28 - THE COLLECTIVE DREAM

I woke up to the sound of screaming.

I jumped up, half-naked, sweating, stumbling in the darkness. Movement all throughout the safehouse as others exploded into motion. Justinia had been sleeping only ten feet or so away from me and she already had her axes in hand, was storming toward the source of the screams.

The screaming continued for a second more before cutting off.

Felice, I realized.

“Shit,” I hissed. I ran, heedless to my state of partial undress, bleary-eyed and clumsy in the dark. And there she was, sitting upright in the corner of a room she’d claimed as her own for the night, eyes wide, shoulders heaving as she panted.

“Felice.” I crouched next to her, placed a hand on her shoulder, then removed it, concerned that it might be misinterpreted. “What’s the matter?”

Justinia stood in the doorway, silhouetted. “Please don’t tell me you woke us all up over a bad dream.”

Felice swallowed hard. Her voice emerged quietly. “It wasn’t a normal dream.”

Camillan appeared now, said, “Felice, what happened?”

“I…” the girl took a deep breath, then seemed to compose herself. “I saw him. The Autarch. He…came to me. It was awful. He was surrounded by light, and his eyes were like the night sky. He had Sunlight. He…was warning me. But I don’t think it was meant for me specifically. I think it was part of the Collective Dream.”

Looks were exchanged at this. Justinia frowned. “Camillan, weren’t you asleep as well? Did you dream?”

Camillan shook his head. “I had my Dream Shard removed. I’m guessing you did as well?”

Justinia nodded. “And Aurion never got one.”

“So,” I said, “that’s why only Felice had the dream.”

“Aye,” Camillan grunted. The other two Thorns, whose names I still didn’t know, were on guard duty. “And so what did our blessed sovereign have to say in this dream?”

“He knows Akios was taken,” Felice said. Her voice was firmer now. “He said, ‘To those who have committed this crime against the Autarchy, who have taken my friend, know that I am coming.’”

Silence followed this.

I looked at Camillan. The master of the Thorns looked paler than he had just moments before, as though this, finally, was enough to shake him. It was the first time I’d seen him even mildly bothered by anything, and it was not a comforting look.

“Well,” said Amaline from the other side of the room—I hadn’t even noticed she was there. “That sounds bad.”

“Did he mean that he’s coming personally?” Justinia asked.

“That’s what it sounds like,” I murmured.

“Surely he won’t come all the way to Tymora,” Camillan said uncertainly. “It’s so far away, and he has an empire to manage—”

“Except the Sanguine Ministry exists,” Justinia said, “meaning that he can simply appear wherever the fuck he wants. Also, I’m sure he has other people who can run the empire for the small amount of time it’ll take for him to hunt us down. Furthermore…” and she smiled a little cruelly, as though the situation were vindicating her initial concerns, “you just kidnapped one of his oldest and closest friends. And if you’ve paid any attention at all to the legend of Marak, lord of the Autarchy, you should know that he can be a petty, vengeful bastard.”

More silence. The atmosphere changed rapidly in the room. I could see the fear in Felice’s eyes, the deep concern written across Camillan’s expression, and even the fidgeting of Amaline as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her hand absently stroking the hilt of her knife.

I took several slow, deep breaths. I probably should have listened to Justinia. Should’ve known that something like this might happen.

Marak was my goal. My ultimate target.

But I wasn’t ready for him yet. Not even remotely close.

If he came to Tymora, if he personally hunted us down…

We were dead. Absolutely, incredibly dead.

This was a man who had started as nothing. Who had grown up on a farm, a nobody. Who had, through years of ruthlessness, of ambition, of mastery over the skill of violence, worked his way up to the top. He had taken one city at first, starting a civil war with the ancient kingdom of Ostramir. Then, when the king of Ostramir had come to put down Marak’s rebellion, Marak had instead slaughtered his armies and taken the king’s head. Then he had called himself Autarch. Then he had defeated, one by one, every opposing nation on the continent. He had burned down city after city, had killed millions. It was said that he, individually, possessed the power of a god, and that none could stand before him; that he alone could wipe an army from the face of the world. He could read minds. He could fly. He could set a man aflame with nothing but a thought. His blade, Sunlight, could not be stopped by any armor—it cleaved through steel as though it were nothing more than air.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

And he was coming for us.

I asked the question that everyone was thinking: “So, what do we do?”

#

The best answer any of us could come up with was the most simple one.

Run.

If the Autarch was coming to Tymora—or was already here—then we simply needed to get out of Tymora.

To stay was to die.

To be within even a hundred miles of the man, while he was coming for us, was to die. I might have been from the Withered Isles, a world apart from the Autarchy, but I already knew enough to understand the dire threat that Marak represented. He wasn’t a man—not really.

He was a force of nature.

“If we're running,” Justinia said bluntly, “we need to do something about the governor. And we need to do it as soon as possible. He can’t come with us.”

Camillan was pacing back and forth. We’d been discussing the matter for an hour or so now and so far the master of the Thorns hadn’t said a word.

But now he stopped, his eyes narrowed and full of determination. “I have an idea.”

I wondered how much of human history was driven—for better or for worse—by those four words.

“Out with it,” Justinia barked.

“Watch your mouth,” Amaline stared at the other woman. The two had been hounding each other all day. I worried it was only a matter of time before they had a knife fight.

“There’s a way out of the city,” Camillan said slowly, “that will get us to relative safety immediately. And we can bring Akios. We can bring everyone we need, accepting that, if we do this, we can no longer use Tymora as a base of Thorn operations.” Already I had a sense for what he was about to suggest, but still, I remained quiet, sitting on the lounge with Stumbles on my lap. “We could use a blood portal.”

Justinia closed her eyes. Even Amaline seemed off-balanced. Felice frowned at the man while the other two Thorns stood near the door with their arms crossed. They were brutes, both of them, the sort of men who simply followed orders. Good, reliable fellows, but I didn’t like the way they looked at me; they didn’t trust me.

“Hear me out,” Camillan said, holding up his hands. “They’ll be expecting us to go through one of the city gates, or to take a train. All exits will be so heavily guarded that there’s simply no chance of us slipping through. We’ll have to fight. And if we exit the traditional way, on horseback, by train, whatever—it’ll be easy for them to follow us, and impossible for us to lose them once they’re on our trail. And I have a feeling it won’t take long for the Autarch himself to catch up with us. In other words…we’d die. As much as I hate to say it, I judge that to be the truth. But if we can take a blood portal, my friends, that’s a whole different story. We could go to any other city on the continent. To any Autarchy base. We can—”

“There are two Sanguine Towers in Tymora,” Justinia interrupted. “Two portals. Each is a heavily guarded military base, protected by Sun Knights and watched by the Order of the Seeking Hand. Unless you have an army I’m somehow not aware of…”

“We have resources,” Camillan said, jaw clenched. “More than you might think, Justinia. Do not forget that it has been some time since you were last in Tymora.”

I ran a hand along Stumbles’s back. His fur was matted and reeked of death, but that didn’t bother me. He purred and nestled against me. “If we go through a Sanguine Tower,” I said, “would we not exit out at another Sanguine Tower? It’s my understanding that they’re all linked in a network.”

“Correct,” Justinia said.

“And would that not mean that we’d also have to fight our way out of a second Tower once we stepped through?”

“Yes,” Camillan said, “but once again, they won’t expect it. It’ll take them by surprise—and we’ll hit them hard and fast.”

“Won’t be enough,” Justinia grunted.

“If all you’re going to do is sit there and fucking complain,” Amaline hissed, “then you may as well just keep your bitch mouth shut.”

Justinia exploded to her feet. “Say that again. To my face this time.”

Amaline sauntered toward her. “With pleasure—”

I moved Stumbles, was quickly on my feet and between the two women. I held out my hands. “Can we please not fight? By the sounds of it, we have enough enemies already without needing to make new ones out of our allies.”

“Out of my way, boy,” Amaline said, eyes narrowed to slits.

“Yeah,” Justinia didn’t even look at me. “Out of our way.”

“That’s enough,” Camillan said calmly.

“Just an idea,” said one of the other Thorns, “but can’t we just slit the governor’s throat, dump his body somewhere, and then hide? Maybe it’s not ideal, but…”

I shook my head. “That’d be pointless. They’ll just make a martyr out of Akios, making the Thorns—and everyone opposing the Autarchy—look even worse. Then Maraak will still hunt us, except now he’ll be even angrier, since we just killed one of his closest friends, and everything will go to shit. It’s better that we get ourselves somewhere relatively safe, where we can figure out how best to use the governor. He’s a powerful asset—we just need to figure out what to do with him.”

Everyone looked at me. I could tell, then, that all of them, even Camillan, wanted to be told what to do. Camillan was a good leader, I could see that; he’d managed to operate in Tymora for years, building up his little band of resistance fighters, evading the Terarch Guard.

But this was different. Now he had to think about immortals, the Autarch, blood portals, and operatives. It was a level that left even him doubting himself, and unsure how to proceed.

I was young. Inexperienced. Untested.

It’d be crazy for any of them to listen to me.

Yet even still.

I drew myself up, taking a deep breath, and said, “Alright, here’s what we’re going to do…”