Blakeshire (Insight #9)(60)
“We have to find a starting point. It would take us months to walk through every wing, hall, and secret passage in detail—and I’m not even considering the fact that we are going to have to sneak around to do any of this; otherwise, we are going to have a brigade of guards around us. Not good.”
“I’m hoping that with the dream I can figure out what climate it was and then date it, or hopefully I can recognize the phase of construction the palace was at. That should give us an idea of where to start.”
“What were you trying to tell me about the looking glass?” I asked, hoping maybe that would be a good starting point.
He raised his brow. “Well, it’s in the center point of the palace, and it is a pool of water. I’m almost positive that water channels under it,” he said as he picked up a pen and pulled his notes closer to him. “What I think is odd is the shape of it.” He turned the page he was working on and showed me a drawing of four rings intertwining. “Look familiar? At least in part?”
He was so on target. That was the outline of the mark on my back, or the mark on my soul that you could see when fire was against my skin. Of course, my mark had symbols and marks on it as well.
“That’s not creepy or anything,” I said nonchalantly.
“It’s a power source, among other things. Marc’s girl, Stella, can use it to see throughout the palace, but apparently the energy in it also affects the string. In the beginning, Landen and Willow thought this was a big part of their conflict, but I don’t know. You and Charlie have this mark; that tells me it means more than I first thought.”
“I want to see it, feel the energy.”
He sat down next to me. “First, let’s look into this dream of yours. You still have the insight to see your way into The Realm, right?”
“I’m not as broken as you think I am.”
His green eyes carefully glided over me. “Not anymore, Maddie, not anymore.”
I didn’t even bother to engage that comment. “So, we go to The Realm, live out the nightmare, then come back and find the real deal?”
“That, or use The Realm to bring back the real deal.”
When we first went into The Realm, before we knew how to utilize The Realm we would be put into a nightmare—either ours or someone else’s—and if you were fighting something or someone and The Realm pushed you out, you came back with weapon in hand. Draven had almost killed Aden and me a time or two.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking for or why I am so focused on this, but there is something there, something that I have to set free or use to set myself free. I don’t know how to explain it all. It’s like a resolution. I know I’m looking for a resolution.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he assured. “Let’s figure out where it is first.”
I nodded and sighed, telling him I was relaxing so we could move our souls to that dream plane. A few breaths later, I was standing on the foundation of The Realm, an orange field with threatening gray clouds encasing the sky.
Aden appeared right next to me. “Definitely not broken,” he commented as he appraised my expression. Normally, I would have my guard up here. We are like a magnet for all things evil in this place; apparently, our energy is very bright and Escorts, along with the damned, are drawn to it—but not this time for some reason. I was furious and would love to take that out on anyone who dared to cross me.
“Manifest,” Aden said to me, knowing that he could come close to creating my dream, but the emotion I felt while enduring it would bring forth more details.
The air turned frigid. The wind howled, and night was born. I felt myself moving and grasped Aden’s arm. I looked down and saw water moving beneath my feet: glass boat.
I didn’t see many people in my dream, but the voices I heard were echoing around me as if they were trying to manifest. I was even sure I could hear a crying baby; the cry was loud, but it was easy to tell that the baby was young, maybe a few days old, a week at the most.
The boat we were on was steered by long oars; they were guiding us across dark water. It looked as if we were passing through stone archways or caves. On each side of us, I could see the floors of the palace. This must be what Aden meant when he said at one time water was damned inside the palace.
“Have you figured out what time we are in?”
“Narrowed down, for sure,” he said as he nodded in the direction we were moving in.
We had passed by the archways, and now the sky was open. The water seemed shallow. We were sailing toward what looked like a stone stage. A row of five stairs led up to it, and the closer we made it to the stage the darker the water seemed to become.
“You all right?” Aden asked under his breath.
I was grateful. Two days ago, I would have been enduring a massive panic attack, water, boat, darkness—all terrifying. Not to me. Not now.
I glanced below my feet, and through the glow of fire that was somehow beaming under water I saw an octopus as big as the vessel we were in. It was peeking out of what looked like a cave that was maybe six feet under our boat. Oddly, that wasn’t the only opening I could see below us; it was almost as if there were several floors below the water level.
“It almost looks like they are keeping him as a pet,” Aden said with an odd sounding bit of awe in his voice.
“Her,” I said for no reason at all.