Chapter Twenty-Six WITCHING MOON

Chapter Twenty-Six

WITCHING MOON

Week Two, Day Ten

Year 3000

That night, Sachi escaped into the Dream.

She couldn't call it wandering this time. Instead, she moved between the gossamer layers of blinding white with desperate precision, and with only one goal—to warn the High Court of what she'd learned. She searched the places that felt most like them, determined to touch just one mind. Ash. Zanya. Elevia, Ulric, Inga. Naia, along with the entirety of the Raven Guard. She even looked for Camlia, just in case.

But she could find none of them in sleep, and she screamed her frustration to the vast emptiness of the Dream.

No, she refused to suffer defeat, not when the stakes were this high. The others had to have the truth before they invaded the Empire—that Sorin was no longer the god they had known. His power had grown so great that Sachi wasn't sure what he was anymore, only that if Ash and the others came here, unprepared, it could end in pure slaughter.

And it would be entirely her fault.

Think, Sachi. There had to be a way. Perhaps she should simply try to go to them, in life instead of in sleep. Wasn't that what she'd done when she'd finally found the Phoenix? Her heart yearned for Ash and Zanya, pulled her toward them both with an inexorable hunger that gnawed at her insides. If longing to be with them again was enough, she could make the trip in the span of a single heartbeat. And if there was ever a time or a reason to break her vow not to flee Sorin's custody, this was most certainly it.

She could find them. She could do this.

Sachi faced the full-length mirror in the corner of her bedchamber. Her own reflection stared back at her—pale and frantic, all clenched fists and gritted teeth—but she forced herself to breathe and look past the curves of her own face, past all the abstract lines and colors that came together to create an image.

To look deeper.

To look with love .

The room began to shift, moving around her in swoops and whirls that picked up speed until reality itself merely flashed by, skipping past in Sachi's peripheral vision. She kept her focus pinned on the mirror. On her goal.

Her feet lifted from the floor as the spinning intensified. As the room fell away.

She found Zanya first, standing in the courtyard at Dragon's Keep, her gaze fixed to the southwest. Toward the Empire.

"We're coming for you, Sachi," she whispered. "Just hold on."

Belatedly, Sachi realized that the courtyard was brimming with activity, with people rushing back and forth, preparing—

Preparing for battle.

The true import of Zanya's words sank in, and Sachi's desperation cranked even tighter. She moved closer, reaching for Zanya, but the same shimmering veil that had separated her from the Phoenix in those Imperial caverns was here, too. Thicker, so thick that she couldn't seem to break through it.

But she had to. Sachi strained, reaching for Zanya, pushing harder, until the veil pulsed and faltered.

Please, let this work.

But it did not fall. Sachi sagged, a cry of frustration and helplessness rising in her chest. What good was this ability if she couldn't use it when it mattered? To save the people she loved?

Abruptly, Zanya straightened and turned, her wild gaze flitting around the courtyard.

"What is it?" Ash asked in alarm.

"Witchwood roses," she whispered. "Sachi."

"Can you hear me?" Sachi gasped. "Please, Zan, you have to hear me. Don't do it . Don't come here—"

The world began to spin again, ripping her away. Sachi shrieked a denial, her pain and frustration shaking the very air around her. She reached for a stone wall, for the line of a fence, anything to halt her movement. If she could just touch something solid, something real ...

Her last glimpse of that reality was of Zanya's stricken face, and Ash's voice followed her as she was swept away.

"Sachi!"

When the spinning stopped, she was back in her luxurious room in her luxurious palace, staring at her own tear-streaked reflection. A prisoner in a gilded cage.

Sachi squeezed her burning eyes tight, willing the tears of isolation and failure to stop. When they did, she went to the small room that housed her wardrobe, all the way to the ornate chest in the back that held her delicates. In the second drawer, she'd stowed two things: a gauzy, exquisite nightdress embroidered with delicate roses, and the dagger that Gwynira had given her.

She'd tucked them away in anticipation of the right moment, which was apparently now. Because she'd run out of time. If Zanya and Ash and the others were on their way, she had to act quickly.

Even if her destiny was to fall here, at Sorin's merciless hands, then she would at least take him with her.

And Ash and Zanya would be safe .

Sachi slipped into the nightdress and tied the dagger along her arm. Most people preferred low light in their bedchambers, and with some careful maneuvering, she should be able to stow the hidden blade beneath the mattress or a pillow before ...

Before.

She brushed her hair and opened her chamber door in her bare feet. The guards blocked her way, but she beckoned them before her.

"I wish to see the Emperor," she told them haughtily. "You will take me to him."

Sorin must have given them standing orders that this request was not to be denied, because they immediately turned and began to march down the darkened hall. Sachi followed, lagging behind until they had to slow their steps.

A future Empress would not hurry to catch them. They would have to wait for her .

Sorin answered the door to his chamber himself and blinked when he saw her. "Lady Sachielle."

"Your Majesty." She curtsied, low and deferential. "I was too excited to sleep."

It took only a moment for anticipation to bleed into his gaze. "Leave us," he ordered the guards, then gestured her in. "Please."

He stood on her unarmed side, so she lingered as she brushed past him. "Thank you."

His bedchamber was nothing like what she'd imagined. The light was low, and the decor was impeccable, but it was a sparse, soulless place that felt cold despite its warm temperature. There were no objects or furnishings dedicated only to comfort. Even the art was technically perfect but pedestrian, just realistic depictions of cityscapes and his castle in Kasther.

"It's beautiful," Sachi told him even as she quelled a shiver.

He hummed in agreement and lifted an exquisite, empty wineglass. "Would you like a drink?"

"Yes, please." She would not drink it, but the glass itself could serve as a weapon in a pinch. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

He smiled as he splashed blood-red wine into her glass. "No need to be coy, Sachielle. We both know why you're here."

Do we? She lowered her lashes as she accepted the glass. "My singular goal is to please you, my lord." And then.

"Oh, you do." He tipped her face up with his hand beneath her chin. "You were brilliant tonight. Beyond my wildest expectations. I thought for sure I would have to rescue you at least once, but you handled them all flawlessly."

Looking away would be the absolute wrong choice, and Sachi almost did it anyway. "Your faith in me does not go unnoticed."

"Or unappreciated, I hope." He leaned closer and brushed a soft, open-mouthed kiss over her lips. "I wish to show you something."

Sachi glanced over at his bed. "But ..."

"Eager minx. There's plenty of time for that." Sorin laughed and took her hand. "Varoka thinks it too soon, but I had already decided."

"Decided what?"

"That when you were ready to offer yourself to me, you'd be ready to see this."

The sudden, eager quality of his voice scraped over Sachi's nerves like metal against metal, and the air was thick and heavy with warning. Something was about to happen, something momentous.

And inescapable.

She barely had time to set her glass down as Sorin dragged her back toward the door and then through it, nearly slamming her shoulder against the frame in his haste.

The guards were long gone, and the hallway was empty as Sorin led her to a rounded stone column inset with a completely smooth set of metal doors and stopped before it.

There were no handles, but Sorin spoke a single word. "Open."

The metal doors slid apart, revealing a small box lined with mirrors and the same gilded wallpaper that decorated Sachi's bedchamber. "What is this?"

"A conveyor. It will take us down beneath the palace."

Before she could ask any more questions, Sorin pushed her into the enclosure, stepped in after her, and pressed a large button on the wall. Immediately, Sachi's stomach lurched as they began to descend rapidly. She tried to stumble away from Sorin in favor of clinging to one of the rails along the wall, but he held her arm tight.

Thank the Dream it wasn't the one where she'd hidden her dagger.

"Everything will make sense once you know," he muttered, but with only a fraction of his attention. "You'll see."

The conveyor stopped, and he dragged her out and into a—

Sachi stared, her heart galloping. It was a room of sorts, positively cavernous, with curving walls made of sheer panes of glass, reinforced only with thin strips of metal. The delicate nature of the construction frankly terrified her because they were under water , beneath not only the palace but the lake, as well.

"It's wondrous, isn't it?"

In the center of all this precarious beauty hovered a huge glowing ball of light. It swirled with a familiar warmth, and equally familiar golden ribbons. They wrapped around but also revealed little sparkling prisms just like the ones she'd seen floating above Ash's bed.

It felt like the vibrations she'd sensed since her arrival.

It felt like the Dream.

It felt like her .

Sachi drew in a ragged breath. "What is this?"

"The Heart of the Empire." Sorin gazed up at it with naked pride. "The secret to our bounty, our power."

The longer Sachi stared at it, the more it seemed to unravel before her eyes. It wasn't solid at all, wrapped in a few ribbons of golden light. It was millions of them, spun together in a pulsing nexus of power.

"Varoka was the key," he murmured as he lifted his hand. His fingers trailed through the threads, and the light reacted to him, crawling over his skin. "I'd been here five hundred years already. There had been progress, of course. My stronghold at Kasther was well underway, but I needed more . Then one of my priests brought her to me. Such an odd child, with one foot always in the Dream. Some days, she barely saw the mortal world."

One ribbon unfurled, reaching toward Sachi, and she saw that it wasn't a ribbon at all.

It was a chain, like the ones she'd glimpsed earlier in the ballroom.

A sick suspicion took root in her gut, one she could barely fathom, much less verbalize. "Where did all this come from?"

"Varoka could do the most amazing things. But the most astounding was that she'd figured out how to take the power of someone else's wasted dreams into herself, feeding on them to make her own dreams come true."

A cold chill that had nothing to do with her thin, mostly decorative nightgown rattled Sachi. "Sorin, where did it come from ?"

He didn't even look at her. His gaze was still riveted to the dancing light. "It isn't everyone in the Empire, of course, though not for lack of trying. Most see the benefits of being born in a hospital under the care of well-trained healers. And the only way to receive the mark of citizenship is to have a child blessed by the priests at birth. Varoka personally trained them all. Just a simple web woven around the newborn ..."

Sachi's mind screamed, not only at the revelations but at Sorin's mild tone. This was how he'd manifested the rest of his court, how he'd constructed soaring marvels of architecture and industry. How he maintained his iron grip on control.

"You take it from them," she whispered, then whirled on him, furious. "How much? How much do you steal from them?"

"I don't steal ." He threw his arms wide. "Sachi, don't you see? Most of them wouldn't know what to dream for in the first place. It's power that would otherwise go to waste because they don't have the capacity to imagine a better world."

As if that was his determination to make. "They were born from the Dream. You have no right to separate them from it. These people— your people. You're supposed to protect them, Sorin, that's what a ruler does."

"This is protection!" He waved at the spinning ball of light. "It powers everything we do! The transportation that eases their lives. The innovations. Small people have such petty dreams, Sachielle. You must know that. You've seen them. Now they needn't dream of soft beds or food or shelter, because I provide that. And I take so little in return."

"No, you take everything," she countered. "If they volunteered, if you asked , maybe it would be different." Her head and heart both pounded with the force of her anger. "But you would never do that, would you, Sorin? Because you're a coward. They might say no, and then where would you be?"

He stared at her with such shocked hurt, as if he'd held out a prized gift and she'd slapped it from his hands. "If they said no, it would only be because they lacked the vision to understand—"

Sachi cut him off. "No, it would be because they know exactly who you are. You aren't giving them opportunity and largesse, you're giving them your rigid, narrow idea of it. You're so absolutely certain that your way is the right one. It has never occurred to you that any single one of these lost, violated souls could have more beautiful dreams than you. Because you're a tyrant." Tears streamed down her face. "The Betrayer."

He recoiled as if she'd slapped him. But, just as fast, his pain gave way to rage. "How dare you? I built this for you . Once you manifest your full gifts, and with the power I've collected for you, there will be nothing we cannot build together. We could remake the face of the world if it pleased us." He scoffed. "You were supposed to be better than those backward fools squatting in their hovels. You're the spirit of creation itself. Don't you yearn to build something astounding?"

All that concerned him was what he wanted. His plans, his power. Despite his words, Sachi was no different to him than the people he'd robbed over the centuries. She only existed to serve his needs.

Could he even hear that? Would he understand, or did it simply not matter to him at all?

"You don't love me," she said. "You feel entitled to me."

He stared at her in blank incomprehension. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You want to possess me," she went on. "And you don't care how I feel about it or what I want."

"I saw you," he snarled. "Three thousand years ago. I could taste what you were even then. I knew what you would become. You were promised to me by the Dream itself. What is love compared to destiny?"

"You saw me," she agreed, "but I wasn't there for you. I was there for Ash ."

"Liar," he spat.

"It's the truth." Some of Sachi's anger ebbed, replaced by sadness and a loneliness that made her very bones ache. "Surely you remember what it feels like, having him love you? You must, or you wouldn't have spent thousands of years trying to replace what you threw away."

Sorin's face went chillingly blank. "I would not pursue this line of discussion, if I were you."

This was the man she'd watched rain violence on his own people under the auspices of a celebration. The one who had drugged her, and who had calmly thrashed the Beast half to death before sitting down to enjoy his breakfast. A cold, trembling knot formed in Sachi's stomach, but she squared her shoulders.

Perhaps she should continue to provoke him. Here she stood, armed for the first time since her arrival in the Empire, surrounded by thousands of threads of the Dream. If she didn't manage to cut Sorin's throat, surely those bits of the Dream would respond to her in a time of true crisis. Stories of the Dreamers' awakenings often involved injuries near or even unto death.

At least here, in this isolated space, it would only be her life at risk.

So she stepped forward. "You're a small man, made smaller by his fear. And I am not afraid of you."

He stared down at her with utter disdain that finally settled into disappointment. "You speak those words so forcefully, as if you ever had anything to fear. I see now that Varoka was correct, and you're too young and frivolous to understand."

"Oh, I understand perfectly," she taunted. "You're not a god at all. You're so weak you have to steal your power from humans."

A thunderous scowl twisted his features. "Silence."

"Ash always said he was afraid another war with you would break the world—"

"Silence!"

"—but I think he just felt sorry for you—"

He advanced on her so quickly she barely saw him move. He wrapped his hand around her throat and lifted her. "I said be silent !"

Sachi's toes barely scraped the floor, and Sorin was gripping her neck so tightly she wouldn't have time to run out of air. She would lose consciousness from lack of blood flow first.

She had to act quickly.

She reached into her fluttering sleeve, drew the dagger, and positioned it to strike in a few fluid movements. But Sorin must have sensed its magic the moment it cleared the scabbard, because he flinched violently, and the blade skated harmlessly across his ribs in a shallow slice.

He wrenched the dagger from Sachi's hand with a cry more of anger than pain and threw her to the floor. She landed on her shoulder, and a white-hot bolt of sheer agony shook her entire body.

Sorin stared at the dagger with a bewilderment that slowly changed to rage. "Gwynira," he growled. "Treacherous, sentimental bitch . I should have known."

Sachi tried to scramble back, but Sorin grasped her injured arm and dragged her to her feet. She cried out, and the writhing ball of Dreams in the center of the room pulsed brighter than ever. Seeking.

Reaching for her .

"No. I've come too far to harm you, Sachielle. But we can't have that . Not yet." His hand dipped into his pocket and returned with one of those hated silver cylinders.

"That won't help. I will never stop fighting you. And Ash will come for me—"

"Of course he will. He's little more than an animal, but he's a possessive one." His fingers closed even tighter around her arm, and he jerked her close. "Do you think I didn't plan for that?"

Sachi struggled, but she couldn't break free. Sorin brought the injector down forcefully on her bruised neck, and more pain mixed with her fear as the room began to swim in darkness. Not fear for herself, but for Zanya and for Ash.

Especially when Sorin's next words followed her down into oblivion. "He'll come for you, sweet Sachielle. And then I'll be rid of him, once and for all."