Dropping open of their own accord, her arms invited him in the way his arms had her ghost.
But Isobel could sense what Varen intended to do. He’d send her away like he had last night. He’d obliterate her to nothing to prevent her from deteriorating in front of him again.
Reliving her demise over and over, seeing her image all around him, frozen in the form of these cold, unfeeling monuments locked in eternal sleep—this had become his fate in this horrendous realm. His existence.
This was his darkness.
His hell.
But she wasn’t dead. And she wasn’t ready to be sent back, either. Not yet.
Brushing aside the nagging memory of Reynolds’s warning not to interact, Isobel focused her mind on doing the only thing she knew to do. The only thing that would hold any power at all.
More power than any words.
Shifting her thoughts, she channeled her concentration on one single objective.
To do what a mere dream could not. And change everything.
13
Within the Distant Aidenn
The light that she summoned came cold.
Though it didn’t match the sharp blast of warm sunlight Isobel had called forth in her mind, it did accomplish the goal of halting Varen.
He swung toward the silver glow. Pearly like moonlight, it streamed through the surrounding windows of the courtyard’s high walls, bouncing off the fog, which, though Isobel commanded it to disperse, refused.
Frowning, she clenched her fists tight at her sides.
She had to fight to keep the light there. Doing so felt like trying to maintain tightrope balance, or shoving against an invisible wall.
She didn’t understand. She’d never had to strain like this before to affect something in the dreamworld.
After Reynolds had taught her how to alter her surroundings and shown her the power of lucidity in her dreams, she’d been able to take control. In the past, her battle had been in recognizing her power, not wielding it.
She should be able to annihilate this gathering of statues like she had the duplicates of herself in the hall last night, or the deathwatches in the attic.
But the cold memorials remained, solid and imposing.
Varen’s gaze returned to her, and the sight of those two unchanging black eyes sent a spear of sorrow straight through her. The poison of that stare proved fatal to her light.
Her glow winked out. Darkness returned, and a new fear opened wide inside of her.
Varen. He had to be the force she’d been fighting against.
These constructs around her were of his imagination. His subconscious had to be what was holding it all in place. In his unbending belief that she was gone, he had created an immovable fortress.
The fog swelled thicker as Varen stepped forward again, closing the distance between them. Lifting a hand, he touched her cheek.
Isobel’s eyelids flickered, and she waited to feel herself crumple as she had last night.
She didn’t fade out, though. And neither did he.
From the trees, the crows’ cawing rose in a drone. All of them rasped the same deranged call, as if urging Varen to act on his impulse, to dispense with her and deliver them all from her presence.
As the seconds ticked by, though, she began to wonder if . . . if he could be stalling.
Was it possible her attempt to prove her realness, however feeble, had achieved this small pause, this brief moment of uncertainty?
Isobel seized the chance. Placing her hand on his sleeve, she tilted her face to his and clamped down hard on both his wrist and her thoughts.
Then, as though they’d been there all along, awaiting the return of her resolve, Isobel’s imagined rays of light returned. Bursting through the windows, sharper and more intense than before, the beams sliced through the ramparts like blades, shredding them. The Gothic facade of the castle evaporated, eaten through by the heat of Isobel’s beckoned dawn to reveal the innumerable trees of the woodlands. Varen whipped his head away from her, looking to the eye of blinding light that bled his violet horizon gold.
As Isobel’s sun rose higher, the slanted shadows of the trees and stone angels shifted, rotating in unison like a thousand synchronized clock hands.
The fog vaporized, and Isobel’s heart swelled in sudden triumph. That she’d penetrated Varen’s illusionary kingdom had to mean he’d lowered his guard. Enough for her to slip into a tiny crack of hope he had to be harboring somewhere within. Hope that, beyond all reason or doubt, she would find a way keep her promise.
Unconstrained, her summoned sunbeams ricocheted through the woodlands. Patches of moss sprang to life, crawling up the tree trunks. A blanket of lush grass rolled outward in every direction, forming a floor of eye-stinging green.
