Black the Tides Page 22

  That girl is still not me.

  Because the moment I made my deal with Cadence, the world slipped away.

  I AM ELEVEN AND STRONG. Strong enough my parents are willing to take me along on their mission. Few dreamwalker children are allowed out so young, much less our rare and precious dreamweavers.

  But my skills are exceptional, and my family is both influential and legendarily strong.

  The journey starts out exciting—and gets boring fast. There is a lot of sitting and way too many chores and not nearly enough fighting for my taste. Dad wants to teach me about the land every time he lets me off the back of his quad, but after a while, it’s just a blur of stinky old plants and dusty ridges that all look the same.

  Mom wants me to train, but I’m too distracted and worn out by the end of each day. I can tell she is too by the way she lets it go more days than not. That would never have happened at home. Even in the rain, she used to take me out into the forest to build my skills.

  And that was before and after regular sparring sessions with my squad. Ash and I even get to train with the older kids sometimes. We’re that good—that close to being ready to go out on our own. But when the older squads get sent out on training missions, we have always had to stay behind. Until now.

  I can’t wait to take down my first monster on my own—and tell him all about it.

  But I don’t get to fight for days, not until we’re out of the mountains and picking our way across the crumbling, fog-shrouded flats toward the target. And even when we run across monsters, mom and dad won’t let me take one alone. They expect me to stay back and observe while they clear our way together.

  Just watching is a lesson in grace and power. Dad is a master with all kinds of bladed weapons—though he’s a dreamspeaker at heart—and mom’s shimmering threadwork is brilliant and a little intimidating at the same time. But even these lowland monsters aren’t much of a challenge, and it always ends all too soon. Only once do I get to throw a blade and, worse luck, it almost hits mom. My own threads can barely reach the monsters, they make me stay so far back.

  Dad consoles me by saying these monsters are weak and starved anyway. He says they’ll definitely need my help once we reach the target, but I know he’s really just teasing. They probably wouldn’t actually have brought me along if it were that dangerous.

  And, as everyone loves to keep reminding me, dreamwalkers aren’t trained to fight monsters, we’re just taught how to defend ourselves so we can get on with our real work. The world won’t fix itself—or maybe it will.

  That’s what all our measurements and samples and missions are about. We’re ecologists. Scientists with a little extra magic to spend trying to bring the world back to balance, or magicians with the benefit of the scientific method trying to perform the greatest working of all time, take your pick.

  I do wish mom and dad would at least give me a chance to get some proper combat practice in, though. I mean, I’ll definitely need to be able to fight a monster on my own one day, so why not let me start now?

  The fog is thicker than ever when we finally reach the ocean, but even the infested water can’t dampen the way I fall in love with it. I’ve only visited the ocean in the dreamscape, when Ash and I play there. But it’s not the same.

  The sea monsters scatter so fast we don’t even have to fight, and for once, I don’t mind. I’m a little in awe of the barrier around the city, too. Mom keeps her arm around me as we approach and cross, sheltering me from its greasy chill.

  It’s not an easy crossing—not for any of us. The barrier does something to us, making us sick and weakening our magic at the same time.

  Even aside from that, I didn’t expect to hate the city this much. It feels heavy and wrong. The fog-filled air is so thick and sour I walk around with my mouth screwed up, trying not to spit.

  The few people we encounter are either cringing with fear or hostile to the point I think dad will have to draw his blades. If it comes to that, I’ll help keep mom safe with the one he lent me. We’re not allowed to use our threads against humans.

  There are a few scattered fights against the monsters here and there. Mom even lets me join in a few times, but we defeat them pretty quick. It’s weird, though, because even though these monsters seem weak and we win every battle super fast, mom and dad grow more and more tense. They bicker with each other and snap at me as we move through the crumbling streets, and its nowhere near as fun as I’d thought it would be.

  It’s probably the fog and the damp at fault. We all develop a cough. The city is more than half-flooded. We have to improvise bridges from the crumbling bits of buildings, or find floating bits of rubble to make rafts, and even swim while fending off monsters in some spots.

  But it’s not until a bout of coughing wakes me to their whispered argument that I find out what mom and dad are really worried about. There is more to this mission than I had realized. It’s not just about collecting data and maybe rescuing a few survivors—if they’d even follow us out.

  It’s way bigger than that: the Council of Nine sent us to take down the barrier.

  Only, it’s not that easy. They figured it had something to do with the monsters being different here, a little more dangerous, maybe, but the monsters they’ve fought so far seem too weak. And fighting them doesn’t seem to have any impact on the barrier so far.

  Mom wants to stay and investigate a rumour about a hidden settlement somewhere among the crumbling towers. Dad agrees it’s worth checking out—but wants to send her back home with me and go on alone. The air is poisoned. I’m too young to withstand it much longer. They shouldn’t risk my health. They argue, mom wanting us to stay together, more afraid of us splitting up than I’ve ever heard her, dad reluctant to give up on the mission.

  I muffle my coughs and strain my ears for every word, miserable at the thought of being the reason our mission fails. Miserable at being sent home before doing anything.

  I’ll barely even have anything to brag to Ash about when I get home.

  Mom and dad fall silent, finally asleep, but I lie awake scheming. They underestimate me. Sure, I might have a bit of a cough, but it’s not like I’m helpless. And I’m not scared.

  I pull on my jacket and boots and sneak out of bed, careful not to splash as I wade into the foggy gloom. I’ll find that hidden settlement and be the reason our mission succeeds.

  It almost works. I’m good at sneaking up and listening without people noticing. I find that one special tower in the midst of the crumbling forest of towers. Only, the closer I get, the sicker I become.

  I stagger across the rubble until the coughing sends me to my knees—and brings a coarse-voiced cluster of white uniforms to investigate.

  Their faces are covered by smooth masks and bulging goggles, their hands gloved. At first, I’m relieved to be found by people and not monsters. Then they start to drag me toward the tower.

  My energy gutters, eyelids fluttering with the effort to stay conscious. I’ve screwed up—bad. Mom and dad won’t know what happened to me. I could end up in trouble for getting captured, instead of getting credit for saving the mission—But then I hear them shouting in the distance.

  The uniformed strangers put me down and turn to watch my parents approach.

  I’m exhausted and ill, but the sight still makes me smile. They are fierce and strong and beautiful, and when they’re with me, everything is good.

  Only, their steps slow well before they reach me, feet dragging, legs straining as if running through syrup. Their faces redden, the silver mist of a dreamwalker’s magic thin and patchy over their skin. Dad drops into an offensive stance. I can’t catch my breath enough to tell him it’s fine—the strangers aren’t hurting me. Mom places one hand on his back, but it doesn’t look like she’s trying to calm him as much as brace herself.

  Threads coalesce around her fingers—and slip through her grasp.

  I try to get up and go to them instead, but start coughing harder, lungs seizing, thro
at burning. Tears roll down my cheeks with the force of it. What happens next comes in the snapshots between blinks, fuzzy-edged and smeary.

  The uniformed strangers leave me where I am and approach my parents. Only, something goes wrong. They start fighting. Whatever is affecting me seems to be hurting mom and dad too. They’re too slow, too weak. Their connection to the dreamscape is the slightest sheen on their skin instead of the glittering cloud it should be, and they can barely hold on to their weapons.

  I can’t see what the strangers hold, but it knocks dad down first. And then mom is screaming. I would too, if I could just catch my breath.

  Dad’s just lying there on the ground, not moving. The strangers seem to be arguing, but I can’t hear between the coughing and the screaming and the rushing and—then it’s later. I’m being carried through a strange building.

  Then it’s later still, and the walls and ceiling have gone from dusty and grey to shiny and gold. Mom is there, but she’s hurt. The uniformed strangers are there, too, and a really fancy dressed up lady with eyes the same shade of gold as the walls.

  I can’t hear her over the roaring, but she seems angry. My attention snags on a gold-eyed, black-haired boy staring at me from around the edge of a curtain.

  This isn’t right. We have to break the barrier. We’re here to save the city

  They should be welcoming us, helping us. Why are they angry? Why did they hurt mom? And—and dad. Where’s dad?

  Mom lies on the floor, not moving. Her power swirls, a dry, brittle-looking silver.

  Then it drifts away.

  I SURFACE FROM THE memory, reeling. It wasn’t the Mara’s or even the mayor’s fault my parents died, at least not entirely.

  It was mine—Cadence’s, I correct immediately.

  We’re the same, idiot, she thinks, chewing one ragged nail. You’re as much to blame for their deaths as I am.

  How could she keep this from me? Had she known the truth all along?

  She shrugs. I needed you to want to come back. I couldn’t finish our mission without you.

  Our mission—I look around, disoriented at the way the world is visible in every direction all at once. The dimensions are all wrong. Flat yet somehow tilted and—when I focus—it’s like I can see through things that definitely should be solid. The colours are wrong too—kind of faded and off-balance.

  Her lips curl. You’ll get used to it. I did.

  Where are they? Did no one come back with us? For that matter, where are we?

  There’s been a change of plans.

  Now I’m panicking—I think. It’s harder to tell without all the usual signals. The itchy prickle of cold sweat, the dry mouth, the speeding pulse . . .

  She sighs. Bodies do have their inconveniences. I’d almost forgotten how gross dirt feels. You suck at basic hygiene, by the way.

  Did Ange make it? And the others—Did we save them? What happened?

  She walks around a corner, and I realize what’s been bothering me ever since I surfaced from her memories.

  We’re not surrounded by grit and grey concrete. Instead, we move through a landscape almost identical to the one I just left behind: all gilt and shimmer, polished mirrors reflecting golden light and opulent furnishings. We’re in Maryam’s domain.

  What did you do?

  She laughs, a low and bitter rasp. Just completing the mission.

  If I had skin, I would have shivered at that laugh.

  Our mission was to get back to Refuge and save as many as possible—first the refugees, and then everyone else we could reach, taking them across the barrier in any way we could manage.

  There are only two reasons I can think of for her to be on this floor, and that’s because she’s saved everyone else while I was unconscious and come back to rescue Maryam as well—or there’s no one else to left to save, and she’s here to check one last room for survivors. Or, I suppose, to take revenge.

  Wrong mission, Cadence thinks in an eerie singsong.

  Then she swans into the glittering throne room of an audience chamber and takes the hand of the exquisite mayor of Refuge, who guides her into a chair at her side.

  Chapter 39: Schemes

  My screams go unheard.

  Cadence sits upon a gleaming throne at the side of the woman who oversaw the murder of our parents and bestows a sharp-edged smile upon the visiting Mara. Silver frosts her skin and shines from her eyes.

  She has the ability to make them bow—not in mocking deference, but in desperation for their very existence—and yet she does nothing.

  The only revenge I can take is to torment her, and so I vow to devote every possible moment to doing so. I screech and babble and sing and howl until I’m sure she has a raging headache. But when the Mara go and Maryam leans in close to whisper in Cadence’s ear, I’m too curious not to fall silent and listen in.

  Cadence, it turns out, really is just as devoted to the mission as ever.

  Only her mission dates back further than mine, to when she first came to this broken city—back to a child’s understanding and a foolish plan with a tragic ending. Back to the memory that she had been hiding from me, from everyone—until now.

  She didn’t come back to Refuge to save anyone. She came back to destroy it.

  That’s not how she understands her mission, of course. Even now, she splits her focus arguing against me while simultaneously scheming with the devious mayor. She is who Maryam really wanted, all along—the one with the ability to end it. She’s the one Maryam meant to summon, and the one who struck a deal behind my back in that mausoleum of a nursery.

  Cadence decided then to use her memories and our powers to take control of our body. Maybe she even stole our magic from my control in the first place to make all of this possible.

  I don’t know how long she has been planning this. But her confidence in being the holder of all knowledge and power means she has underestimated me.

  I know things too, now. I know she betrayed me, not just once, but over and over again. I know it was her fault our parents died. I know Maryam only ordered her enforcers to let me leave with Ash in the first place to isolate us and give Cadence the chance to seize the upper hand.

  I know how guilt drives her to ever-greater destruction.

  And now, I’m the ghost of our past who clings to existence only in the dreamscape. Unlike her, I am no longer limited by a clumsy, weak, needy, growing body. I don’t need to sleep. And I’m nowhere near as alone as she thinks.

  Cadence learned how to wield her abilities as a child. But I’ve been learning too, through pain and struggle and loss. And, because I’ve also been learning to listen, and to see, I know something else she doesn’t.

  Cadence and Maryam scheme to destroy the barrier around the city once and for all. They believe its destruction will obliterate the Mara and set us all free.

  They’re wrong. The Mara’s hunger is only fenced in. It grows as they feed—but soon they will reach the end of their reserves of prey.

  Which brings me to why Ash refused to deliver the help he’d promised—which he’s since apologized for. The forest’s gift isn’t easily dismissed. It followed me to the city on its own, mostly unaided by Ravel despite my suspicions, and it followed right me into the dreamscape, too, bringing the forest with it.

  Unlike Cadence, my access to the dreamscape doesn’t appear to be limited to our city alone. Thanks to that persistent bit of wood, I can talk to dreamwalkers beyond the city borders—well beyond. And they’re eager to offer all the help they can.

  But though he’s now aware the full extent of Cadence’s betrayal, Ash isn’t coming to save us. Not because of the bargain he was forced into making to “save” my life, but for the same reason he wouldn’t let the other dreamwalkers come to rescue me in the first place.

  Though they could have made it across the barrier, they would have been too weak to protect themselves from both the Mara and Refuge Force lying in wait on the other side. If the Mara were to devour the strengt
h of Nine Peaks’ young, the monsters’ power would be unstoppable.

  And if the barrier is removed, they’ll be unleashed onto the entire world.

  I won’t let that happen.

  THE STORY CONTINUES in book three of the Threads of Dreams trilogy, coming in 2021.

  In the meantime, sign up at kaie.space/newsletter for biweekly updates and exclusive content including a free eBook of series prequel novella Under.

  Acknowledgements

  TO THE READERS WHO embrace the confused, overwhelmed, unmotivated characters who just want to be left alone, thanks—as well as the fun chaos-causing ones. Special thanks to Ashley of @adventurenlit for the unflagging enthusiasm!

  To my parents, who continually amaze me with how supportive they are of my insane dreams.

  To siblings, family, friends, and total strangers who graciously read the messy early drafts and slightly less messy later drafts and keep asking for more. Special thanks to Nancy for the enthusiasm and cheerleading, Kevin and Emily for the research notes, and Līssí for relentlessly pushing those 'ships.

  To Lisa Poisso for guidance through the dark and twisty plotting woods, Catherine Milos for the diligent edit notes (as always, any and all errors are stubbornly my own) and Christian Bentulan for the detailed, tentacular designs amidst the pressures of a global pandemic.

  To the one to whom I am always enough. I can’t imagine life without you. I’m so grateful I’ve never had to.

  And finally, to all the awkward, prickly kids out there who are afraid to try, who try too hard, who try and fail, who try and keep on trying. You’re enough. You’re not done yet. You never will be. But you’re enough. Keep fighting on.

  About the Author

  K.A. WIGGINS IS A VANCOUVER-born Canadian speculative fiction writer, speaker, and creative writing coach.

  Known for the 'climate change + monsters' YA dystopian dark fantasy series Threads of Dreams, her fiction has also been published in Enchanted Conversation Magazine, Frozen Wavelets by The Earthian Hivemind, and the Fiction-Atlas Press anthology Unknown Worlds.