Burn the Skies

Chapter 1: Paradise The edges of this world’s map are not bordered with monsters but with ghosts. Or maybe they’re just nightmares. Don’t get me wrong—in many ways my life, such as it is, has never been better. I was always a little jealous of Cadence’s altered existence. Nothing could hurt her. Nothing could reach her. No one looking at her and judging or wanting or demanding or expecting or . . . Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: being disembodied has its perks. No sweating. No acne. No barriers between me and whatever I want to do, wherever I want to be, whoever I want to be with. Just so long as I don’t mind being completely powerless to affect the waking world, or having to dodge those grasping, howling things that line the border between here and there whenever I want to cross, or the way almost no one can hear me. Or even knows I’m here. Which is less of a problem than you’d think when you have a near-limitless world all to yourself—one you can shape at will. It starts with the familiar, the known. The formless mists clear to reveal an empty room. Look for a door and open it to let in the light. Step into a rainbow field of wildflowers and make your way to the welcoming trees beyond. Stand at the edge of a towering cliff overlooking a churning grey sea that comes alive with the salt-tinged scent of flowers and crushed herbs as it floods with sunlight. Ignore the edge—the edges don’t mean anything anymore—and keep walking out over the now-sparkling waves, until you’re ready to dive. Part the waters without a splash, without even the need to hold your breath, and wander the playful kelp forests that soon give way to the buzz and bustle of coral reefs. They twist and spiral into a fantastical underground kingdom just for you, populated by colourful inhabitants that want nothing from you, expect nothing from you. They exist simply for your pleasure, and can be undone in a single, guiltless glance should you wish for solitude once more. Let yourself bask in the coolness of the deeps, and when you’re tired of floating and breathing through new-grown gills just for the alien thrill of it, shake off the feathery touch of newly candy-coloured waves and step onto the ever-changing land. It forms itself to your will, instantly and seamlessly responding to your slightest whim. This is the dreamscape: more than just a passageway, a space between, it’s another world where the rules don’t apply. The most perfect paradise you can imagine. Just so long as you imagine perfection. Which is why I think the ghosts must be nightmares. My nightmares. The forest isn’t so sure. “It talks to you?” Ash plucks a series of berry-flavoured notes out of the air and sets them spinning in a jaunty tune. They cast cheerful kaleidoscopic beams in every direction. I brush my fingertips over the knotted lump of wood in my lap and shiver when the grain shifts under my touch. “Not quite. It’s more like Victoire. No words, just . . . feeling.” I flinch away from a particularly alarming beam of chartreuse. Ash dismisses his radiant music with a wave. “If you don’t like it, you know you can just change it, right? I won’t be offended—I already know you lack the capacity to appreciate my musical genius.” He smirks, teasing to cover how uncomfortable he is with my . . . restraint. Apparently it’s not normal to be so unwilling to shape the world to one’s whims. At least not to him. But he didn’t grow up in a city where desire was deadly and dreams were a sure path to death-by-Mara. And his whims don’t call up tortured ghosts from the space between. The forest’s gift trembles in my hands. Ash’s dream-bright form wavers as a layer of mist slides between us. I stroke the smooth grain of the living wood, and it settles. The knotted ball acts as both an anchor and a bridge, mooring my disembodied consciousness to this reality while spanning the vast spaces between the body Cadence stole, this dreamscape, and the ancient forest outside Nine Peaks where Ash’s physical anchor waits with both hands pressed against mossy bark. “Cole?” His lines are crisp once more, his touch warm as he reaches out in concern. “It’s nothing. What did the council say?” “Oh, you know what they’re like . . .” He leans over to pluck at the soft grass beneath us, drawing it up into a swaying line of extravagantly and improbably patterned flowers. They hum a low, gentle chorus scented, oddly, of spruce. “I’d rather see what you’ve been up to. I’m sure whatever you’ve chosen to dream is as beautiful as you are. Why don’t you show me?” I wrinkle my nose. The flattery, I’m almost certain, is an attempt to cover up his guilt for leaving me behind. Even though every disastrous choice I’ve made has been mine and mine alone. Besides, he doesn’t need to see my clumsy attempts at creation. Those are private. I swat his distracting blossoms down into prickly, purple-barbed spears. How’s that for beautiful? “Don’t change the subject. What did the elders decide?” He shifts his weight gingerly, wincing at the ungentle groundcover. “That reminds me—Grace wants to visit, did I tell you? She’s been bugging me about it all week. You won’t believe how much more fun you can have over here with a group. If we can get her and Banshee tapped in at the same time, you’ll see some real fireworks—” “Ash. The council. When can we expect their help?” He plucks at his old, disreputable scarf, brighter and cleaner beneath his jacket than I know it to be. Ash likes to dream things unbroken. “It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just . . .” “They don’t believe us.” I wait for a response, but he’s busy rearranging the scarf in lieu of the landscape, hesitant to dismiss my piercing contributions after insisting that I participate in the shaping. “We’re running out of time. Just tell me already.” Ash meets my gaze and the weight of it is more than I can bear. He gestures. The sunny meadow becomes a cozy little cabin; wooden beams overhead, fire crackling at our feet. In the way of this place, there’s no sense of movement, no conscious choice, between staring him down and finding myself curled against his side, his arm slung around my shoulders, holding me just a little too tight at an angle where he doesn’t have to meet my eyes. I dig an elbow into his ribs, trying and failing to spring to my feet. His dreaming is the stronger, now, though he tells me that was never true of him and Cadence. And she’s not here to test how things have changed. He whispers into my hair, his voice low to cover the shaking, “Isn’t this enough? Just be here with me.” But for all his strength—of will, of vision, of magic—I’m still holding the forest’s gift. I could let it go, break the bridge linking us through the dreamscape. I will, if he doesn’t release me. As if he can sense my resolve, his grip slackens. I pull away, the ceiling and walls crumbling as they shift up and out, light breaking in dust-thick golden beams through the bare shards of high stone arches. “I’m on your side,” he says into the cold, echoing ruins—and I even believe him. “Always have been. Always will be.” It would be nice if that were enough. Once upon a time, maybe it could have been. “They’re not going to help, are they?” “You know we can’t risk it.” He flicks a murky-hued bench into existence across from me and drops onto it, his shoulders bowed in surrender to that unconscious “we.” He’s not talking about me. I’m not the only one who struggles to throw off years of submitting to authority. But he still thinks of himself as part of Nine Peaks, even if he doesn’t agree with the elders’ orders. I’ve learned very well that I don’t belong. Not there, nor in the city I’ve trapped myself in, nor even in this paradise of make-believe. Ash continues, “I don’t know that we could take the Mara anymore, not at our current strength, not with enforcers attacking at the same time. Crossing that barrier takes too much of a toll.” “Not on me. Ravel didn’t seem too bothered by it, either. Isn’t there a way to, I don’t know, shield yourselves or something? Nine Peaks literally teaches people to kill monsters. What’s the point of all that training if you guys won’t actually fight when it matters?” “Self defense is one thing. But you know we’re not an army. Our training and missions are about restoring the earth, not battling those that inhabit it.” I roll my shoulders, impatient. The crumbling stone hall disappears, along with Ash’s bench. By the time he hits the ground, we’re on a familiar simulacrum of Refuge’s gravel-strewn rooftop, overlooking the broken city I can’t seem to escape. “We’ve been over this. Just tell me what the council is willing to do.” Ash, gravel biting into his elbows, glares. I tighten my grip on the anchor-knot, ready to ask the forest to fight him if he tries to run away. But he just blows out a frustrated breath and flops back. “What was that?” “You’re not going to like it. You already know their answer. You really have to make me say it?” He pulls an exaggeratedly pouty face and reaches a lazy hand towards me as if I’ll let myself be pulled down to the rooftop, which is suddenly and improbably covered in soft-looking grass. As if I’ll let myself indulge in a few moments of escape . . . I stamp, the grass rippling away from a clattering hail of gravel. I can ignore his outrageous attempts at distraction all night if I have to. He sits up, wincing. “Fine. The elders said what they always say. Too many lives wasted already on a lost cause. They’re not sending an army—not that we have one to send. But the Council of Nine has made it clear no one will be permitted to volunteer this time, either. Everyone who helped before you left us, they—we—are all grounded. Grace included. They barely let me out to talk to you.” I nod. None of this is a surprise. It still hurts. “What else? What about Susan? Surely she had something to say about them abandoning Cadence and I out here?” “Your grandmother was released from her seat on the council. The other elders declared her overwrought. They sent her away to mourn the loss of her granddaughters in seclusion.” “We’re not dead.” “That’s the spirit.” He laughs, sending the gravel rippling in joyful clattering waves. “Get it? ‘Spirit?’” “Really?” He stops. “Sorry.” The sky wheels from hazy afternoon through a lurid sunset to icy starlight. “There has to be more,” I insist. “Something I can try, if they won’t act. Something—” “There’s nothing else.” Too fast. He’s nearly as clumsy a liar as I am. I lean in to force a confession—and my vision doubles. Cadence just woke up. “We’ll pick this up later. I’m not letting it go, Ash.” He nods, eager to wriggle off the hook for one more day. “No problem. Happy haunting, C.” I loosen my grip on the anchor, snapping the bridge out from under him and hurling him back into his world before he can retreat under his own steam. It’s petty—and amazingly satisfying. Might as well flex what little power I have here while I can—because the next item on my agenda is about sixteen hours worth of harassing the heck out of a duplicitous body snatcher in an almost-certainly futile attempt to save the world.