Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 439

Chapter 439: Outside
Trace groaned. Or the thought he did. No sound came from his lips.

That was strange.

He opened his eyes and looked down to take stock of himself… and there was nothing there.

The first possibility that occurred to him was that he had died.

Trace must be a ghost!

His heart pinched in fear, then in anger. Where was Anaisa? Was she also dead? Had the Emperor succeeded and killed them all?

Movement around his belly made him suddenly cognizant of his positioning. He was hanging sort of upside-down, as if slung over the back of someone’s shoulders. Something invisible gripped his nonexistent arm.

He frowned. From the war, he knew of men who had lost a limb and still claimed to feel it. Was that similar to what was happening to him now?

The room was familiar. Too familiar. The bedspread passing beneath him as he was apparently carried was that of the Emperor Wight.

He spasmed, feeling the exhaustion of magic drain in his body. But he had no magic at the moment! The Emperor–

Was no longer in the bed.

The crumpled covers at the far side of the mattress testified to his absence.

He was standing. Fully awake.

A fact that dismayed Trace deeply.

All his hard work, his weeks of effort, had all been for naught. He had bought the human race a little more time to exist, and then given in to a plan that had never had much hope of success.

But all his work had been little more than a delay. No progress. And it couldn’t hold out indefinitely, no matter how much faith he had in the power of the trees in the forest below.

And now, the Emperor’s enraged eyes looked down across the room hollowly.

Hollow?

Trace was confused more than ever. Perhaps he’d hit his head when he passed out… before he…died?

That was still fuzzy in his mind, but before he could think any further on it, he was carried off of the edge of the bed and down the stairs.

The last glimpse he got of the surface of the bed was one that filled him with terror.

His wife, his beautiful, fierce, amazing wife, was standing directly in the path of the Emperor’s gaze.

Panicked, he tried to break free from whatever held him. Whoever held him.

His right arm and leg, however, were held tight, and he only seemed to throw the carrier off balance for a moment before vertigo and exhaustion from overuse of his magic buried Trace in unconsciousness once more.

He opened his eyes in a very dim and shrunken version of his dream world.

It was almost unrecognizable, except that the wan fields of wheat growing looked so much like his home.

He swallowed, ready to thrust himself out of his dream and back into reality. Back to Anaisa…

But nothing happened.

Furtively, Trace attempted to conjure a ladder from the wheat, but everything stayed perfectly still, a lifeless shadow of how it normally appeared.

His power… was gone.

Like any regular, powerless person, he was stuck here in his own head until he rested enough to awaken on his own, or until someone yanked him out of here by attempting to wake him.

But time in dreams moved differently. It might seem decades before someone shook him, even if it were only a matter of seconds or minutes.

Valuable minutes that could be spent dragging his wife away from the Emperor.

He looked down at his hands, relieved that he could see them once more. Dead people didn’t dream, as far as he knew. He must be alive.

Ford must have made him invisible, and someone, probably Trace’s father, must be carrying him away from the danger…

And leaving Anaisa behind!

How? Why?

There was nothing in this world that could make them choose to save him over her!

But she hadn’t been lying unconscious, she had been standing, boldly, staring back at the Emperor.

He shook his head.

Someone had been standing next to her. Ben?

They were trying to make a last stand, then. A final plea. Trace’s soul ached.

He sat down, cross-legged, on the grey earth. There was nothing for him to do but dwell and worry. He had no powers, no ability to communicate, no way of even seeing what was happening in the real world.

If he died there, would his dream seem to continue?

If he woke, and Anaisa was dead, would he have preferred to never wake at all?

No, he decided. His sons would need him more than ever. As much as it would kill him inside to lose his wife, he couldn’t despair.

For weeks, he had been draining himself to save them. Could he begrudge his wife having the same self-sacrificing impulse?

The last few moments of his magic-usage filtered through into memory. Anaisa had held him up, and then cried out in pain. She’d fallen.

And accused the wights of throwing a stone at her.

A magical stone?

His eyes widened.

It had to have been. There was no way his father would leave his wife to face the Emperor if she were mundane. She had a skilled tongue and experience at diplomacy, but was essentially defenseless against the Emperor.

Unless she had some kind of power to make a difference in the dynamic.

But even then, surely the Emperor was far too powerful for her to take on. Mastering one’s magic took time. Took training and practice.

Seconds after receiving power, she shouldn’t, couldn’t be expected to do anything at all about the situation!

He found himself rocking slightly with anxiety and impatience. Whether he could make a difference right now or not, he badly wanted to know how everyone was faring.

Had anyone been injured in fighting the creatures that escaped the Emperor’s horrible dream?

Was anyone dead?

Ford’s invisibility couldn’t last forever, were they expecting to hide under the bed and be safe?

These questions and more plagued his mind as he stared up into the grey, lifeless sky.

There were no answers to be found in it.