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

  She felt her smile wobble. “I love you too. I’ll be fine. We’ll be back afore anything happens.” Did she try to reassure him, or herself?

  Concern flickered in his eyes. “It could be a trap. You can’t trust the goblins.”

  Which troubled her more—the direction Dax’s mind wandered, or the part of her suspecting he might be right? Was there more to the lad’s calling? There must be a better way than suspicion, accusation and conflict. Pgah, she tired of it all!

  “’Tis a suffering lad. He’s in my head and in my heart. I must help…or I’ll go mad.”

  He raised a heavy brow, but stepped aside at the door. “Try to get some sleep.” Matted coils of brown hair swung about his broad shoulders as he strode away. The confident stalk of a predator, long-legged and full of lethal grace. At least his troll blood negated a faerie’s need for the pool. Dax never craved the waters, never faded from their lack.

  Unlike Pryseis, who soaked the sun in through her wings and drank from the pool to sustain herself.

  Pryseis slipped into her rooms and poured herself a cup of sweet golden wine, laced with anise and fragrant valerian root. A nightmare preventative, it soothed her nerves even if it didn’t block the lad. If she left, she had seven sunrises afore the weakness struck, leaching away her strength. ’Twas madness to leave. When she returned, her isolation would be complete. Analahamme. Eternity without a word from another living soul.

  Was one child worth it?

  She might not even succeed. The goblins might kill her outright. Dax would be destroyed right along with her. What right had she to orchestrate his doom?

  She sipped her herbed wine and paced the violet-carpeted floor. Was Maeve right? Was it her duty to stay, spinning webs with her sisters? Was it delusion of grandeur, her conviction she alone could help? No faerie had ever done what she proposed. ’Twas unheard of to retry. Shallan had almost died. Dare she risk the many for the one? What made one child more important than the rest?

  “My lady!” Her maid entered with an armload of clean laundry. “Care for a bath?”

  “That would be lovely, Cilla.” Pryseis stretched until her spine cracked, then followed Cilla into the bedroom. She settled into a velvet-cushioned chair and watched the maid prepare a lavender bath. “You’ve been a loyal companion, Cilla,” she began. “’Tis appreciated.”

  Cilla looked troubled as she turned to Pryseis. “My lady?”

  She kenned. Palace gossip traveled fast even to the mundane faerie servants.

  “I’ve thinking to do,” Pryseis admitted. “When the clothes are put away, you’re excused. Enjoy your evening.”

  Cilla began to protest, then bowed her head. “Try and get some sleep, my lady.”

  There was the crux, wasn’t it? Sleep with nightmares. Some days she envied the green faeries their lack of arcane powers. How much simpler life must be for them. Pryseis slipped into the hot, soothing water as the maid took her leave. She swam in water; somewhere else, a lad swam alone in a sea of rage, doubt, despair. An inescapable quagmire lethal as a tar pit. He fought, brave lad, but ’twas just a matter of time afore he went under.

  He was too far away for her to dull the pain, lighten the darkness. “Where are you?” she whispered. His call was faint, coming from under a great depth of earth and rock. Underground.

  Pryseis shuddered. No sun dwelt beneath the earth. How would she bear it, all that crushing darkness? Washing quickly, Pryseis prepared for bed and curled up on the feather mattress. With the aid of the herbed wine, she drifted off.

  Never had she felt more alone. If only someone could help her…

  Autumn squirrels. Clouded crystals. To her surprise, an elven male appeared in her dreams, tall and lean-muscled, like a cat, with long hair the pale shine of winter sunlight and slanted, compassionate sky blue eyes—and not a stitch of clothes on him. His soul touched hers. Peace filled her. His touch reflected the four elven elements. Water, earth, and fire ruled by air.

  Spirit healer.

  “Lady?” The whisper of his smooth voice in her mind sent an involuntary jolt of need down her spine. Where had he come from?

  “’Tis just a dream,” she reminded herself. As dreams went, this was a good dream, a welcome respite. “Make me forget. Just for a time, let me forget.”

  Magnificent, so handsome she almost forgot to breathe, he reached out to brush the hair from her suddenly bare shoulder. She sighed at the strength and gentleness of his hand, and shivered as he trailed the backs of his fingers down the curve of her neck. “Easy, beauty,” he murmured.

  Pryseis stepped closer, tilted her face up for his kiss. His lips were warm and firm and drew an answering heat from deep within her. She’d forgotten how cold she’d become, until he warmed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself over to him, parting her lips under his, stroking his tongue with her own, tasting heat and dark male need.

  He groaned. Deepening the kiss still further, he reached one hand around her breast, circling her nipple with his work-calloused thumb whilst cupping her backside with his other hand. His long fingers delved betwixt her legs, trailed over her folds. She widened her stance and choked down a whimper as her whole body came alive at his touch. Her breasts tingled, nipples stiffened against the hard planes of his chest. He drew back, bent down to take one nipple in his mouth, teasing her with just the wet velvet tip of his tongue. She didn’t even ken his name, but he kenned her. Kenned how she liked to be kissed, just where she liked to be touched, and how.

  She tangled her fingers in his hair, arching into his mouth as he drew long and hard on her breast. She cried out as his deft fingers found the sensitive bud betwixt her thighs. Every stroke made her tremble and tighten. He switched to her other breast, suckling hard, and her entire body shook as she moved on his hand. She raced toward completion without him. “Please,” she gasped, sliding her hands over the sculpted planes of his body. Hot skin over hard muscle. He was no sedentary healer. She cupped him in her hand, and he shuddered as she curled her fingers tight around his shaft. Hot, huge, pulsing almost with a life of its own.

  He raised his head, his face tight with passion. He gripped her backside with both hands and raised her up. Lursa, he was strong! “Wrap your legs around me, beauty.” His voice was hoarse and dark with need.

  She did, and he seated her on himself, sliding deep. She stretched over him, around him. It felt real, almost as if ’twas more than a dream; then he moved, and she couldn’t think at all. Her world spiraled into pure sensation, thrust and pull, as she sucked him back into her body again and again, tightening around him every time he threatened to withdraw. She pulled his face to hers, for a voracious tongue-tangling kiss. She shook in his arms, her body straining and tightening until the splendor crashed over her. Over him. She felt him finish with her, spurting deep within her body.

  In her dream, she opened her eyes. Mist swirled around them. Suddenly shy, she didn’t ken whether to apologize or thank him, and traced his lips with her fingers. “What’s your name?”

  “Benilo.” He kissed her fingers, eased her back onto her feet with visible reluctance. “Where are you, Pryseis?”

  He kenned her name? “Shadowlands. I need your help.”

  Benilo nodded. “With the lad. The nightmares.” He trailed his fingers down her cheek, lingered on the amulet dangling betwixt her breasts—a crystal butterfly with amethyst wings. “Sleep, Pryseis. Watch for me. I shall see you soon.” He faded away, into the mists, and she sank into oblivion.

  Dream time and real time weren’t the same. A knock sounded at the door. ’Twas not yet dawn. Pryseis half-fell out of bed; a twinge betwixt her legs made her stagger. It had been just a dream…hadn’t it? She felt as if she’d not slept at all. She slid her gossamer night rail from her body, shivering in the coolness, and donned a slit-backed woolen tunic and breeches in lieu of a gown. She grabbed a heavy winter cloak, but didn’t put it on. She wanted her wings to catch as much sunlight as possible along the way. Pl
ants below the mountain meant sunlight had to exist down there, as well. The need for elixir was the real problem. She couldn’t take it with her—its living power faded if contained in a vessel. “Enter,” she called.

  Dax nodded at her traveling attire and held out a half-filled pack. “I left room for your things.”

  She tossed him her blanket from the bed, then flung open her wardrobe and started grabbing clothes. “Dax, promise me something.”

  His lips thinned as he folded the blanket. “What?”

  “If aught goes wrong, if I’m captured or disappear, promise to seek aid from the elves.”

  Dax looked appalled. “What?”

  “Ask for their spirit healer. Tell him of my dreams. He’ll ken your meaning.”

  “That’s it. You go nowhere.”

  “What? I must go.” Pryseis stuffed her clothes into the pack.

  “They can sing the lad a lullaby. You’re not going.” He glowered. “Anyone who goes into battle planning to fall shall find a way to make it happen.”

  “I’m not planning on failure. We must be prepared…in case things don’t…” Pryseis couldn’t even finish that statement. “Just promise you’ll go.”

  He nodded, clearly not happy.

  Pryseis reached behind her neck, unclasped the silver chain holding her amulet—the iridescent crystal butterfly. She held it out to him. “Here. I want you to wear this.”

  “It belongs to you.”

  “It does. Therefore whoever wears it also belongs to me.”

  Dax put it around his neck.

  “Remember your promise, nephew.”

  A pained look crossed his broad, dusky face.

  “I hold you to it.” Pryseis grabbed her walking stick and stepped into the predawn chill.

  The entire council awaited them outside, a sea of anguished faces and fluttering colors. Long hair and silken robes flapped in the breeze. “So, this is your decision, then,” Maeve stated.

  Pryseis nodded, noting the satisfaction in the Prime’s tone. “It is. I’ve no choice.”

  Hallar moved, as if to speak. Her lavender gaze met Pryseis’ for a moment afore she looked away, but she held herself in silence.

  “Then neither do we. Sisters?” Maeve spun on her heel. One by one, the council members turned their backs to Pryseis. All she saw was a wall of rigid shoulders and fluttering wings.

  Tears threatened. “So be it.” She barely managed a whisper around the lump in her throat. Slipping past them, she stopped at the pool for one last drink and started down the mountain, the sun on her wings and Dax in her wake.

  Chapter Two

  Benilo stared through the gnarled branches of the old hazel tree at the waxing crescent moon.

  “Good dreams, healer?” The aged hazel sprite smiled at him from the tree’s trunk. He swore her eyes twinkled at him just like the multitude of stars overhead.

  Lord and Lady, he had fallen asleep in his gardens again. And dreamt. But not just any dream. He sat up with a grimace. He had not spilled from an erotic dream since he was a youngling. Pryseis. He could not get her out of his mind. Gentle curves and lush mouth, so beautiful she stole his breath…tied to a goblin lad’s nightmares.

  Two souls in need, trapped together somewhere out in the Shadowlands. The lad being goblin would be a problem for an elven spirit healer. King Loren would not approve this unscheduled leave-taking.

  So be it. He still must go. He must convince the king.

  Benilo rose and strode into his home to bathe and pack. In his room, he stripped and washed, in no mood to linger. Time to face the king, to find Pryseis afore it was too late. Dressing quickly, he threw clothes and implements into the pack, pulled on his boots and tossed the cloak over his shoulders to cover the pack.

  He almost plowed over Anika, Minister of Mages, on his way out the door.

  “Going somewhere?” the Air Adept asked. Her tone was mild, her gaze direct and intent.

  “Aye.” He started down the southbound roadway, en route to the palace, just to have her block his escape.

  She shook her head and tossed a wayward strand of white hair over her narrow shoulder. “Thou art in no condition to go. We must speak first.”

  He stared at her stubborn expression, then sighed and acquiesced. If she sensed his turmoil, then he was more unbalanced than he thought. “Not inside. Come sit in the gardens.” He led the way around the house to the grassy slope aside the shallow lily pond. The heady scent of the water lilies curled around him.

  She sat, wrapping her thin arms around her knees, and looked up at him. “Join me.”

  Smiling at the “mother tone” in her voice, he did.

  “Something vexes thee?”

  He stared into the still, dark waters of the pond, hoping the mirror surface would offer him some rationale for his irrationality. The water, however, told him naught, and the fire in his soul twisted at the mere thought of tranquility. For one who once possessed all four elements in balance, the essence of a healer, his were now unbalanced. Air was supposed to be the predominant element for a spirit healer, and his was the quiet one of the four.

  How had things become so disjointed?

  “I am unbalanced.”

  “Turning to magehood after all this time? I think not.”

  “Not so unbalanced.” Benilo realized too late how she would interpret that.

  Anika raised a slanted brow. “Art thou calling me unbalanced?”

  The twinkling in her baby blue eyes gave her away, but still he felt compelled to apologize. “Nay. You ken my meaning. I have lost the harmony. First one element surges, then another. I have lost focus. I have lost control.”

  “Ah. Control.” She nodded.

  What meant she by that?

  “What hath changed for thee, my son?”

  He sighed and tried to articulate it. “I should do something, but I ken not what. I should prepare, but I ken not for what.”

  “Premonitions? Thou art no seer.”

  Benilo shook his head. “Nay, I am an ordinary spirit healer.”

  “There be naught ordinary about a spirit healer. Thou art too hard on thyself.”

  Mayhaps he was. “How can I teach what I cannot practice?”

  “I hath felt it too.”

  Benilo slouched back and tried to relax. “Something great looms over the horizon. I should prepare. But for what? I cannot rest. I barely sleep. My elements are in chaos, enough so I can no longer clear the spirit crystal. How to teach Prince Brannan control when I have none?”

  “Thou hast done a great deal of late, betwixt the Arcadian war and the revolution in Shamar. Coming home wast bound to be anticlimactic.” Her gaze was keen. “When wast the last time thou slept? Through the entire night?”

  He could not remember. Had he not always been tired, impatient, anxious?

  Anika shook her head. “Nay. This be not thy normal self.” She sighed. “I, too, feel a pressure, an urgency. No visions or messages, naught solid. Naught but uneasiness. It vexes, to say the least. But that be the nature of air, lad. Thou canst not see it. Thou canst not hold it in thy hand. Always thou canst feel it, swirling about thee. It giveth life. It carries word and thought, scent and sound.”

  “I am unfit to teach Prince Brannan. I should show patience. All I feel is exasperation.” Benilo tilted his head back and rubbed his face. Lady, he was tired.

  “Thy problem be thou keep all within and call it control,” Anika reproved. “Then, when thou lose thy precious control, the heavens and earth shake. Remember, thou must act. Thou canst not react. It be a good thing once in a while to lose utter control, to relax thy guard and experience life and living. Control the chaos lest the chaos control thee.”

  And here was the expected mage-speak. Yet it made sense. Mayhaps he became more unbalanced than he thought, when Anika’s mystical double-speak made sense.

  “When wast the last time thou took a woman to thy bed?”

  He choked. Did dream sex with faeries count? “Ho
w is that your concern, Minister?”

  “Life be not to observe. It be to participate. Yet thou hast withdrawn from life, from the living. Thou spend far too much time in thy gardens and study. If thou lose touch with the world, no small wonder thou lose thy comfort and balance.”

  Benilo flushed. He had been…resting. Not withdrawing. “Shamar…was a terrible place. What was done in that cursed land, what those people endured at the hands of their maniacal queen, Sunniva.” Even mentioning her name seared his heart. “She invaded Kunigonde Keep and kidnapped and brainwashed Maleta’s brother, Jovan. She murdered their parents and left Maleta to die. Ambassador Cianan never would have met his life mate. Sunniva almost destroyed Jovan, and caused the destruction of the native Shamaru people. Especially the women and children. Imprisoned, starved, raped and sold to brothels.” Souls splintered, shattered… He shuddered with remembered horror. “The nightmares have only just faded.”

  “Thou took their nightmares upon thyself? All of them? Art thou mad?”

  “I had no choice. There were but three of us spirit healers there. Healing their bodies was not the greatest challenge. Human minds are fragile things. We could not do a formal banishing of their memories. Removing their nightmares was the one thing I could think of to stop their suffering and leave their wits intact.”

  “And thou hast been poisoned ever since, thou great-hearted fool.” Anika shook her head and rose. “Come with me.”

  They walked in silence up the main thoroughfare. A few ambitious merchants had begun setting up their stands. Benilo smelled fresh bread baking in the city ovens. Lights shone bright in a couple of inn stables. A shaggy brown herding dog barked as they passed. Otherwise, most of the city still slept.

  Benilo’s mind replayed the vision as he walked. Sobbing in the dark. Crushing despair. A shimmer of light, the flash of a crystal butterfly with amethyst wings. Smoky amethyst eyes in a passion-flushed face, framed by tangled iridescent hair. He frowned. The contrasts made no sense. If this was how visions went, it was a wonder seers predicted anything.