sudden change of scenery. With a feline snarl, it lunged for Rennus’s throat.
And vanished before its teeth ever grazed his throat.
A maze of bookshelves looming two stories high. Pale sunlight streamed in from skylights far above. Rennus got to his feet and dusted himself off.
“You’re a fast learner, Commander,” he said. “Unfortunately for you, I’m faster.”
He flicked his wrist towards her, and something – multiple somethings – struck her back. Scores of books flew from their shelves, pelting her arms, legs, shoulders, face. Joslyn shielded her face with a forearm.
Rennus opened his mouth to crack some joke or another, but then they were on a battlefield, and only sheer reflex kept him from being run through with a pike.
The scene changed to a cliff face, then the dungeon beneath Port Lorsin’s palace, then a shark-infested ocean in the midst of a storm. The changes came so fast that Joslyn’s head swam, her stomach churned, and the knuckles of the hand gripping Ku-sai’s sword went white from strain.
And finally they were back where they had started – the palace gardens. They circled one another like duelists beginning a match.
Rennus was panting and pale, his face wan. Joslyn suspected she looked much the same.
“Tell me where you hid your false Empress,” he growled, all his smug humor gone.
“She is not false.”