Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 442

Chapter 442: Danger!
Mia chewed her lip, huddled underneath the back of the dresser in the corner of the room.

Ford had let the magic drop away, leaving the little group to stare at each other in silent trepidation.

This was the best place to hide, or so her magic asserted.

She would prefer to be much, much further away, but if this were the place the Emperor were least likely to look for them, then that was good enough for her.

She tried not to pace, though there was room enough down here.

Mia glanced down at Uncle Trace, who was unconscious on the cold stone floor. She hoped he would be all right. They had nothing to offer him to help recover his magic quicker or cure what was wrong with him.

That was a shame. She wanted to be doing anything helpful. Anything productive.

Martin, Ford, Uncle Trace, and Princess Sapphira were down here with her. She should try to be calm.

Anaisa and Ben were up on the bed, facing down the Emperor. She could occasionally hear his booming replies, but anything the humans said was lost to the distance between them.

The word Execution chilled her to the bone.

Had she left her aunt and the princess’s husband to be slaughtered? It was true they wouldn’t have listened to her anyway, but Mia still felt shame creep into her belly for not even looking back.

Squirming, she was startled when Ford put an arm around her. She turned fearful eyes to him, and he bolstered her with a smile.

That helped.

Some manner of commotion at the door drew the humans’ attention, and to Mia’s surprise, a procession of wights was entering the room. At least a dozen, perhaps more.

Was that a good sign, or a terribly bad one?

This… this was the cleaning crew that had removed the nightmarish stains from the bedspread before, wasn’t it?

Were they here to clean up the corpses of the unfortunate humans?

Mia’s jaw clenched, and she glanced again at those huddled with her.

Grandpa was wounded. Webster, she guessed, must have been killed in the last melee.

No one was very talkative. In fact, no one had said a word since becoming visible, perhaps out of a justifiable fear they would be overheard and slaughtered.

Martin watched Trace with cautious eyes. Mia realized he was wary of the Dreamwalker waking suddenly. They had all seen him at some point or another force himself awake with a noisy gasp, and sometimes a shout of alarm.

That was the last thing they needed right now.

Mia pulled a little away from Ford to lean forward and watch with curious eyes as the wights ascended to the bed.

“Surrender,” The Emperor’s voice boomed through the room, and the humans were suddenly even more on edge than before.

Surrender? Isn’t what what Ben and Anaisa were up there to do? Was the Emperor asking a question, or making a demand?

If it was a demand, that had to be a good thing, didn’t it? One didn’t typically command surrender from ants before obliterating them.

There was some manner of quiet conversation that Mia couldn’t make out for a time. She could catch a word here and there that Anaisa was saying when the redheaded woman’s voice rose, but it seemed the conversation was happening between the two humans and the wights atop the bed.

Frustrated, Mia was tempted to sneak out and observe more closely, but Ford held her back when she would have gone. She shot him a slightly frustrated glance, but he took her hand and shook his head.

Mia frowned, but knew he was right. Sneaking out to learn the fate of the world a few minutes ahead of its destruction wouldn’t gain them any advantage.

If, on the other hand, Anaisa and Ben were making some kind of headway with the Emperor, which it tentatively seemed like they were given that he hadn’t slaughtered them yet, then sneaking out could interfere and upset the magical monarch.

So Mia stayed put.

That’s not to say she did nothing. On the contrary, she realized there were things she could do. Ways she could prepare.

The wights had proven they could take away magic. Perhaps the Emperor could take it away from an entire area, or more.

So Mia looked for the best way out, then closed her eyes to memorize the path.

The safest way home.

It was much the same as it had been the way here, but in reverse, with a few minor exceptions on the way through the forest–now burned!–and through the gorges where the river flowed.

She looked for the worst dangers along the way in order of closest, sneakiest, deadliest, and so on.

Most were familiar: the chimera, the white crocodiles, the crimson leaves of the forest…

But when she looked for the most dangerous obstacle facing their journey home, she stifled a gasp.

Instead of watching the increasingly familiar journey through the bejeweled forest, into the tunnel, across the mountains and down the white cliffs, her gift showed her a much, much shorter path.

Directly across the room.

She’d thought the worst of the nightmarish creatures had all fled when the Emperor awoke, scrambling out the door and away from the terrifying, oppressive presence of the mind that had created them.

Her jaw clenched, and her heart rate increased as her gift showed her in minute detail every step across the stone floor, and then stopped to show her what was hiding behind the curtain, pressed flat against the wall, waiting patiently with a deadly stillness.

Emotion flooded through her. Fear, angst, anger. What was the meaning of this?

The biggest danger to her family was not any of the monsters they had fought or run from on the journey here, nor even any of the creatures that had popped into existence since they’d arrived.

The most dangerous obstacle to their quest to return home… was Denholm.