02 - The Barbed Rose by Gail Dayton

his back. She didn’t care, tucking herself around him as Torchay curled himself around her back. Pale moonlight glimmered faintly through the far windows, but Kallista was too tired to admire it. She slept.
    As the moon rose higher and night deepened, Kallista’s sleep grew restless. She twisted between her men while dreams battered at thick walls, trying to wake the magic within. It stirred, then tucked itself tight against disturbance.
    The dreams circled, probing, teasing. The magic swirled, uneasy, but held the dreams at bay until they found a gap. A tiny chink in the wall, singing with power. The dreams bled through and followed the power, carrying their message along.
    Torchay stood in the Veryas Valley before Arikon. Without having to look, he knew his family was behind him—Kallista, their children, Aisse and the others. And danger lay before him.
    Why he stood alone, he did not know, but he knew that he alone stood between his loved ones and unspeakable horror.
    His twin Heldring-forged short swords were in his hands without having to draw them. They would do no good against the thing that was coming, but he had no other weapons. He had no magic of his own.
    He waited, praying with every breath as the darkness rolled toward him. It had no shape, no substance he could distinguish with any of his senses, but he knew it was there, coming inside the darkness. He’d seen it before, known it before, but this was different. Worse. In one small corner of his mind, he wondered if this was what Fox’s knowing was like. Mostly, he waited. And prayed.
    Then it was there, filled with hate and an evil so ancient it could almost be touched. Be smelled. Rot and blood and old burning metals, foulness so complete Torchay fought against retching in his sleep.
    He slept. This was a dream. It wasn’t real. He could cast the dream aside, turn it from this horror.
    But the thing would not go. It slithered past, laughing at his feeble defense, reaching for the helpless ones sleeping behind him. He shouted, lunging at it. The thing did not seem to like his taste, so Torchay ran at it again, and this time, it struck back.
    Pain pierced his soul, like knives in his gut but worse. Torchay screamed, falling to the ground, scrabbling on his back in the dirt as the foulness raked through him. He knew this pain, had felt it before, but—Goddess, it hurt .
    “Kallista, wake up!” he shouted. He could not do this alone. “Wake up, all of you! Wake up!”
    “Torchay.” Strong soft arms around him, quiet voice in his ear. “Torchay, I’m awake. It’s all right.”
    It wasn’t, but he was awake now, too, sweating and gasping in Kallista’s arms like he’d just fought off a thousand demons.
    “Oh Goddess,” he groaned. “Demons.”
    Now he knew where he had felt this pain before—last year, when the demon Tchyrizel had got its insubstantial claws in him, in the Tibran capital, before Kallista destroyed it.
    “It was just a dream.” Kallista tried to pull him in, cradle his head against her, but he refused the comfort.
    “Not a dream. Or not just a dream.” He shoved his hair out of his face with both hands, wishing he could shove the dream out of his head the same way.
    “What do you mean?” Obed was awake, too. Of course.
    They were all awake after Torchay’s shouting—probably awake clear to Winterhold. His throat burned from it.
    “I’m the one with dreams that aren’t just dreams,” Kallista protested.
    “But you’re asleep. Your magic is asleep. I dreamed that.”
    “What did you dream? Tell me.”
    He wanted to tell her, but speaking the horror aloud would somehow make it real, would bring it into this room that was—or should be—their refuge. “Not here,” he said. “Out there. In the parlor.”
    “Torchay—” Kallista began another protest, but he was already moving, heading for the room where he’d left his saddle bags and the key to Joh’s chains. It was a nuisance, having to deal with another