Dekarru’s Perspective

  Falling directly into the Dream was different than falling asleep and slipping into it. I know that seems obvious, but I didn’t really internalize that until Esme’s spell sehere. Falling isn’t even the right word really, it was more like being in a raft flowing down a river just slightly faster than you feel safe going. Then suddenly you’re just not moving anymore because you’re at the destination. There was ion of stopping, just a ck of further movement.

  The fact that Stareyes deals with this realm every night makes me wo her sanity sometimes. I’ve drifted out of a dream and into the Dream few times in my long life and every one of those cases was stressful and fusing. That realm does not py h mortal perceptions. Maybe it’s better to Esme since she’s the Saint of a dream goddess, but it certainly does nothing for my peaind being there.

  Luckily the raw, open Dream only sted long enough for me to be drawn to that High Marshal dy, along with the Prime Minister. As soon as we were together the world around us shifted into a simple bedroom. No, wait, soldier’s quarters. Two simple metal bunk beds and four foot lockers along with two pin, well worn desks and four chairs that didn’t match each other.

  Olivia looked around, her eyes widening as she took it in. “No, no this is impossible. What’s going on? This ’t be real.”

  “I sed that question.” Spoke Miratan, looking almost as fused though far less worried.

  I sighed. “Esme—that is, Saint Dreamsinger, has blessed us with a demonstration of her power and grace.” Yeah, I hated talking like this. But Stareyes was trying to establish important shit as a Saint and damned if I was going to screw it up for her by speaking of her in casual tones during what seemed to be an at least somewhat official diviask. Gods I hope this wasn’t just her throwing a fit.

  “I mean no offense, Oracle Dekarru, but what the hell does that mean?” As he asked, Olivia looked at me, her expression one of sinking fear.

  “It means this is a Visio. We’re in a bubble ihe Dream.”

  His eyes widened and a small smile spread on his lips. “A Visio? She’s a Mender on top of being a Saint? Wow, that’s—I hought in a million years I’d be able to witness-”

  “How do we leave?” Olivia barked over him.

  “As I uand it, we have to finish your test.” He seemed pretty knowledgeable about this, enough to make my stare long and hard at him.

  “How do you know about this?” I asked him with arms crossed.

  “Oh, um…” He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck with his eyes on the floor. “I spent a long time trying to find out if there was a way to treat my sister. Researg magical healing csses mostly. There is a lot of overp on Menders in that area of study, despite them not usually having magic to heal people physically.”

  Olivia ched her fists as her patiearted to run thin. “What test? What is all this?”

  I stepped over to her. “We’re inside your trauma, miss High Marshal. This is the effects of a spell meant to force you to faething you haven’t for whatever reason. Holy I somewhat uand the Saint’s decision to do this, it’s certainly a kinder choice than many she could have made.”

  “Kihis is torture.” She growled the words out.

  “Yes. Fag the source of your pain often is. Before you say anything else I must remind you that I am hundreds of years old and have had more than enough life to experierauma of my own. Including watg my entire family pass from this world oer another simply because they had mortal lifespans. You think it didn’t break me seeing the st of my great nephews off to the Ferryman? Knowing that I am the st of my entire bloodlihat once I pass my nation will lose its oracle lio the Green Mother? That has haunted me for more than a tury, and has been the least of my hurts. I fought in wars and faced monsters long before you were born. Remember that before you speak, High Marshal.” I let anger leak into my voice slightly as I talked, the effect of which was as satisfying as I’d expected. She shrunk back just enough that I knew my words had made their mark.

  I wasn’t actually angry, I’d helped people through their trauma enough that I didn’t get upset when they shed out anymore. Additionally, thanks to Esme my line wasn’t actually ending as I’d long worried it would. But that detail could stay under s for the moment at least.

  Before anyone could say more, the door to the bunk room we were in opened and two young women walked in. They wore the gray and yellow uniform of Hegemony military trainees. It took me a moment but I realized it was Olivia and Henna, in their early twenties if I had to guess.

  “The sergeant is su ass.” Henna said as she shut the door behind her.

  “Its literally her job, Anna. Don’t take it personally,” came the response from Olivia.

  “Liv, she mocked me f because my grandfather died. How is that not personal?”

  “Because that. Is. Her. Job. She’s supposed to break us all down. Find ways into our heads and make us hurt on the inside as much as the training hurts our outsides. She’s not doing it for the sake of cruelty, its to make us better able to do OUR jobs once we get out of training.”

  “How does that even make sense? Needling us until we cry so we’re better agents?”

  “If its easy to get into your head and manipute you in any way, then you’re not fit for the job. You know that Anna.”

  Henna grunted and sat on one of the bunks. “Fuck you for being the smart one, Liv.”

  “We’re both smart.” Olivia said as she flopped dowo the other woman. “I’m just more in and of my emotions is all. Thank you, oh dear sweet emotionally detached mother for that particur skill.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

  I turo look at the Olivia of now and raised a brow. “A story here?”

  High Marshal Turaared at the younger versions of herself and her friend. “We were in basic together, both of us also shotitude for intelligence work so once we made it through that hell, we got sent to another, worse training camp. You know it’s funny, we dated for three days. It was awkward as hell and when we finally kissed it felt so very, very wrong. We decided we’d just be friends after that.”

  Miratan chuckled softly. “It was the opposite for me and my wife. We were best friends for a decade with everyone around us saying we should date. But we resisted thinking it would just be awkward and our friendship would be ruined. But I had a bad breakup at one point, Brinta came over with a bottle of wio e. We emptied it over the course of an hour and-, uhm. Lets just say that we got over that issue very suddenly.” He blushed with a grin on his face.

  Olivia actually smiled at that, just the ti bit. “We gotta be stupid before we be smart I guess.”

  I watched the memory as the two women talked about training, home, food, pns for the future that were more dream than anythiually the door opened again and a man and woman about the same age and wearing the same trainee uniforms walked in.

  Young Olivia bounced up and rao hug the man and kiss his cheek. “Raynim! Back from your extended maneuvers already huh?”

  The man’s shoulders drooped and he shook his head slowly. “Juliahey e early.” He ed his arms around Olivia and held her. The mood in the room dropped like a stone. “I don’t even know what happened, one minute he was right behihen he wasn’t. He must of slipped on a lose stone oh up the cliff and fallen. But he didn’t even scream, he was just gone.”

  Olivia of now gred at the man, her lips trembling in anger. “Liar. Lying, murdering bastard. I should have seen it. I should have known.” The memory stopped, time frozen in that moment of the past.

  Miratan softly put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “What really happened?”

  “His father was a Hegemo poliander and he ut in to train to root out dissidents, starting with his fellow trainees. It turned out that Julian’s family had been priests geions before and he was joining to help protect Uvtrayl citizens from the ihere was no real evidence of it and Julian opur with both the instructors and other cadets so instead of b to try and out him, Raynim just knocked him out and threw him off a cliff.”

  “Gods. How messed up does someone have to be to do something like that?”

  I stared at Olivia. “Yeah, how messed up? Killing some poor unsuspeg person just because they might be a threat to your political aspirations?”

  She snapped her head around and gred at me. “That isn’t what I did! I didn’t order-”

  “No, from what Henna said you just gave the task to someohat you knew was likely to take it too far.” I cut her off. “Maybe that’s your test? Realize you’ve beore like this Raynim fellow than you think.”

  She ched her jaw and took a breath. “I made a mistake, but I’m nothing like that monster. He did far worse.”

  The se shifted and we were in an office with slightly older versions of the same four from the room before. All wearing Hegemony officer’s uniforms now.

  The third woman groaned as she sat ba her chair, stretg out her arms dramatically. “You know, if I’d known this job was going to be eighty pert paperwork, I might have stayed in the infantry. I’d rather be shot at than write one mods damned report.”

  “Phae, you do half the desk-work Anna does, stop pining,” young officer Olivia responded from the desk o her.

  “She CHOOSES to do that much more though. She could take more field work if she wanted she just turns it down.”

  Henna snorted. “Because unlike you, I’ve actually been shot and know this is better.”

  Raynim grunted, rubbing his arm gently with a wince. “I sed that.”

  Olivia sighed. “I ’t believe we spent a full three months prepping only for the targets to take themselves out two days before the operation.”

  “To be fair,” Raynim spoke up, “they likely thought they could just take me and my escort out a away. It was just poor preparation that lead to them being the ones dead.”

  Henna’s hands paused over the keys of her typewriter. “Why did they bring their kids to that though? That still bothers me.”

  “I wish I knew. Maybe if we uood these rebels better we could reason with them before tragedies like that ain.” He rubbed his face, staring at his desk with a bnk expression.

  Miratan spoke up as the se paused again. “I’m guessing this story was a lie too.”

  Olivia nodded. “You’ve probably heard about how the Hegemony would find rebels, dissidents, terrorists, for public executiurly. They were nothing, nobodies, people with no es, no pns, usually just people that were slightly too vocal about one wrong thing or ahat made them perfect to use as examples. The real rebellions were kept hidden, taken out in quiet. The Hegemony didn’t eople knowing there were works of people w against the state, fearing that folks would join by the hundreds if they found out it tion. We found those groups and stopped them.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Then why lie about what he was doing?”

  “Because he did the extra dirty jobs that members of vassal states would be more likely to find distasteful. That job? Officially it was a group dedicated to Uvtrayl’s gods, but twisted and violent. A death cult that was going to kill thousands just to spite Sin Otev. But it was just a group of priests and their families. He went out and killed them all, children included, to keep us from disc the lie. He had the bodies moved to set up a se that looked like an atta him at his family’s in the middle of nowhere. Even killed four Uvtrayl soldiers to add to the pile and shot himself in the arm to make it more believable.”

  I quietly absorbed that. Miritan less quietly. The man turned pale and stared wide eyed at the man in the memory. “Why the children? What threat could they have posed?”

  Olivia snorted. “Aside from being able to tell people what happened and expose him? They would grow up radicalized from the murder of their families. As far as the Hegemony cares, they’re just ehat they take out early. Preemptively removing threats was standard practice for them.”

  “But, children?” The horror in his voice was enough that I was moved to pce a hand on his shoulder and squeeze softly.

  He turo look at me, a question in his eyes. So I told him the truth of things from Willow Creek’s perspective. “People think the Hegemony didn’t mess with us because we were allies. But the truth is, after their first attempt they realized it would take so much t us down that they would have nothio defend themselves from other threats. Especially after the Empire nded on our ti. They also respected our strength enough to sider us something akin to equals. Not that we would ask for such a thing, but Sin Otev is a brutal nation where strength of arms is enough to overe everything else. That’s why no one was surprised when the civil war started. Their culture is ohat sees diplomacy as a necessary evil at best, where promise is spoken of with the same tone as defeat.

  “The idea that they would kill children to maintain their strength in their more distant or more powerful vassals is not something that surprises me in the slightest. Especially as many old families of the Hegemohe appearance of weakness more than weakness itself. Mercilessly rooting out threats to make the territories they oversee seem more stable than they are makes perfect sense for them.”

  He turned his gaze to Olivia. “I seem to have been wrong, the Hegemony is worse than the Empire. I thought they were about the same overall, simply with differehods to their tyranny. But this? This is vile.”

  To her credit, Olivia’s response was quite empathetic. “The Empire, I’m told they make their vassals aories focus on one or two means of produ in order to keep them from being self suffit. Not as brutal or murderous as the Hegemony’s campaigns of intimidation ah, but a threat and a heless.”

  “Maybe, but killing children? No, it’s not the same…” His voice trailed off as he looked at the ground.

  Olivia just shook her head before turning to stare at the frozen moment of a younger her. Silence hung like a body from the gallows, I didn’t want to touch it but I still wa gone. Every moment we didn’t speak was one more where I could feel the weight of everythiling over us.

  I think nearly a minute passed before she spoke again. “I loved him. He was handsome, smart, funny, driven, and he made me feel like I mattered. Made me feel like when I walked into a room I was the most important person there, no matter who else was.”

  I felt my breath catch . That was the most exposed she’d been so far. Her voice spoke of a painful vulnerability and I’m not sure she meant to let herself be so open. I think maybe the memory just hit her too hard to keep her walls up for a moment. “How did it all end?” I asked, both to see where things went and to break the lingering, unfortable stillness.

  The world shifted again, a new office came into focus. But this one was for a single person, a massive oak desk with a cushioned chair behind it. ets lined one wall, looking like they held hundreds if not thousands of files. The other wall had a couch, a liquor et, and an aricraft radio. The wall behind the desk had a spicuously bnk space, the floor beh it held the shredded remains of a Hegemony Fg.

  At the radio was a middle aged Olivia, almost cheerfully giving orders to troops somewhere to abandon some fort. Moments ter Raynim walked in looking harried and angry. “Liv! What the hells is going on? I heard you ordered forts Kabaa and Otan evacuated pletely, what are you thinking!?”

  She turo face him. “Are you not paying attention Ray? They abandoned us! We’ve been holding on to Hegemoory with our own people for four years! Bleeding Uvtrayl blood fover so distracted by killing each other that we’ve beeo rot. The Prime Minister has decred independend I for one I’m bag him. I’ll be damned if I see us suffer any more for those bastards.”

  “We are citizens of the Sin Otev Hegemony, this is treason!” he yelled at her before turning to see the fg on the floe a filled his eyes. “Please, Olivia, this is not the right path. Turn baow before it’s too te.”

  “The right path? Are you pletely bereft of your senses Ray? We’re finally free and you want us to walk bato their damned cage?” She was too worked up, too angry to see him reach for his gun. “The hells with the Hegemony, to hells with the High Shaman’s lunatic brats, to hells with dying for people that kill our children just to keep them from growing up to hate them! I’ve got a job to do coordinating the fall back to Uvtrayl’s territory, so either help et the f-”

  The gunshot silenced her, red blooming from her stomach as she topped back against the couch. Raynim took a breath and sighed heavily. “I should have knower than to let myself love one of the lesser people. I would have seen this ing if I’d maintained my distance. But gods, you were so incredible, you know? Beautiful, brilliant, motivated to greatness, and with more skill than any of your barbarian kind should have been capable of.”

  Olivia held a hand over the wound, trembling in pain as she fell to the floor. Blood spread slowly across the carpet beh her, her eyes taking in the flowing crimson before turning to him. “Wh-what?” The word came out as a strangled pronou of fusion and pain.

  “I am sorry, I really am. I was going to make you my sed wife once I became the head of my family. I know it doesn’t seem worth much at the moment, but I do love you. So much so that I’ll even follow Uvtrayl’s funerary practices, see you to the Ferryman the way you’d want. It’s worth l myself that far for you. But I ’t let you undermine yhtful rulers.”

  He raised his gun again and aimed at Olivia who just stared up with so much pain in her eyes that I felt tears fall from my own for her. The bang of a gun firing shattered the quiet moment, then blood seeped into Raynim’s uniform. Red poured down his chest from the hole there, his eyes dropping to look at it for a moment before he turo see Phae in the office door, the gun in her hands firing a sed time and tearing a hole where his eye had been a moment before.

  His body dropped to the floor lifelessly as Phae screamed for a medid rushed over to Oliva. The Liv in the memory and the one in the now both stared at Raynim’s corpse with hollow expressions.

  The moment froze.

  “Part of me still loves him, even after all this. Even when he was about to kill me I still loved him.”

  I squeezed her shoulder. “The heart is often stupid. As a Mender myself, I know that better than most. It wants things regardless of how badly those things hurt it. You ’t really do much about it other than be aware of it and make sure you don’t let those feelings drive you to do something you’ll regret.”

  “How do you know when your feelings are the ohat will hurt you like that?”

  “Experience,” I answered with a shrug.

  “What, just keep making the mistake until y?” She gave me a ft look.

  “Self refle speeds that process up.” Miritan spoke. “I’d know, made more than a few dumb emotional mistakes in my youth. Nearly got myself killed three times trying to buy bck market herbs and reli the hopes that I could ‘fix’ Sel.” He sighed.

  Olivia looked at him. “What happeo her?” She was clearly ied, but I think she mostly just wanted a moment to think about anything else. A brief break from the hurt.

  He chuckled darkly and tapped his ear. “Same thing that happened here. Same thing made my cousin uo talk or chew solid food. Dad got exposed to someoh Ezrian’s Disease when he was w with traders years ago. Half the family came down with it along with a handful of our friends and neighbors. Most of us had only minor effects afterwards but my heario shit, cousin Gan lost most muscle trol in his jaw, and Sellian has o nth in her limbs. Exercise helps a little, she at least feed herself most days. But her nurse, Penny, has to help her with almost everything else.

  “Gods, she was a little bundle of energy and chaos as a kid. Running everywhere, climbing everything, pushing herself stantly. She was going to try a an athletic schorship a into one of the big uies. We had enough moo afford school as children so we khe value of education. But at fourteen years old those dreams got stolen from her.”

  Olivia gave the man ahetic look. “Is that why she wao reform education in Pitrak?”

  “Yeah.” He ughed. “That and she wao fund a ary school in our hometown. Good food is one of the few things she enjoy anymore under her own power. Her doctor told her she o lose weight for her health and she told him in no uain terms that she wasn’t going to give up the ohings that makes her not want to end it all. I don’t argue, she was in a dark pce for years before dad brought back this… I don’t know, sort of dense, slightly spicy cake full of fruit? It had this sweet frosting and every sli explosion of fvors. He couldn’t remember the name of it but it had e from one of the isnd nations of Orunta. She wao make a school for people to learn recipes from around the world so someone bae could make that.”

  “That sounds like t’lon.” Olivia said after a moment. “I had some during an assig in the Hegemony’s Orunta holdings. The M’tamba people make about a thousand different versions of it, every town has a dozen or more family recipes that they each swear is the best. Cities have yearly petitions with at least fifty people all submitting their own version. I put oy pounds iwo months I was there.”

  I raised a brow. “Maybe once we have this alliance going we reach out and see about trading with them. With the three of us we could have the pull for full world-wide diplomatid eifluence.”

  Miratan smiled. “I think Sel would like that a lot.” We all looked at the frozen se, waiting for something to happen. After a few moments he spoke again. “As I uand it, Visios start by showing memories of events reted to a trauma that the primary target of the spell suffers from. This is partly to make the target keep the events and trauma in their mind and partly to give others brought into the spell knowledge and text to said events and trauma. Then there is a test that vary so wildly that giving examples is sidered meaningless.” He cleared his throat and turowards Olivia. “We seem to have gohrough the memories, so the test-”

  “No,” she said just barely loud enough to make Miratan pause.

  “No?”

  “I know what it’s going to make me face. The memories aren’t finished.” She stepped over to the wounded younger version of herself and her friend Phae and reached out slowly, her hand stopping just before toug the other woman’s face. “She hadn’t betrayed us yet.”