What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come

The Changeling Covenant, Book Three

by Molly Lavenza

Series covers by Marsha Black

©2019 Molly Lavenza, All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. All similarities to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter One

I ducked my head low in the clear water that surrounded me, so that only my eyes remained above the surface. How long could I stay submerged, silent and still, before I would have to respond to the horrible claim the Faerie Queen had just made?

Everyone in the cavern was quiet, their figures unmoving. Waiting for me, no doubt, to declare whatever it was that would fix everything.

Fix Faerie.

Fix the creatures that lived there. Had lived there for centuries, and were now threatened by the intimidating woman staring me down now.

My mother.

Declan was facing away from me since the queen had slapped him, so I couldn't read anything from his expression. I couldn't pull any strength from his reassuring smile, the determination I had seen in his icy blue eyes all that day.

No one looked back at me except Queen Acanthe.

A soft breeze whistled through breaks in the rock formation over my head as I tried to stop shaking, thankful that I was under the water and my nerves weren't visible to the one person I needed to stand up against.

But could I do it, alone?

The key that had led me here into Faerie only hours before was tucked into the back pocket of my jeans. If I climbed out of the pool and grabbed them from the cave floor, where I had so hastily dropped them, I might have a chance of escaping the cavern and finding a place to turn the key again, ideally bringing me back home.

Back to the human realm, where I had lived my whole life believing that I belonged there.

Where I would die in my sleep before awakening on my eighteenth birthday.

Only nine days away.

Was there a way to change that destiny, a way that was safer, more certain, than the fight I had standing in front of me?

Come now, you're certainly overthinking this, child. I'm only telling you the truth, since those in whom you have placed your trust haven't seen fit to share it with you.

I fought the urge to blow a few bubbles in the water. A few moments ago, this had been a relaxing and refreshing release from the stress of traveling in Faerie, with all its attendant dangers.

The lux. Or luxes? The shark beast. Adorable, childlike vampiric fairies.

The worst was speaking to me now, as if she could convince me to believe anything she said.

Can we not have a conversation, mother and daughter?

A mother who wanted to eat her daughter’s heart.

She took a step towards the pool and I instinctively shifted away, my back now against the rough, firm rock wall. The rocks below my feet were uneven, a jumbled formation obviously unchanged by human - or rather - fairy hands. What could I say to her? She wanted me dead, and I wanted to live.

More than that, I wanted to help Faerie and all who lived here.

I couldn't do it by myself. I was sure of it.

Suddenly, the water felt cold and prickles rose on the skin of my arms. I looked again at Declan, but he was still turned away from me. Why?

His failure is his own problem. Falling for his prey? Unconscionable.

The queen shook her head as she made small clicking noises with her tongue. Her hair tumbled in shining waves, golden like my own but darker, with perfectly even curves at regular intervals. Mine was straight as a pin, which had been welcome after years of dishwater blonde, fuzzy hair.

I didn't like the similarities between us, though, and would gladly go back to my unremarkable locks if it meant getting rid of our family connection.

Her smile was terrifyingly insincere. Was she even trying to convince me that I had nothing to fear from her, just as she was enjoying the terror that was probably very clear on my face?

Boys are so simple, don’t you agree? A pretty face, a charming smile . . . they’re usually so easy to manipulate. The Gael brothers, however . . .

The way she trailed off, her words leaving her lips so carefully crafted as her violet eyes bore into my own, dragged me into her gaze. I couldn’t look away, although I was searching for any movement from Declan through my peripheral vision.

Had she stunned him in some way with that slap? She had done so much to him, so much that I didn’t even understand, that anything could be happening to him now.

And I didn’t know how to help him. Or myself.

I see I’ve caught your attention, finally. Humans are so disrespectful of their elders. It’s no wonder you’ve such horrid manners.

It was so difficult to think of her as my mother, not when I had loving human parents I never would disrespect, as the queen now accused me of doing.

I looked down into the water, wondering how long I could stay in the pool before she would expect me to get out and deal with her. Deal with everything.

Astrafael’s words came to me as I wiggled my toes against a rock beneath my feet, channeling my nervous energy as best I could in a way the queen, hopefully, couldn’t see.

She feeds on your fear.

A flash of red, bright and thin, streamed down Declan’s chin. His lip was bleeding, and yet, he hadn’t cried out when she busted it with the slap that had echoed through the cavern.

My mother’s eyes narrowed and I pushed myself to focus on Astrafael’s advice. Surely he was flying around somewhere, perhaps trying to communicate with me even as I tried to figure out what to do.

What would Corrie do, I wondered, nearly making myself laugh at the sudden thought. Right now, she would be sitting on her living room sofa with a bag of miniature Reese's cups, groaning over homework. Texting me, and wondering why I wasn’t answering.

The queen kept talking, and while my eyes were captured by hers, my mind continued to stray. Was this just some weird dream, brought on by stress or the visions I’d endured earlier? Would my mother come to wake me up, rest her hand gently on my arm, and call my name, worried about me as she always was?

And if you don’t, your new boyfriends will die.

What? Clearly, I should have been paying closer attention, instead of hoping for an easy way out. I had no clue what she was demanding of me, but killing Lantis and Declan would be at the top of her to-do list if I didn’t get my act together and find a way to appease her.

Without even addressing her use of the word boyfriends, I stood up so the water barely covered my chest. The swift movement stirred the pool, disrupting the absolute silence in the cavern.

Declan’s tongue slipped out of his mouth and he licked at his lip, smearing the blood so it spilled further down his chin.

Surely the queen had noticed the movement. I had to keep her attention on me, in case Declan was planning an escape.

As I hoped he would.

What do you want from me? Besides eating my heart.

I tried to sound flippant, even sarcastic. The last four years of friendship I had shared with Corrie should have given me ample material to work with, but my voice sounded strained instead of dismissive.

With a short bark of controlled laughter, my mother lifted her chin and lifted her arm at the same time, pointing at me with a long, thin finger.

You will do what I expected of Brielle, although she is much more biddable than you are. I suppose it can’t be helped. You are my natural daughter, after all.

The wedding.

To Lantis.

Everything, all the little details I had gathered during the afternoon, fell into place, as I watched the amusement flicker across the queen’s expression.

Her lavender gown was in a puddle at her feet, literally. The silky fabric was soaking wet from the water that had splashed out from the pool earlier. A movement on the ground caught my attention before I could respond to her demand, although I knew that I had no choice but to agree.

Run!

Declan’s voice carried through the cavern, sudden and strong, and a chattering rose from the fairies in surprise. His foot came out and swiped the queen’s legs from underneath her, using the slippery rock to help bring her to the hard surface on her knees.

She cried out, her shrill protest muffled as Declan fell onto her back, pressing her down further.

Run! Find Lantis!

I pushed through the water, unconcerned that I was naked even as several fairies ran towards me with a huge, fluffy towel, their glances moving from me to my mother to be sure she wasn’t able to see their treachery.

But . . . I began, stepping out and barely avoiding tripping and ending up falling down myself.

He struggled to hold her down with a grunt, looking up at me with those clear blue eyes, his mouth a thin, determined line.

I didn’t wait for him to answer, nodding instead and taking off at a run past the fairies, past a gaping Rosalie, and most importantly, away from Queen Acanthe, and out into the bright sunlight in pursuit of Declan’s brother.

Chapter Two

It was the first time I ever had to run while holding onto a towel, and hopefully my last.

My bare feet hardly registered the scratches and bruises that would have brought me to a standstill in the human world, as I fumbled with the thick fabric around my body. I had the feeling that if I just dropped it and kept going, buck naked, no one would care, but I just didn’t have it in me to parade around Faerie uncovered.

The last time I had seen Lantis was in Declan’s room, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t been waiting around there all this time.

I shuffled through the grass that surrounded the cave, which was a strange phenomenon among an endless meadow. Off in the distance I saw a line of trees bordering one corner of my vision, but on the other three sides, nothing but the sky on the horizon.

Squinting, as if it would magically make something other than grass and flowers leap in front of my eyes, I wondered why there was a cave here in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere, Faerie.

Declan and I had walked through forests and crossed lakes, so where were those now? How far from our entry point into Faerie had Queen Acanthe taken me, riding in tandem on Astrafael?

I leaned back, staring into the robin’s egg blue of the sky above me.

Where was Astrafael?

Where was Lantis?

A sharp, angry cry burst from the cave, directly from the cavern I had just left.

Time to start running again. I had only known the queen for a short time, but I would recognize the tenor of her voice anywhere.

I wouldn’t let her abuse of Declan be for nothing.

The cave was a huge