Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 437

Chapter 437: Facing your fears
Anaisa blinked as the seizure subsided, shaken and bewildered by what she thought had occurred.

“Did you throw that at me?” She pushed herself up onto her forearms to demand of the wight.

“Stand,” The wight answered her question with a command.

Indignation rose within her. “Did you??”

“Show,” The wight lifted a finger and pointed towards the Emperor.

“Show? Show what?” Anaisa wrinkled her nose in anger and disgust. “You just assaulted me with a rock and now see fit to order me to do something??”

She brushed off some of the gleaming bits of gemstone clinging to her dress, and they dissipated into nothing.

Anaisa held her stomach, feeling a bit sick.

The shards were, as she suspected, the remnants of a magical stone from the forest below. Though humans could never remove them without breaking them, apparently the wights had the ability…

And had just broken one on her.

“What can I do?” She murmured to herself, looking down at her hands. A memory flashed through her mind of the odd soldier who had once been able to enlarge and shrink his hands at will. She hoped it wasn’t anything like that!

Anaisa had refused powers. She hadn’t wanted them, hadn’t needed them, didn’t want the burden, the responsibility, or the change that might occur to her personality to have something about herself changed so irrevocably.

And yet, that choice had been taken from her and thrown aside.

“Show,” The wight repeated again, and Anaisa felt like fighting the enigmatic being.

“SHOW WHAT? SHOW WHOM?” She shouted. “If you could use a full sentence it might help me know what the heck you want and get it for you!”

“Anaisa–what’s happened?” Trace’s voice pulled her temper back from taking full control.

She whirled toward him. He still faced the Emperor, but he was weak, his words fading.

“The wights hit me with a stone!” She cried with dismay. “Now they expect me to do something, I’ve no idea what!”

“Try–” Trace’s sentence cut off with a groan and he flinched, looking ready to pass out dead away.

Still reeling from her own experience, she couldn’t react to catch him in time. Almost in slow motion, Trace fell to his knees, and then onto his side on the bed.

Denholm, eyes wide, looked around at the battle of the humans against the dreams, and lowered his arms.

With a sneer, he turned and ran.

“Coward!!” Anaisa called after him, her heart clenching in fright.

“Best of luck!” He responded sarcastically, ducking a nightmarish attack and zipping away to the edge of the bed.

With neither magic user keeping the Emperor asleep, the mighty body began to stir with a groan. Anaisa panicked, grabbing Trace’s arms and attempting to drag him further from the gargantuan being whose moan filled the room.

“Show,” the wight insisted, moving closer to her.

She’d never heard one panic before, but there was a decided difference in its tone.

If they were that insistent on her showing off her magic, it must be useful for the situation!

And she had no idea how to use it!

Concentrating, she tried her best to figure out how to do magic, but… nothing seemed to be happening.

Except… The Emperor continued rising. He slid his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, his back to the humans and dream-creations waging furious battle across the rest of his bed.

Of course, to him, they all appeared like little toys.

The shifting of his enormous body on the mattress threw everyone off balance, causing most of them to fall over, if not off the bed entirely.

“Ford!” Anaisa hissed, “how do I learn to use magic??”

He was the one nearest to her that was both conscious and gained magic as an adult, and she desperately needed to know something quickly.

Ford turned his head, staring at her with uncomprehending eyes for a moment before replying, “I don’t know! I wished to be invisible and then it happened!”

Anaisa wanted to hit her head on something hard. She had to know what her gift was to figure out how to use it?

She didn’t have time for guessing games!

The hulking Emperor stretched his great shoulders, muscular arms extending wide before he placed his hands on the edge of the bed and stood.

The grand canopy of the bed was far above them, but now seemed much lower as the Emperor rose.

Anaisa had seen him in the dreams, but the reality of his mass when contrasted to hers in reality was still enough to stop her breathing. What was her magic? How could it possibly help against such a giant? How could she hope to be useful at all?

“Come with me,” Mia was whispering nearby. “I’ll find us a hiding place. Ford will shield us until then.”

Her plan was enough to draw Anaisa’s attention, and she gestured to Trace.

“Take him,” She urged, “I’m staying.”

“Trace’ll kill me, you’re coming,” Grandpa snapped softly as he and Ford lifted Trace under the arms to carry his unconscious form along with them.

“The wights gave me magic, I have to stay and use it to help,” She told them. The wight nodded its head.

Anaisa pursed her lips, wishing the blasted creature would help her more than that!

“I should stay, too,” Ben said. “I’m responsible for all this. Sapphira, I love you.”

“I love you more,” The Princess said stubbornly, just before she was pulled away.

Anaisa closed her eyes tightly against the sight of her unconscious husband being dragged along, hopefully to some semblance of safety. The only reason she wasn’t being forced along with him was her own stubbornness and the wight’s insistence.

When she opened her eyes again, the humans were gone. The nightmarish creations that had been circling around them to attack seemed momentarily bewildered, but turned their hungry gazes on the remaining man and woman.

Then, the shadow of the turning Emperor fell across them, and the creatures screeched and fled.

It was time for Anaisa to face him.