Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (123)

She was a projection of her consciousness, so a hit wouldn’t greatly harm her, but he still expected it to land. He was surprised she managed to block in time. His hand struck her gold-armored forearm, and the air of the room cracked.

“Borrowing power from a Herald?” he asked. “For a friendly meeting?”

“That wasn’t very friendly of you.” She gave him a cold grin that, with her blonde hair, made her look uncomfortably like Eithan Arelius. “You’re treading close to a line I don’t think you want to cross, Shen.”

He leaned down into her face until she was forced to lean back. “I do not like it when humans lie to me. They stink when they lie. Especially when they lie to cover up their own stupidity. Do you understand what is at stake?”

“You’ll get your money back,” she said, as though that were what he cared about. “Besides, why are you worrying? The Weeping Dragon will take care of him before you get a turn, and we can take everything back then.”

Shen snarled in her face. “Am I the only one who saw the stars die?”

Larian spread her hands and danced backwards. “Hey, maybe the rest of us didn’t eradicate the Arelius family before learning that their founder was the interdimensional god of death. You know what they say about hindsight, don’t you?”

“You don’t have to see the truth! Just do your job!”

“Performance guaranteed or your money back. We don’t want the world turned upside-down any more than you do. But Shen?” She gave him another of those Eithan-like smiles. “Watch your mouth. There’s more of me than there are of you.”

She disappeared an instant before Reigan Shen tore the whole space to ribbons in his fury.





“I went to the Everwood continent myself for the first time not long ago,” Lindon said. “But it’s a big place. What’s the target here, again?”

Yerin looked to Dross, who stared straight ahead with no expression.

“Bleed me, he can keep his mouth shut. It’s called the Dreamway. Guess Emriss made it so she could slip into the dreams of people all over the world and teach them bits and pieces. Keeps lots of knowledge there. Figure it’s like the biggest dream tablet library we could get.”

Lindon’s heart pounded and he wanted to say something, anything, but he only nodded with mild interest and moved the labyrinth.

[Yes,] Dross said. [Surely there is much to learn from the Dreamway. So much knowledge to receive. Or even to s—grrk. Ahem. Sorry, I had something stuck in my…spiritual throat.]

Yerin leaned over to Lindon. “Are you stone-certain he’s patched up?”

“Oh, he’s fine.” Lindon couldn’t look Yerin in the eye lest he give too much away.

The heart of the Dreamway was buried beneath a tree the size of a city, with blue-green leaves that shone slightly under the starlight. A men’hla tree, the oldest in the world…or the second-oldest, if you counted the Remnant that had eventually ascended to Monarch.

There was security on the facility, but none of it was meant to stop a real opponent. Mostly, it seemed there to deter Lowgold vandals or children running in unsupervised. The Dreamway itself was open to all during the daytime, a fountain of knowledge.

Lindon and Yerin walked through the visitor’s entrance, which was clean and well-decorated, and completely empty. Visiting hours were over. Once they were through the outer scripts, they could sense the shape of the facility.

Then they both disappeared again, reappearing below.

Here, great rivers of images and flashing color flowed in from every direction to an island of steel. Memory constructs buzzed like bees around their hive, placing dream tablets beneath scripts and then sorting them once they had been filled with memory.

Yerin pointed toward the river of information. “Happy birthday, Dross.”

Dross searched for a reaction for a moment before he forced a happy gasp. [For me? Aw, you shouldn’t have. I’ll just be off, then, drinking deep of these delicious memories. You two just do…whatever. Whatever you do.]

Dross drifted off, continually sneaking glances behind himself at Yerin.

She scratched the back of her head. “Thought he’d be happier.”

“He’s distracted,” Lindon said, but that was all he could say before the oath he’d sworn sent him a warning. “I’m going to see if there’s anything here about the Void Icon. You?”

“Been shoving Ruby’s madra into the same old techniques. Looking to see if I can tighten that up a little.”

Lindon had worked on that with her back in Serpent’s Grave, but Dross had been gone. Without him to help simulate the techniques, neither of them had been confident enough in their understanding of blood madra to complete her new Path.

Since Dross had returned, there had been more pressing matters.

Yerin held out a hand. “Give me a scale, Dross? Slap my madra into a dream construct and we might have to stick the whole place back together with spit and mud.”

[Yes. Of course.] Dross Forged a purple coin, which shimmered more brightly than it ever had before. [Spend it well.]

Lindon drifted off before he said too much. One violation of his oath was enough.

With great effort, he focused on his own task. There was more he could find here than just dream tablets; some of the raw material used to form the Dreamway would be perfect for crafting a Divine Treasure from the Silent King’s core binding. If he could take enough, he might even be able to create a new mind-spirit like Dross, though he didn’t want to strip Emriss Silentborn’s masterpiece down to its core components after she’d risked herself to help them.