Evanescent
The Chronicles of Nerissette - 2
by
Andria Buchanan
To Ainsley
For teaching me to be brave
Chapter One
I stood in the middle of the square in front of the Fort of Neris as the sun came up—alone. Which was strange because the square was never empty. There was always someone around, even if it was just a guard standing watch, waiting for the giants and trolls that could attack our home at any moment. That was my first sign that this was a dream.
The sun peeked over the horizon, and I watched the red-gold light fill the sky, heralding the dawn. Something slithered against my ankle and I glanced down. The square was flooded, and blood-tinged water lapped at my ankles.
Definitely a dream.
I lifted the heavy, impractical skirts that Dream Me had apparently decided to wear and sighed. Whatever it took to get out of this dream, I wasn’t going to find it standing here in a crappy dress, getting waterlogged. I turned toward the main gates, prepared to start the long hike uphill to the Crystal Palace. I really didn’t feel like hiking five miles—even if it was a dream—in a floor-length gown, of all things.
“They’re coming.”
I jumped at the sound of Esmeralda’s voice and saw her sitting on top of the water. I stared at the sorceress-turned-black-and-white cat. She had gone missing three months before, during the first days of the war against the Fate Maker for control of my kingdom, and no one had heard from her since. “Es? What are you doing here? Where have you been?”
“I’ve been forgiven,” Esmeralda said. “I have been released, but I still choose to protect you because you are the greatest thing—the only good thing—I have ever done for my people.”
“That’s not—”
“They are coming,” she repeated. “No one is safe. You are not safe.”
“Who’s coming?” I asked.
She looked over her shoulder, and I followed her gaze. On the horizon a huge black dragon circled in front of the sun. Kuolema. The Soul Eater. One of the four guardians of the Bleak, an eater of the dead, a dragon who called the darkness between worlds his home. The dragon who always haunted my nightmares. But this time there were two figures sitting atop his back. There had never been anyone with him in my dreams before.
A man, raven-haired, hunched his long, thin body over the dragon’s shoulders, his black and silver robes flapping around him. The Fate Maker. I tried to stay calm as I moved my attention to the person behind him. All I could tell from this distance was that it was a woman, her crimson skirts draped delicately over the dragon’s flank and her red hair gleaming like fresh blood in the sunlight as she clung to the Fate Maker’s waist. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and all I wanted to do was run. Run as far and as fast as I could away from her. If she was on the back of a dragon with the Fate Maker, no matter who she was or what she wanted here in Nerissette, it was bad. Very, very bad.
“No.” I shook my head and stepped back, lifting my skirts even higher so that I could make a dash for it if need be.
“The world they bring with them is too evil to contemplate.”
“But he’s dead.” I swallowed. “All of you are dead. You. The Fate Maker. Heidi and Jesse. We have their bodies.”
“Are you certain?” Esmeralda asked.
“There were bodies. Skeletons.”
“Are you sure they’re the right bodies?”
“No, but dragon fire is hot and we did our best to identify them. We buried Heidi and Jesse.”
“When you looked at them, what did you think?”
“I didn’t actually see them myself, but we buried bodies. They’re dead. They died that day and nothing I can do will change that. They died, Esmeralda, and we buried them. We buried their bodies.”
“And me? Did you bury me? The Fate Maker—did you bury him?”
“You and the Fate Maker just disappeared into thin air! Like you spontaneously combusted or something. So you’re dead—you have to be. Aren’t you? What are you if you aren’t dead?”
“I am at rest,” Esmeralda said. “Or as much at rest as I can allow myself to be now that you’re in danger.”
“And the Fate Maker?”
“He is coming and bringing an army of monsters with him like this world has never seen. If you are not prepared to stand up in front of the gates of Nerissette and face him, he will drench this world in a river of blood and tears that will wash Nerissette back into the Sea of Nevermore. Then he’ll march into the World That Is and burn every world between here and the stars.”
“So what do we do?” I begged, my eyes fixed on the dragon, drawing ever closer to us. “What do I do?”
“Don’t let him find the rest of the relics that I’ve hidden. Stop him and stop Fate once and for all. Destroy any monsters that they put in your way, and don’t let them find a way to get into the World That Is.”
“But how?” I asked.
“That…” Esmeralda bowed her head and I watched in horror as she began to fade away. “I do not know.”
“Esmeralda!”
She looked up at me again, her eyes glowing constant even as her body started to shimmer like a heat mirage.
“Don’t.” I held out a hand to her. “Don’t go. Stay and help us defeat him. Then we can all be free. All of us.”
“Oh, Your Majesty,” she sighed. “I am always with you.”
The cat disappeared then, and I heard the beat of the dragon’s wings as it flew closer.
“This world, Nerissette, is mine,” the Fate Maker’s voice taunted from inside my mind. “And I’m coming for it.”
Instead of fleeing I stood my ground, waiting, terrified but holding my head high as the dragon swooped lower. He veered toward me as if to tackle me to the ground. No matter what happened, though, I knew I wouldn’t move. I was firm, steady, and this—this—was nothing more than a dream.
“Your Majesty?” A soft voice sounded next to me, and I felt a touch on my shoulder, jerking me out of my nightmare. The small, smiling maid was leaning over me. “Your Majesty, you were screaming in your sleep. Again.”
“Right.” I swallowed and then sat up. “Sorry. It was just a dream. Just a very, very bad dream.”
“Of course it was, Your Majesty,” the maid said absently. “Now come on, up you get. You’ve got your Great Hall after breakfast.”
The Great Hall. That was today. The one day a month where I sat on my throne and allowed my subjects to come to me so that I could pass laws and judge disputes and basically rule them. Otherwise known as the worst day of the month since I’d become the Golden Rose of Nerissette, the rightful queen of the World of Dreams.
“Thank you.” I studied her face, trying to remember her name. There had been a lot of new faces around the castle since my coronation three months ago, and I still couldn’t keep everyone straight.
“Brigitte,” the maid replied. “From Sorcastia. I’ve only been here a week.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “So how is it? Working in the palace? Do you like it?”
“Much better than working on a farm, Your Majesty.” She smiled. “That was what had been in store for me, but once you came, I knew that I could do better and, well…”
“Here you are.” I couldn’t help thinking that if war came again Brigitte, and all the others who’d flocked to Neris, would have been better off if she’d stayed put. They still believed the lie that their lives were controlled by the invisible, nonexistent, goddess Fate.
“Here I am.” She laid out a brilliant sapphire-colored dress with silver vines embroidered on it and placed my sword beside it. “Maid to the Golden Rose herself. Dressing her for her Great Hall.”