Chapter 10

Zaidna

The Empire of Judath

Kirin’s House

Kirin opened her eyes and let them grow accustomed to the gloom. Where was she? Her feet were bare, and the blades of grass beneath them were gray and sharp. The night sky was devoid of stars, even the Mother Star, and only the splintered moon provided any light. The Goddess Forest loomed before her, glowing faintly. It was that dream again. She was so stupid, falling asleep while doing homework. This assignment was due tomorrow, so why was she wasting her time sleeping?

She drew a heavy hand up and pinched herself, but nothing happened. “Oh well,” she sighed as she entered the forest.

The trees around her gradually dimmed as the dream pulled her through the gleaming undergrowth. She wasn’t afraid—not yet, anyway.

After being taken to the forest’s center, she was gently set down on the ground in a large clearing. A stone archway, wrapped in old, dead ivy, stood before her. The trees to either side of the arch were pale like the rest of the Goddess Forest, but through the arch she could see another forest, one filled with black, skeletal trees growing out of sandy soil.

She drifted close to the arch but stopped short as a man unexpectedly emerged from it. He looked familiar for a moment, but upon closer inspection, his features were decidedly foreign. His ears had small, tapered points, and his unusually black eyes were round and looking right at her.

Kirin had had enough of this dream. She sluggishly pulled her hand up and slapped herself in the face as hard as she could. Nothing. She repeated the motion, but could not get herself to wake up. She backed away from the rapidly approaching figure until her back was against a massive tree trunk.

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The man stopped a few paces in front of her and extended his right hand, palm facing upward. Above it, a small and smoky mass appeared, swirling and condensing until a vibrating globe of purple-black shadow coalesced. Mesmerized, she propelled herself forward and reached for it, her fingers brushing against its blurred surface.

As soon as she made contact, something cold and sharp stunned her body, and she fell heavily to the ground. The moon vanished, and suddenly the whole world was lightless and empty, leaving her alone with the man. She looked up to see his face just inches from hers, staring at her. He was terrifyingly handsome, but the blackness that enveloped his eyes pierced her to the core.

Kirin tried to cry out and crawl away, but her throat was numb, and her limbs were paralyzed. She felt only the hardness of the earth against her cheek; it smelled strongly of old parchment paper.

A slow, pitiless smile spread across his lips. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?” he asked, and his voice was tinged with an artificial mixture of kindness and hate.

Kirin shut her eyes and ground her teeth. Wake up, she told herself. Wake up! “Wake up!” she screamed.

Her flailing arms slammed painfully against the top of her writing desk, scattering papers across the floor. Kirin sat up, still screaming, her right cheek sticky and wet with drool. She looked down and saw a black taint smeared across her palms.

She rushed to the basin stand in the corner of her bedroom and hastily filled the basin, dipping her hands into the water and scraping frantically at the blackness, which easily rubbed off like ink. She looked over her shoulder to see her ink bottle tipped over on her writing desk. That was a much saner explanation.

“What a stupid dream! A stupid, stupid, ordinary dream.” She laughed at herself in the mirror as the ink dissipated into the water. She rubbed the drool from her cheek with a thin washcloth, taking with it the stamped remains of her math assignment. “I don’t have nightmares. Candidates for Nassé don’t have nightmares, and I’m a candidate, and all candidates have safe, blessed sleep! We’re shielded. Even the Nassé—” Kirin suddenly set down the washcloth, feeling a bit nauseated, and then sat down on the floor.

She had seen the Nassé’s dream and it was the worst kind of nightmare she could imagine. Kirin’s recurring dream had always stopped before the man fully emerged from the stone archway. But this one had gone on longer, even to the point that the man was speaking directly to her. What if elucidating the Nassé’s nightmare had poisoned Kirin’s own dreams? What if Kirin’s dream was nothing but a nightmare all along—one that would keep getting longer and more sinister as it repeated night after night? If it was true that even the Nassé’s sleep could be unprotected, how could Kirin or any other candidate expect any better fate?