Ch. 17: The Problem with Dreams

"What happened to letting the people choose?"

I was proud of how steady my voice remained. Not a single wobble to give away how utterly terrified I was right now. Not so much for myself, but for Yoko. She had thrown away her entire life for me, and it was not right that it ended this way.

Mafta waved the torch in the air, leaving a blazing trail of orange against the black night sky. "They will. One by one the leaders of the present clans will approach. If they believe you to be guilty, they will light a fire. When the last fire is lit, you will die."

Yoko snarled and snapped her teeth at the cat shifter. "When? Why go through this farce if you've rigged it?"

"It is not rigged," Mafta explained, lowering the torch and lighting the first fire. "I simply know the hearts of the people, and they have waited many years for this day."

She grinned and passed the torch to an approaching elf. Unlike Mafta, Calliope, and Cleo, his race was not immediately evident, but like the cyote shifters, he wore a black collar, and his eyes were empty as he touched the flame to the next bonfire in the line.

"I'm sorry, my love," I whispered to Yoko as we watched each elf repeat the process without hesitation.

"You are not giving up."

"What would you like me to do? I cannot touch my power without pain. I suppose it's one way to render myself unconscious, so I do not feel the pain when we die, but I would never leave you to suffer alone."

"Touching as that is," Yoko replied, her eyes constantly searching over the rising fire. "I would prefer neither of us burn. We had plans tonight. Do you remember?"

A bolt of heat far greater than what the flames produced shot through me, and I chuckled as I hung my head. "Only we would be upset that our sex lives were interrupted by dying."

"Of course." Yoko leaned across the gap between the poles and pressed her dampening forehead against mine. "But hear me now...I claim this in your land and before your gods, we will die together. One day. Many centuries from now, when our bones are brittle and our hair is gray. And if the gods have any love for us, it will happen while we are wrapped in one another's arms. But it will not happen today."

Overwhelmed, I kissed her hard enough to taste the blood and smoke on her lips. She returned it with equal fervor before pulling away, eyes closed, and head tilted to expose her face to the skies. A ripple of magic skittered over her skin. It was so weak and pale I would not have noticed it if I was not so in tune with her body.

For a few moments, it appeared as if that was all she could muster, but then, one by one, the fires weakened and flames turned to steam. Mafta snarled and snatched the torch away, pressing it to one of the extinguished bonfires. But no matter how she tried, she could not relight the now wet wood.

Yoko slumped forward as her legs gave out, and I met Mafta's fury with a cruel smile of my own.

"It would seem some hearts are stronger than others," I told her.

Fur sprouted over her arms, and her limbs cracked and twisted as she took the shape of a panther. But where the others were inky black with golden eyes, she was a great white beast. With black rimmed red eyes and the stench of rot clinging to her fangs as launched herself onto the platform.

"What have you done?" I whispered in horror as she stalked toward me. Something about her reminded me of another twisted creature. The Banshee that attacked us at the Crossroads.

"Whatever it took," Mafta responded, her words ill formed and guttural. "Just like now."

She raised a paw to swipe her claws across my throat, but a bolt of crackling green light whooshed over my shoulder, striking her in the face. The black drained from her eyes, and in the second before they closed forever, I saw relief and gratitude. Then she collapsed with a thud that rattled the wooden planks beneath our feet.

One by one, the collars on everyone's neck fell off. Astonished gasps echoed in the clearing. Some raised shaking hands to touch their necks. Others dropped to their knees and wailed. But not a single one showed any interest in carrying out the execution.

"What in the Other Realms just happened?" Dante's breath was hot against my neck as he snuck up behind me and cut the ropes.

I flung my arms around his neck and hugged him so hard I feared he might break. The moment I saw the green light, I suspected he was nearby and trying to save us. Nearly every member of the Ishtan family carried an affinity for shaping energy that they could harness through plants and stone.

"You could have left us here," I said as I freed Yoko.

Dante swept her into his arms and brushed her hair from her face. We jumped off the platform and made our way through the stunned crowd.

"I would never abandon my queen."

We didn't speak again for hours. All our focus went into running over the uneven terrain in the darkness until finally we found a small, dry space between boulders next to a stream. There we placed Yoko and covered her with Dante's cloak. Her chest rose and fell with the evenness of a deep sleep, and I knew she would be fine. For someone with so little power, it had drained all her energy to summon the water magic to douse those fires.

"You love her," he said as fished a tin cup from one of the supply bags he'd stashed outside of Mafta's camp.

"With everything I am," I replied, accepting the cup once it was filled with the frigid water from the stream. Its crisp, clean tasted flooded my tongue and eased the scratchy ache in my throat.

He nodded and rested his forearms on his knees. The first hints of morning light teased the horizon and brushed his face with rosy gold. There was no hint of the cockiness I remembered from childhood–or the cockiness he'd shown when we first met. Only quiet contemplation as he took in our home for the first time in years.

Finally, a brittle laugh escaped him. "Did you imagine our homecoming happening like this?"

"Which part? The tar pits? The psycho cat shifter? The kidnapping–"

"Or the princess falling in love with someone who wasn't me..."

"Dante."

"It's fine." He scratched his short cropped hair and glanced at Yoko's slumbering form. "If I had to lose your heart to another, I am glad it was her, but when I was young enough to still daydream about coming home, you were always in those imaginings. As my bride, of course. I should be glad that you are here with me at all."

Reaching for his hand, I curled my fingers around his larger ones, marveling at how much comfort his touch gave me. Though we'd spent a lot of time around one another as children, those versions of ourselves had been lost long ago. Not just to aging, but to tragedy. The things that had happened to us had fashioned us into different beings than we would've become if we had continued to walk the expected road to adulthood.

Dante was a stranger to me, but it didn't feel that way when he squeezed my hand.

"I'm ashamed to admit this, but..." I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out dramatically. "Before Mora–before I found a friend in the palace, I used to spend a lot of time alone in my chambers. To entertain myself, I would act out my return to Estrellum. There were a lot more flowers and cheering involved. That's the problem with dreams, I suppose. Reality never quite measures up."

"Well, I don't want to disturb your brave soldier over there, but I can do something about the flowers."

He held his hand over the ground. Green light spread between the cracks of his fingers and drifted to the ground, drawing a tender green shoot from the loam soil. It grew quickly, sprouting leaves first, and then finally developing a large bud with blue petals that curled in toward the center like a cabbage.

"For you, my queen," he said, plucking the flower and handing it to me.

"You remembered," I exclaimed, pressing my nose into the flower and inhaling the deep notes of vanilla.

"How could I forget? They always filled your wing in the summer palace with Nightroses."

"Mother told me she wore them in her hair at her bonding ceremony to my father," I explained, smiling as the forgotten memory resurfaced. "He died shortly after I turned four. I don't even remember the sound of his voice or the shape of his eyes. All I know of him is what my mother told me."

"He was a low elf, wasn't he?"

Dante's question was laced with curiosity, not condemnation. There had been many who hadn't approved of the union, and now that I thought about it, there had been some who had dared whisper she'd doomed Estrellum by choosing a weak mate.

"He was. But Mother knew that his bloodline didn't matter. Not for us. Daughters will always inherit the light of Vyta. No matter the father's power, and so she chose love."

Just like I had. Only I would have to choose another one day–someone like Dante–to ensure Vyta never went dark again. And right now, talking to him about home and the hope of what Estrellum would become again, it didn't feel like such a burden. I only hoped Yoko would understand.

I looked back to check on her and stiffened when I found her watching us through slitted eyes. The grimace on her face was not one of physical pain, and when she caught me looking, she held my gaze for several seconds before shutting them again. 

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