I moved to her side and knelt. Her body trembled, and a tear slipped down her cheek. Anger curled inside me. Clearly, she was having some kind of nightmare, and I had a damn good idea what it was about. Maybe not the details. She still refused to share that.
If this wasn’t because of Oberon, I’d eat my damn boot.
Settling back against the wall, I closed my eyes and called upon the power of the mists. Unlike Oberon, I still had full access to my magic, and few knew exactly all that entailed. Most of the time, I influenced dreams without showing my face. Communicating with Tessa had been a calculated risk to get my hands on those gemstones.
Focusing, I let my thoughts whisper into Tessa’s mind, pushing her nightmare away. A dream sprang forth, one crafted from my few memories of Teine. That bird-soaked forest. The sun-drenched fields beyond it. And the feel of damp grass beneath my feet. Soft and grounding.
Tessa blinked as she turned from a flickering shadow—the nightmare. It vanished when she spotted me standing bare-footed in the grass, as if it were crafted from nothing but smoke and wind. Oberon couldn’t harm her here. She wouldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming before. My power chased all that away. As soon as she’d turned away from that shadow, the nightmare was gone. Forever.
She scowled. “I can’t even sleep these days without you bothering me.”
“I was bored,” I said with a shrug.
She rolled her eyes. “You were the one who told me to get some rest.”
“And now you’re resting.”
“Just go away. Please.” Squaring her shoulders, she stomped right around me and started for the path away from the forest, leading into the village. I followed after her, curious.
“You know as soon as I leave, this dream will vanish?”
“And so will you,” she called over her shoulder, her long hair whipping in the soft breeze. She continued down the path at a determined pace.
“Then, why are you heading into the village?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she marched to the edge of town, hung a left, and stood before a bright blue two-story cottage with flower boxes in every ground-floor window. A broom was propped up beside the front door, and the wooden steps gleamed like new.
“This was your home,” I said, coming to stand beside her.
“Is,” she whispered fiercely. “This is my home.” Sighing, she shook her head and glanced up at me. “I don’t want to make everyone leave this place. It’s all they’ve ever known.”
An uneasy flicker of guilt flared in my gut. “There’s nothing I can do about that, Tessa. It won’t be safe for them here.”
“You can call back your mists.” Her voice grew louder. “You can undo whatever it is that you did to cause all this!”
Slowly, I closed my eyes. “No, Tessa. I cannot. I have no way of stopping the mists from surging forward. I wish I did.”
“Whose broom is that?” she demanded. “Where did it come from? Because ours looks nothing like that. Green handle, brown bristles. That one is red.”
My eyes flew open at the fury of her words. So much passion for something as small as a broom. “I do not know. Whoever lived here before, I suppose.”
Her face scrunched up. “What do you mean?”
“This.” I waved around at the dream. “It’s all crafted from my own memories. Everything you see is what I have seen.”
She pinched her brows together. “That’s why everything looks so new. The paint on the house, the steps. This is from centuries ago. So, you’re telling me I’m inside your head.”
“No,Iam insideyourhead.”
“That’s not any better,” she muttered.
To my surprise, she didn’t shout at me to get out. Instead, she drifted forward. Her feet hit the bottom step, and her hand found the railing’s beam. Her fingers drifted along it as she whispered up the stairs.
I wasn’t sure if I should follow her. The tension in her shoulders was so tight that her body looked like a statue. Something had happened here, with her family. More than whatever had happened up in that fucking crimson castle. I knew she was worried about her mother and her friend, Val, but this went beyond that. The way her body shook…her heart teetered on a knife’s edge.
My teeth ground together. Whatever it was, King Oberon had caused it. What the fuck had he done to her?
Her fingers brushed the broom handle. A choking sound ripped from her throat. Then, she stiffened, turned, and ran past me, heading back the way we’d come.