In The Dark Of Dreams Part 18

Losing him was not an option. Jenny might not be ready to confront, or even understand, her feelings, but she'd spent sixteen years of her life looking for him. Sixteen years searching for answers to one moment on a beach.

Like h.e.l.l she was going to let that go.

She grabbed his hand. He looked down at her with surprise. "Jenny."

"Go on," she muttered. "You're stuck with me."

Only because Jenny was looking at his eyes did she see them s.h.i.+ft with grief. Grief or loneliness, or something born from pain. Whatever it was, she felt her heart answer. Her hand tightened.

"Jenny," he said again, but this time his voice was low, quiet, almost a caress. Utterly at odds with the hard, brittle mask he wore too well. Bent or broken, she thought. Raw with more scars on the inside than out.

Perrin walked into the sea, pulling her close against his side as the waves buffeted their bodies. He was big as a mountain against her, and moved with unwavering strength. Jenny tried to do the same. She held her rock in her free hand. The woman watched them, her eyes mere glints of light behind her tangled hair. Up close she seemed even more unreal. A little too perfect. A little too human. As though she were trying too hard to be something she wasn't.

"We learn to pretend in order to survive," said the woman, as if she'd read her mind-and if Jenny hadn't seen her mouth move, she would have thought those words were inside her head. "Perrin O'doro knows this. As do you, Jennifer Jameson, whose blood flows from the daughters of the Magi-who was born from the blood of the fae and twisted that magic into death."

Jenny went very still. The woman whispered, "You are not so ordinary."

Perrin tensed. Jenny could not look at him. All she could do was listen to the rumble of his voice as he said, "My lady. The kra'a."

"It is with you," she said shortly, still watching Jenny with unnerving intensity. "And you must go now. Your father is coming. He brings hunters."

He stiffened, fingers flexing painfully around her arm. "What do you mean, the kra'a is with me?"

The woman ignored him, and to Jenny said, "We are not so far apart, in blood. You know this, in your heart. You know what your family is."

"I know enough to be wary," she replied, unnerved. "But you seem to know more than I do."

"The kra'a," interrupted Perrin impatiently, and the woman hissed at him: a rattling sound that rose from deep inside her throat. All that pale white skin wavered, revealing rough scales against her torso, s.h.i.+mmering from green to brown in one strong, muscular ripple-while beneath all that long blond hair, a tangle of glinting golden eyes and dripping fangs.

Jenny stumbled, swearing. Perrin caught her.

"Blind fool," said the woman, her golden eyes glowing. "Look between the two of you for the answers you seek. And do not return here until you have found them."

She backed more deeply into the sea, her human illusion falling apart: she did not have legs but balanced on a ma.s.sive tail that coiled and flopped through the shallows like the body of a giant snake. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s sagged brown and heavy, and her fingers were little better than claws.

Jenny's mouth went dry, but she stepped forward, pulling against Perrin's hand. "The children. Are they illusions, too?"

The woman slowed, stilled. "Human. Real. Mine."

"Yours," echoed Jenny, terrible fury making it hard to speak even that word. "Now who's the liar?"

Perrin's fingers tightened again. Jenny shrugged him off, and this time he let go. She took another step, swaying as the waves crashed against her legs, and gritted her teeth as she stared unflinchingly into the woman's golden, inhuman gaze.

This is nothing, she told herself. You've dealt with worse since you were five years old.

She'd learned to walk in the shadow of men and women who could kill with a thought. But those had been good people. Good hearts. First to be murdered on that bad day, years ago. She could still smell the blood and see it on her hands. Her stomach suffered a ghost ache, and the parasite pulsed, shuddered. Fever stoked Jenny's skin in one p.r.i.c.kly wave.

The woman tilted her head, and the human mask faded completely, leaving a creature of primal, alien beauty, purely serpentine in every way but her features: nose, mouth, eyes, ears. Black hair fell around her high-boned face, tangled and cut with green strands. She touched her face with surprising tentativeness, as though she had only just realized that others, too, could see her true form. Her clawed hands trembled.

"The past and future do not lie," whispered the woman, closing her eyes. "The world is changing, and there will come a time when all that is known now will be torn, and the old days will rise again. Magic, and chaos, and war. It can be delayed, but not stopped. And if humans are to survive . . ."

The woman paused. All Jenny could do was stare, wavering between horror and fascination. Words, much like the ones spoken by her uncles, aunts, and cousins, who had broken away to form the Consortium. Jenny had listened to the debates for years before the break and family war-and since then. All those precog warnings of the future, and the terrible arguments concerning what to do, if anything.

"We must all do something," said the woman, looking away at the sea. "Those children were unwanted, abused, tossed aside. So I took them. Not to hurt, but to save, to train. I will protect as many as I can, teach them what I can, and when the time is right, they will know what to do. They will know how to live in the world to come."

Jenny tried to speak, but her voice stuck. Perrin brushed close, something terrible in his eyes. "If the beast wakes, what you've seen-"

The woman turned away, interrupting him. "Go. You have what you need."

Perrin snarled. "I have nothing."

She glanced over her shoulder-gave him a look of pure, shriveling disdain-and her tail lashed out of the water and smashed against his chest, knocking him backward. Jenny tried to grab his arm. She was taken down with him, and the sea closed over both their heads. They couldn't have been more than a hand below the surface, but the pressure was immense, crus.h.i.+ng, and when she clawed at the water, she could not break the waves. Perrin was not beside her. She had no air.

You will understand before he does, murmured the woman inside Jenny's mind, her voice slithering, rubbing, crawling cold. When you are away from here, and those bonds begin to stir. Listen to the voice that comes, the voice that is waking.

Time is running out.

Chapter Ten.

In darkness, Perrin fought. He had no weapons, no fists, no bones. He was a ghost, and all he had was rage.

His father was there.

"You killed her," said the old Krackeni. "There are witnesses. You destroyed her mind, then broke her neck."

"No, listen to me," Perrin tried to say, but he had no voice.

Listen to me, he thought, rage melting into desperation. Listen, please listen. What she did, what she was going to do- "I trusted you," whispered his father, floating above him, pale eyes blazing with grief as each word bore its own spectral light inside his throat. "We all trusted you."

You can trust me. Please, don't say that. Please.

"But I can taste it now, inside you. I can taste the . . . the contamination . . . in your mind. It goes . . . so deep. Into your dreams. Oh, G.o.ds, it truly is in your dreams. How could you? How could you do this?"

No, Perrin raged. No, you do not understand. She did not understand. Just listen, please- Please, do not- Do not- DO NOT- Perrin woke up, gasping, clawing ineffectually at the air. He could hear his father's voice, echoing so raw inside him.

But that presence died when he opened his eyes and found himself sprawled in gra.s.s. He stared, numb, taking it in: trimmed, neat, with an edge of color nearby. Roses.

I'm on a lawn, he thought, knowing that must be wrong.

As wrong as the scent of smoke, and the strange rat-a-tat-tatting sound that filled the air.

Gunfire. Then, screams.

Jenny's screams.

Perrin rolled to his feet, but couldn't stand. No strength. His muscles were made of water. He continued to fight, though, as he had in the darkness-but even wilder, more desperate. He screamed Jenny's name. He could not see her. He could not see anything but gra.s.s. She was sobbing. She was choking on sobs.

"Oh, G.o.d," she cried. "Oh, G.o.d, no. No, no. No, please."

Her despair killed him. Her despair was the most horrific thing he had ever heard in his life. It shredded his soul and spat it out, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing. He was useless.

I'm useless, whispered Jenny inside his head. I'm useless. It doesn't matter how hard I fight, there's nothing I can do.

Nothing.

"No!" Perrin shouted at her, digging his fingers into the gra.s.s. "Jenny!"

He thought she said his name. Maybe. From far away. He strained for it, hands buried in gra.s.s- -gra.s.s that was suddenly flesh.

Perrin's vision wavered, as did the lawn. He saw sand, rock, driftwood-the cras.h.i.+ng roar of waves replacing screams-but not the gasp of the woman he was holding down.

He threw himself away, horrified. Jenny stared back at him, cheeks flushed. Deep red handprints on both arms.

"You were dreaming," he whispered, his voice breaking on every word. He should have known.

But it was so real.

Jenny trembled. "Is that how you wake someone?"

Perrin shook his head, suffering shock, revulsion. "I didn't know it was you. I was . . ." He stopped, unsure what to tell her, how to explain without making her feel violated. He felt violated. He could still hear her screams.

"I was inside your dream," he finally said, unable to quell the tremor that raced through him.

Jenny didn't move or speak. Her eyes were huge, and he wanted to kill himself when he saw the marks on her arms. She was so much smaller than he, and he had been crus.h.i.+ng gra.s.s in the dream, crus.h.i.+ng it in his fingers- "Your arms," he choked out, and made a small movement toward her. Jenny flinched, and he froze, cold to the bone.

"How," she began, then stopped, wetting her lips. "You can enter dreams."

"Yes," he said. "But this was an accident. Jenny-"

"What was I dreaming?" Jenny rubbed her right arm and winced. "I don't remember."

Perrin winced, too. He tore his gaze from her injuries and swallowed hard until he could find his voice. "All I could see was gra.s.s. I heard gunshots. Your voice."

Jenny stared at him. "What was . . . what was I saying?"

"You were screaming," he whispered, hating himself for not lying. "Begging."

Jenny shuddered and looked down at her arms. Perrin hugged his knees to his chest, his hands clenched in fists. His palms felt dirty. His fingers were numb. He wished his heart felt the same.

"What were you doing?" she asked him, so softly. "When you grabbed me?"

"I couldn't move," he told her, barely able to hear himself. "I was fighting to move."

Jenny closed her eyes and nodded to herself. After a breathless moment of agonized doubt, Perrin said, "Let me see. Please."

She said nothing, but at least it wasn't a no. Perrin s.h.i.+fted close, never feeling more like a giant oversized brute than he did then. Her eyes stayed closed.

"I'm going to touch your arm," he told her, and waited several seconds before doing that-as carefully as he could.

He had large hands. Jenny was a waif in comparison. The angry red stain of his touch covered well over half her forearm, and the flesh was slightly swollen. Bruises would set in soon. But nothing appeared broken. She could squeeze her hands into fists and move her arms.

Perrin released his breath, sweating. "I'm sorry. I can never make you understand how sorry."

Jenny finally looked at him, and those clear green eyes knocked his heart sideways.

"Thank you," she said.

Perrin could not tear his gaze away. "Don't."

She studied him. Made him feel small, naked. Lost. Just when he wondered if he was ever going to breathe again, she nodded, almost to herself. Her look of grim understanding almost did him in, again.

"Where are we?" she asked.

It took longer than it should have for her question to travel from his ears to his brain, and he turned, slowly, taking in the beach, the forest, the ocean. He was going to tell her that they were in the same place, but those words faded away when he saw an unfamiliar stone outcropping to the east-and just beyond that, another island, small and lush.

"I don't know," he said, trying to focus past the guilt and shame eating his insides. "The crone has a way about her. Magic. Just like she brought those children to her, she must have . . . pushed us away. Somewhere else."

"She frightened me." Jenny rubbed her arm again, then the other. Perrin looked away quick, eyes burning. He had hurt her. Didn't matter that it was an accident. He should have known it was a dream. He should have been aware of what was real and in the mind. Even broken, living as a human, he hadn't lost that ability.

"Stop it," Jenny said, and he flinched, surprised to find her right beside him. Her eyes still held that stern, grim light.

"Stop," she said again, taking his hand.

He tried to pull free. "You're the one person who should be safe from me. And now you're not."

"I'm safe with you," she said, and kissed the back of his hand, rubbing it hard and fast. It was the kiss that made him freeze, and her cheeks turned pink. But she met his gaze, clear and unwavering, and didn't stop rubbing his battered knuckles.

"Let it go," she said.

"I can't," he replied. "I've put men in hospitals with these hands. I've . . . killed . . . with them."

She didn't flinch. "I've killed with mine. I killed someone I thought I loved."

And then she did flinch, and let go of him, and stood. Perrin stared at her slumped shoulders and found his feet, towering over her. He felt his height, suddenly, and his strength in comparison to hers; but that was only physical, and he wasn't entirely convinced that he was as strong as she, on the inside.

He stared at the back of her head, at her tangled, matted hair coming loose from her braids. Felt a pulse in the hole in his skull, but ignored it-as well as his inexplicable urge to touch her hair and bury his fingers against her scalp, above her neck.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Perrin asked her, wondering where that question came from-hearing gunshots and screams the moment he spoke the words.

Jenny shook her head, hugging herself, staring at the sea. "Where do we go now?"