Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) by Christian A. Brown Page A
Authors: Christian A. Brown
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girts herself as she turns around, her bravery scarcely holds upon seeing the picked skull and fly-weeping eyes of the monster that greets her. Flies swarm all over the creature, like bees on a doomed honey-tender. More flies flurry toward Morigan, and she waves them off while stepping back from their master
.
Morigan has managed not to scream; that would only let the vermin into her mouth. How is it that she has a mouth? Or a heartbeat that threatens to tear apart her chest? Among other aspects of the waking world, though, she can feel the Wolf. However distant, he still roars his anger at whatever frightens his mate. Caenith’s heat makes her sweat, then glow with light. Morigan’s silver aura blazes through the buzzing dark. In the wash of light, some of the hideousness of the monster is dispersed and exposed as a facade, as a veil of flies and evil. The creature wears a mask
.
“This past is not for you to see,” warns the cicada monster
.
“I am the Daughter of Fate,” declares Morigan, supremely radiant, and no longer afraid. “I see what I choose. Dream is my queendom, and I go where I please.”
The Wolf’s flame rages in her, and she shines even brighter. More chinks in the monster’s horrid pretence reveal purplish clothing under the crawling mantle of flies, the glittering darkness of a gaze. Even the damp funeral-pyre stink is another layer of the monster’s disguise, and hides scentsthat Morigan’s part-wolf nose discerns as sweat. “Who are you?” demands Morigan
.
“You will know.”
“Tell me.”
“Blindly, you swing the sword of the righteous,” says the Dreamstalker, with what Morigan thinks is pity. “You do not see how cold Geadhain can be. You look only to her summer and never her winter. You will know this season, Daughter of Fate. You will see that love is the same as pain. You will know darkness in your heart and murder on your hands. You cannot be clean of sin forever.”
The Dreamstalker moves forward, like a leech, shivering flies and dropping globs of maggots that squirm where they splat onto stone. Impossible, thinks Morigan, that this should-be-phantom can influence an echo, an illusion of time past. Is that an illusion too, she wonders—the way the Dreamstalker’s glinting, skeletal teeth bend into a smile? What is truly real here? The sweat beading her body? The tremble in her legs? The reeking, rolling, buzzing, nightmare cloud? The Dreamstalker thunders now, shuddering in violence, as if about to explode
.
“Back!” screams Morigan
.
“I am not trying to hurt you, Daughter of Fate.” The Dreamstalker shuffles nearer and extends a sloppy tendril of an arm. “You wish to see? You want to know what your devotion will cost you, its price in blood? Give me your hand and I shall give you the gift of knowledge. I shall show the seer her future.”
Again, Morigan senses pathos, which she does not care to contemplate; she wants to flee. She does not understand Dream’s new rules, or how they are being bent by the Dreamstalker; but she realizes that she, too, should be able to play this game. Desperately, Morigan calls to the bees that sting and dazzle her with warning bursts of pain. “Unmake my body,” she Wills them. “End this nightmare; take me away before—”
“Begone, terror!”
Was that a shout? From whom? A sudden whirling rampage of light and wind smashes into the trembling Dreamstalker, who then erupts into a fountain of black flecks and filth. Morigan chokes on waves of crawling darkness. Her eyes squeezed shut, she blindly thrashes her hands from earsto nose to mouth. The insects, though, cannot be purged, and their legs tickle and scratch as their innumerable bodies form a torrent into her mouth. At last, terror triggers Morigan’s magik, birthing a silver pulse she does not see, but feels as an explosive heat, and that scatters the Dreamstalker’s horde. In another instant, Morigan is cast into Dream’s gray currents
.
Morigan wishes to
.
Morigan has managed not to scream; that would only let the vermin into her mouth. How is it that she has a mouth? Or a heartbeat that threatens to tear apart her chest? Among other aspects of the waking world, though, she can feel the Wolf. However distant, he still roars his anger at whatever frightens his mate. Caenith’s heat makes her sweat, then glow with light. Morigan’s silver aura blazes through the buzzing dark. In the wash of light, some of the hideousness of the monster is dispersed and exposed as a facade, as a veil of flies and evil. The creature wears a mask
.
“This past is not for you to see,” warns the cicada monster
.
“I am the Daughter of Fate,” declares Morigan, supremely radiant, and no longer afraid. “I see what I choose. Dream is my queendom, and I go where I please.”
The Wolf’s flame rages in her, and she shines even brighter. More chinks in the monster’s horrid pretence reveal purplish clothing under the crawling mantle of flies, the glittering darkness of a gaze. Even the damp funeral-pyre stink is another layer of the monster’s disguise, and hides scentsthat Morigan’s part-wolf nose discerns as sweat. “Who are you?” demands Morigan
.
“You will know.”
“Tell me.”
“Blindly, you swing the sword of the righteous,” says the Dreamstalker, with what Morigan thinks is pity. “You do not see how cold Geadhain can be. You look only to her summer and never her winter. You will know this season, Daughter of Fate. You will see that love is the same as pain. You will know darkness in your heart and murder on your hands. You cannot be clean of sin forever.”
The Dreamstalker moves forward, like a leech, shivering flies and dropping globs of maggots that squirm where they splat onto stone. Impossible, thinks Morigan, that this should-be-phantom can influence an echo, an illusion of time past. Is that an illusion too, she wonders—the way the Dreamstalker’s glinting, skeletal teeth bend into a smile? What is truly real here? The sweat beading her body? The tremble in her legs? The reeking, rolling, buzzing, nightmare cloud? The Dreamstalker thunders now, shuddering in violence, as if about to explode
.
“Back!” screams Morigan
.
“I am not trying to hurt you, Daughter of Fate.” The Dreamstalker shuffles nearer and extends a sloppy tendril of an arm. “You wish to see? You want to know what your devotion will cost you, its price in blood? Give me your hand and I shall give you the gift of knowledge. I shall show the seer her future.”
Again, Morigan senses pathos, which she does not care to contemplate; she wants to flee. She does not understand Dream’s new rules, or how they are being bent by the Dreamstalker; but she realizes that she, too, should be able to play this game. Desperately, Morigan calls to the bees that sting and dazzle her with warning bursts of pain. “Unmake my body,” she Wills them. “End this nightmare; take me away before—”
“Begone, terror!”
Was that a shout? From whom? A sudden whirling rampage of light and wind smashes into the trembling Dreamstalker, who then erupts into a fountain of black flecks and filth. Morigan chokes on waves of crawling darkness. Her eyes squeezed shut, she blindly thrashes her hands from earsto nose to mouth. The insects, though, cannot be purged, and their legs tickle and scratch as their innumerable bodies form a torrent into her mouth. At last, terror triggers Morigan’s magik, birthing a silver pulse she does not see, but feels as an explosive heat, and that scatters the Dreamstalker’s horde. In another instant, Morigan is cast into Dream’s gray currents
.
Morigan wishes to
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