Dust of Dreams: Guardians of Light, Book 4 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About the Author

  Look for these titles by Renee Wildes

  All her light—and all his love—may not be enough to hold the nightmares at bay…

  Guardians of Light, Book 4

  Mingling with other races is strictly forbidden, but dream faerie Pryseis has no choice. An innocent goblin child suffers dangerous nightmares, and it should be a simple task to cure him and return to her anxious sisters before the council knows she’s gone.

  Yet there’s a reason a creature of air and sunlight has no business underground. Now in chains, prisoner of an ungrateful goblin sorcerer, Pryseis despairs that anyone will save her. Her only comfort—the memory of a man she can only touch in her dreams.

  Benilo ta Myran, with the reluctant blessing of his elven king and queen, takes up a quest some would call mad, driven by the certain knowledge that the beautiful faerie who invades his dreams is in danger. He carries a terrible secret—war has broken his healing powers—yet he cannot leave her to face the darkness alone.

  The first touch of their flesh surpasses their most erotic dreams, but the nightmare has just begun. There’s the suffering child, and a sorcerer who won’t go down without a fight. And the clock is ticking down for Pryseis, who must return home—or fade away.

  Warning: Beware of wounded bunnies, hungry trolls, low ceilings, glowing mold and goblins bearing gifts. Most of all, beware beautiful faeries and hot elves appearing in your dreams. They may lead you astray…and steal your heart.

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Dust of Dreams

  Copyright © 2010 by Renee Wildes

  ISBN: 978-1-60928-138-0

  Edited by Linda Ingmanson

  Cover by Kanaxa

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2010

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Dust of Dreams

  Guardians of Light ~ Book Four

  Renee Wildes

  Dedication

  To Holly & Kenny, cheerleading fan club extraordinaire, Chris A., who’s keeping me sane through middle-school motherhood, and Mary H., who reminds me to keep smiling no matter what. They’ve seen the highs and lows and still speak to me! Appreciate you guys more than I can say.

  Chapter One

  What to do when nightmares become real?

  Kneeling on the damp, stony ground, Pryseis took a deep, shuddering breath of frosty mountain air and stared at her sunlit reflection in the shimmering pool. She ran a hand through her hair, watched the long, iridescent strands slide through her fingers in the streaming sunbeams. Light which made her wings tingle as they absorbed energy directly from the sun’s rays. The fading glow warned her the end of the day fast approached. Dread seized her at the thought of sleep. Every night the same small, scared voice in the dark haunted her dreams. “Help me…save me…” She’d added her magic to her sister faeries’ to ease his suffering. But the group’s spirit-nets had no effect on the child. Now he’d faded from their senses and singled her out. None other still heard his cries. His anguish was in her head, in her heart.

  And she couldn’t get him out.

  Somewhere down below the barren mountain, in the Shadowlands, a goblin child needed help. He called to her. Just to her. Drew her to him with bits of nightmares, fear and anxiety. Pryseis ached to go to him, ease his suffering. Dreams were her especial realm. She never failed. The certainty had grown for days. She could help him…if she could find him.

  There was the crux. Thanks to their need for the pool’s elixir, faeries never left Crystal Mountain. One cupped handful of the renewing waters every seven sunrises to stay strong and immortal. Just one had ever tried—her grandmother Shallan—and she’d failed, nearly died.

  Pryseis’ sisters would never let her go.

  She squared her shoulders and strode toward the shining crystalline palace where the council chambers were housed. This lad’s nightmares differed. They affected everyone around him. Something ominous stirred below the mountain. The traditional methods, gentle influence of the many, failed. Time for a new way. Light against darkness. One-on-one, she and the lad. Who would prove stronger? Who would prevail?

  The council would capitulate. They must.

  Dax met her on the rocky path connecting the pool to the palace. She stared up at her grown nephew, who stood a full head and shoulders above her. Halfling son of her dead brother—half dream faerie, half forest troll. Both. Neither.

  “Good morning, Lady Aunt.” His voice was deeper than her brother’s, rough-edged.

  Lursa, that title turned her into a doddering oldster! “Good morning, Dax. I go to address the council. Care to walk with me?”

  He fell in one step behind her, deep brown eyes downcast. Pryseis wanted to scream at his deference. Why did he never look her in the face? What expression would he show? What did he feel, think of all this? “I’m requesting you as a bodyguard,” she announced.

  Dax froze. “What?”

  Her small wings fluttered with agitation in the cold light of the setting sun. They prickled as they wrung the last bit of energy from the waning sunlight. “You heard me.” He was the only one she trusted to stand with her in the upcoming confrontation with the council.

  And after.

  Dax grunted and resumed walking. He took troll stoicism to new heights.

  Pryseis stared at the crystal palace, glittering with icy radiance against the stark grandeur of the barren mountaintop. Home of the faeries for millennia. Creatures of air and fire, bound to water, stuck on earth. High atop Crystal Mountain, she touched sun and sky, that glorious cold streaming light. The dreams and secrets of the world swirled around her, carried on the wind.

  What lurked in the darkness below, so far from the light of the sun?

  Yet the darkness drew her, spun from the child below.

  Please let the council see the light of truth.

  A massive rock troll named Braxx greeted her at the palace entrance. Twice as tall and broad as Dax, the armed sentry bowed, a mountain unto himself. Rough, bark-like skin stretched taut across bulging layers of muscle. “Lady Pryseis, I was about to summon you. Lady Maeve orders your presence.”

  Pryseis shivered. Maeve had watched her these past few days, ever since the nightmares ensnared her. Maeve could be her staunchest ally or fiercest opponent in the next few minutes. “Best not keep her waiting.”

  Braxx moved to block Dax. “Just council members.”

  “Dax is with me.” Pryseis stared down the immense troll as if he didn’t tower over her.<
br />
  Braxx yielded, lowering his gaze. “As you wish, Lady Pryseis.”

  Pryseis raised her head, squared her shoulders and swept into the council chambers, Dax in her wake. “You called for me, sisters?”

  Silence greeted her inquiry. Maeve, council Prime and strongest of the golden hope faeries, recovered first. She straightened in her ornate thronelike chair. “We worry for you, Councilor.”

  Not good news when they addressed by title rather than name.

  She stared across the round, wooden table at her sisters’ tense, worried faces. Golden hope faeries, pale blue wish faeries and fellow dream faeries with their shimmering iridescence, as changeable as the dreams they crafted and countered.

  Maeve, the eldest, glared through narrowed amber eyes. “I’ve heard unsettling rumors of your intentions.”

  Pryseis shook her head. “Maeve, you of all should be above idle gossip.”

  “You’ve voiced dissatisfaction with our ways.”

  Tauni, the youngest of the blue wish faeries present and newest council member, spoke up. “We keep the world safe and at peace with our ways, our nets.”

  Behind Pryseis, Dax snorted. Pryseis decided to address Tauni’s misconception. “The world ever teeters on the brink of war. We but keep it contained—don’t presume to declare peace. Have you forgotten what brought the trolls to us in the first place?”

  “They saw bloodshed wasn’t the way and came to their senses, renouncing violence.”

  Maeve’s righteous, condescending tone grated on Pryseis’ one remaining nerve. “You need to leave your tower more often, sister. You’ve no idea what’s happening below.”

  Maeve’s pinched golden face darkened. “How dare you.”

  Pryseis’ own temper flared. “Have you forgotten the Battle of Enoka Pass? The goblins fled the field, left the trolls to face the wrath of the elves alone. The trolls were decimated in that conflict! If Dax hadn’t struck down their young prince, the elves never would have retreated. Our protectors barely escaped with their lives.”

  Nightmares still haunted her nephew. Pryseis felt his regret at the elven youth’s death.

  Dax hated goblins for starting that war—and for abandoning his people to slaughter.

  Time to bring all together for a final, lasting peace—troll, goblin, dwarf, elf and faerie. The battles had gone on long enough.

  “Death is the terrible price of war. That’s why we avoid it,” Tauni commented, shuffling her feet on the pale pink carpet under the table.

  “Whilst we avoid it, the world around us roils with it,” Pryseis snapped, leaning forward on her fists against the round wooden council table. “Our ways aren’t working anymore. We must try something else.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “A new threat rises in the south.”

  Maeve snorted and crossed her arms. “Then why have we not sensed it?”

  Pryseis had no answer for that. Had the lad given up, or focused on the softest heart? Why did he torment her and her alone, night after night?

  Hallar, a fellow dream faerie, turned her troubled lavender gaze on Pryseis. “You speak of the goblin child’s nightmares again? All children have them. Dark dreams are natural and do no lasting harm.”

  “These are persistent,” Pryseis admitted, “and they worsen.”

  “All the more reason for us to combine our talents and try harder,” Maeve argued. She turned to Pryseis. “Would you weaken our nets with your absence?”

  “This isn’t a vague problem. ’Tis very specific. His nightmares are different. We can’t help him from here. He’s targeted me, and I must intervene directly.” With her involuntary connection to the child, Pryseis feared she was the only one who could. It just felt right to leave.

  “You’re as rebellious as your brother!” Maeve snapped.

  Dax went rigid, baring sharpened lower tusks in a parody of a smile. “Leave my father out of this, I warn you.”

  “Sister, ’tis selfish to place one life above all,” Tauni remonstrated.

  “What say you? An individual child doesn’t matter? A single life has no value, is but a drop of dew in the pond?” Such fundamental difference in viewpoint. This was where the irreparable fracture started. “You believe that, sisters? We matter not? You, me, Dax, the child? What we think or feel counts for naught? Then it shouldn’t matter if I leave.”

  Tauni faltered. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I think ’twas.” Unshed tears stung as Pryseis engaged each council member’s gaze in turn. “Deep down, I think that’s what you believe. Why you don’t mingle with the world. You hold the world at a distance. If you saw that child as an individual, if you were moved to help him, then you must help his neighbor, his rival, his enemy. If you helped goblins, then you must also help trolls. They’d be equals, not servants. What of your faerie superiority then?” Pryseis wavered betwixt contempt and disappointment. “I don’t ken whether your denial is naivety or callous disregard. I pity your hearts are so blind.”

  “Don’t call us blind by parading your delusions afore us. You and you alone can help him?” Maeve challenged. Her lips thinned. “What is it with your kin? Rebels all. That’s not how we do things. We can’t afford to trade one soul for many. We haven’t the strength to go one-on-one with all in need. Compromise is what’s kept us going this long. We lose a battle to win the war.”

  “Don’t go,” Hallar begged. “’Tis dangerous. Stay here where ’tis safe.”

  “Safe for how long?” Pryseis challenged. “How long until the goblins unite and storm the mountain? What if our trolls can’t hold them back? If we die, what happens to the world then?”

  Tauni looked uncertain. Hallar tugged at a shimmering strand of iridescent hair and swallowed hard.

  “This lad isn’t a battle. I think this time he may be the war. ’Tis different this time. You can’t feel the menace lurking behind his fear. The one way we’re safe is for war to end. Who kens but helping one child could move his kin, his people, to gratitude? One act of compassion to show a better way.” Pryseis waited.

  “See yourself a martyr, sister?” Maeve asked with silky venom. She picked up her crystal goblet of wine and leaned back in her chair. “The great savior of all?”

  “Nay. I’m but a simple faerie who’s no longer content to sit by spinning webs whilst the world below tears itself apart by war. I can’t watch elves and dwarves and goblins slaughtering each other in countless battles. I can’t ignore a sobbing child in the dark, haunted and begging for help I can provide. If I have the power to help then I have the responsibility, the duty to help.”

  Maeve drew herself up. “If you go, don’t come back.”

  Dax stiffened. “If she goes, I go with her.”

  “I request Dax as a bodyguard.” Pryseis’ tone was not a request. “Fitting to keep rebel kin together, don’t you think?”

  “Granted,” Maeve replied.

  Tauni stifled a gasp with her hand. “Maeve, we’re not murderers! If you banish her from the pool, she’ll die! We’ll be as bad as the goblins!”

  “Remember what happened to Shallan when she tried to travel to Poshnari-Unai with that elven mage Anika?” Hallar said. “Shallan scoffed at the pool legend, and when Anika brought her back, she was barely alive. You can’t leave, Pryseis. It’ll kill you.”

  Maeve’s voice was implacable. “Pryseis, I give you Dax so you’ll have someone to carry you back when you fall prey to the same weakness your grandmother discovered. I warn you—you won’t be banished from the pool or the mountain, but you’ll no longer be part of the council and shall be barred from the palace.” Her gaze pinned each council member in turn. “To you, she’ll cease to exist. If she speaks, you won’t hear.”

  Analahamme. Maeve would declare an ostracism so complete it turned her into the walking dead, a non-person? Pryseis hadn’t kenned the depths of Maeve’s anger to be so extreme. Maeve’s face blurred in the rush of hot tears. “You’d do that to your own sister? When did the price of compassion
become death? When did your hearts turn to stone?”

  “If you’d decry and turn your back on our ways, then you don’t belong here.” Maeve slammed her goblet on the table. Golden wine sloshed over the lip onto the smooth surface of the tabletop. “Let the lad go. We can’t save everyone.”

  “I can’t. If he goes I fear he takes me with him,” Pryseis replied. “We’re that bound.”

  “We’ve never lost one of our own, for all the deaths we miss,” Maeve retorted. “You’re wrong. Search your heart, sister. We need you. Shall you face the dark alone?”

  “She won’t be alone.” Dax spoke up. He moved closer, to place a large, reassuring hand against her back. “Wherever she goes, I go with her.”

  His declaration warmed Pryseis’ cold-seared heart. “Dax, son of that brother of mine who disturbs you so—my real kin supports me.”

  Hallar’s voice trembled like the chime of icicles in winter. “Kin also stand together.”

  “You’re not my kin,” Pryseis spat.

  Hallar visibly flinched and paled.

  “Don’t do this, Pryseis,” Tauni begged.

  “Sleep on it,” Maeve repeated. “We’ll hear your decision come sunrise.”

  Pryseis stumbled from the chambers, numb with disbelief. Dax caught her elbow and steadied her as she made her way down the long glittering hallway to her rooms.

  “You needn’t do this,” he stated.

  She turned to him. “A child needs my help.”

  “A goblin lad,” he snarled. “He’s not worth your life.”

  She faltered at the depths of his rage. Fierce and bitter. ’Twas the true Dax. His deference was but a mask. “What makes my life more worthy than his?” Pryseis challenged. “Goblin, troll or faerie, a child is still entitled to grow up without harm or fear.”

  “And what about your need for sunlight?” Dax clenched his square jaw and traced the edge of one of her wings with his finger. “You’ve never gone without direct radiance for more than a night afore. I don’t want you to end up like Shallar. You’re all I’ve got.”