Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 406

Chapter 406: War! What is it good for?
Anaisa felt faint. Her head throbbed, her heart raced, her thoughts were scattered.

She slumped against Trace, and his strong arms tightened around her.

Not two minutes before, she had been sturdy, valiant, ready to storm into the Emperor’s dreams and persuade him to reinstate the treaty and leave the human world alone.

After all, anyone involved in stealing the tree was long dead! There was no one to take revenge on!

Saying that with an invading force somewhere beyond the borders of human civilization would reek of insincerity… especially since she herself was instrumental in bringing it about.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered, so furious at herself that tears filled her eyes. Something she hated most about herself; anger always came out as tears. She felt weaker than she ever had before.

“Anaisa,” Trace ticked a finger under her chin to make her look up at him, and she easily complied. Her husband was far more of her strength than she realized. They’d been together for so long now that being without him was utterly foreign.

Had pure adrenaline and spite kept her going this whole time as she searched for him? She was too stubborn to let herself collapse completely, just because he was gone.

But now, now that she was in his presence, in his arms again, and yet had failed him so completely…

“They’ll never let us leave with an army coming, will they? They’ll assume we will go out and lead them back,” She worried aloud.

Isn’t that what the wight had said? None leaves? That must be why they were drawn in and not driven away.

“Are we hostages?”

Prisoners to deter the coming army?

She paled, thinking of Daniel. Was he about to be on the edge of a war that would end both his parents?

“Look at me,” Trace commanded, and Anaisa’s eyes refocused on his face. His wonderful face. Her eyes filled with fresh tears. Over a decade, she had been married to this man. She desperately wanted many more.

“We’re going to figure this out. It’s been miserable here with just me and Denholm, but now I have a dazzling and clever wife by my side who excels at planning. We’ll find a way to get a message out to stop the king, turn back the army, and make the Emperor give up his anger. Then we’ll all go home together.”

His confidence bolstered Anaisa despite the unreasonable words.

“You didn’t answer my questions,” She managed a shaky smile.

“No, I didn’t,” He conceded, using his fingers to push a lock of her auburn hair behind her ear gently. “I don’t know all the answers, but I don’t need them right now. The first question is, how do we get a message to tell the army to turn back?”

“Another dream?” Ford said from one side. “Maybe several? Surely one will reach the army.”

“If they are the nearest dreamers,” Trace sent him a cautious look, and Anaisa almost blurted out that the younger man was her brother to increase the trust between them, but that would raise more questions than answers.

As long as Trace was behaving nicely, she could save all the rest for some future time.

“Grandpa and probably won’t sleep anytime soon while they wait for us,” She murmured, “But Seth and Daniel might.”

“Daniel?” Trace’s voice rose. “Why is Daniel closer to us than the army is??”

“He got away from your mother and snuck after us,” Anaisa explained with a grimace.

Trace’s face hardened, and Anaisa resisted the urge to duck her head. She’d made the decision not to turn back, and she wasn’t going to second guess herself at this point about it.

“I’ll have a talk with him after all this is over,” Trace shook his head in disbelief.

“He’s actually been very helpful along the way,” Mia defended her cousin, and Anaisa shot her a mild glance.

“We need to focus on getting a message out. The dragons carried you here. If we promise the wights we will convince the king to turn back with his army, will a dragon carry one of us to do so?”

“Turn back?”

The humans jumped. Anaisa, encased in her husband’s arms even as they discussed the very serious matter, hadn’t noticed the return of the ethereal being.

“Yes,” She said hurriedly. “I’m confident I can convince the army to go away. If the king’s mind can be changed, if we can explain the situation to him, he will take them back to the human lands and leave here… I believe.”

In fact, she had been so intent on rescuing Trace, that the taking of the tree had been nowhere near as important as it should have been. Would King Harold find it important enough to resist the wights?

Though the tree had remained a guarded secret, it had continued to result in the birth and raising of magic users, like Daniel, in the kingdom, who contributed to the renown and power, not to mention the wealth, of King Harold and his doman.

With such a head start on them, and being the only ones who knew where to go—or so she thought—it hadn’t occurred to her that the king would attempt to follow!

“Army leaves?” The wight’s large eyes were unblinking, and Anaisa swallowed.

“Where is it now? Do you know?” She decided to see how much information she could get before committing to a response. Who knew what had happened in the kingdom since they had left?

Sanders had once told her information was power, and that was truer than almost anything else she knew.

“Forest,” The wight intoned.

“The forest we got stuck in?” Mia asked, and the ghostly-pale being turned its head slowly toward the younger woman. “We were there for ages, until Ford and Grandpa had the idea to give the wood-wights, or whatever they were, carvings so that they would let us out. Is the king’s army trapped in that same forest?”

“Burning it.”