Page 53 of Fallen Stars

Finally, after what seemed like an age, she pushed the demon’s body off her, his blood hissing as it hit the ground.

She stood, picking the sword back up. In her dreams, in some strange way, she was able to wield it, her body adjusting and adapting to it as though it was a limb.

She was surprised by the sword’s beauty. It gleamed silver foreign words written in italics down the blade. And the hilt was formed in the shape of a roaring dragun, the base of it where its tail snaked bejewelled with sapphires and a silvery-blue stone that Elara hadn’t seen before.

She took a shaky step forward, looking around the maze again and at the smoking demon below her.

She had done it.

She hadn’t allowed her fate to be sealed by another. She had fought. And she would do the same when faced with Ariete.

She’d expected the dreamscape to lighten or to dissipate completely now that the demon was dead. But to her surprise, the shadows seemed to lunge further towards her. The buzz of flies began anew, and she turned in a circle, trying to see the source of it.

“Eli?” she called out, adjusting the sword in her hands.

There was no reply.

She took a few tentative steps down one path of the maze, the buzz of flies growing louder.

Dread building, and confusion too, at how the dream hadn’t yet collapsed, she turned the corner.

The hooded figure from earlier was knelt over something, the sound of slurping reaching her. She raised her sword, terror building within her, as the hooded figure turned. This time, she could see nothing beneath its hood, only darkness where once it had been a mirage of Sofia. And below the creature, mouths open in screams, were the bodies of her parents.

She let out a sob as she saw them, the skin on their faces tight and suctioned to their bones, as though they were mummified. The figure let out a long, satisfied sigh, as though it was sated from whatever it had been doing to her parents.

Whether it was a dream or not, Elara would not let the memory of her parents be defiled by whatever thisthingwas. She let out a roar as both fear and fury intertwined, raising her sword high.

She swung at the figure, but the form before her simply shimmered, shadows dispersing and converging once more in a different spot further away. She ran towards it, rage now fuelling her. Was this Eli? If so, howdarehe? She would kill him for this—for conjuring up such sick and twisted fantasies.

She swung again as she approached the shadow once more, and a cold laugh that certainly wasn’t Botis’s echoed through the dreamscape.

“Eli?!” she shouted. “Is this you? I’ll kill you—you hear me? I’ll kill you!

She grunted as she lunged for the shadows once more, but they simply drifted away, as though they were toying with her.

“Silvertongue!” she roared. “Let me out now! Silvertongue!”

There was no response, though the shadows had begun to advance, the figure melting into wisps as they reached out to Elara, pulling strands of her hair towards them.

“Elara?” Eli’s voice finally sounded through the dream, far more distant than before, echoing on the grey sky.

“Eli,” she cried. “Get me out of here. This isn’t funny.”

“Elara,” the voice came again, distorted, “what are you doing to my dream?”

To Elara’s horror, the shadows began to twine around her, latching onto her wrists and ankles. She struggled, but the more she did, the more she tried to cut them away, the tighter they laced. One coiled around her throat, and she let out one more bloodcurdling cry before they bound her limbs to her body, her sword long forgotten into the dead grass.

“Eli, I’m not doing anything,” she wheezed, her breath a mere stream as panic took hold of her, as well as the choking shadows. “It’s not my magick.”

“Well, it’s not mine either!” There was panic in Eli’s voice that only furthered her own. She struggled once more as the shadows pinned her to the ground, a rock slicing her cheek.

She heard Eli’s breath halt. “Elara, you need to leave. Now.”

“Help,” she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut as a sob escaped her, the shadows pushing their way into her mouth.

“Someone’s here. Someone that shouldn’t be.”

“Who?” she coughed around the shadows. “Eli, help!”