Page 23 of Their Blood Queen

Ancient anger, grief, and sorrow stir in my soul. That’s what these shadows are born from.

The memories are too old to belong to a human, so that means they belong to someone else.

Or something else.

Whatever type of entity they belong to has shed its terror and left it here.

It’s a wonder this female hasn’t gone mad.

I sense her farther in, resting in her territory beyond my reach. I can faintly hear her, the link between us having opened the moment she uttered her first prayer.

But she hasn’t prayed again. She’s been talking to someone else. There’s no fear in her tone, and it seems to be helping her mental state. The shadows have calmed, whereas previously they had been vibrating.

So I wait.

And feast.

I give the shadows of sorrow a place, a purpose.

You are mine now, I tell those wisps that have curled inside my soul.

A light flares at that statement, one that I inexplicably know belongs to the female.

I tilt my head, curious, as the shadows part, revealing a world of broken mirror shards floating through the air.

She’s letting me in.

In each shard, a different memory, dream, or fabrication glints back.

A child running in a sea of flames.

A mother crying.

A room of three surrounding a contract written in blood.

The last depiction is one I know well, because I was there, too.

In spirit, anyway.

Or in beast.

The shards float away from me as I step through. My heavy weight makes me sink into the ground that crunches under my steps.

Like Helia, my beastly body doesn’t wear clothes or boots, mostly because I have no need for them in this form. Still, the broken, glassy ground seems to make my feet sting.

It’s an unusual sensation in the Dream Realm.

What have you been up to, little star, to make your territory so rife with pain? I wonder.

Who have you let in, other than me?

Physical movement doesn’t work the same in the Dream Realm as it does in the real world. Only three steps take me straight to the owner of this territory.

I was invited by her prayer, but it doesn’t mean I can stay.

When I find her blurry form cozied in a chair and huddled with a book and gold pen, I realize she’s still awake.

But just barely.