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Wil’s brow furrowed. “Thought of all what?”

“Ah.” Dallin sighed and let go altogether then stepped away with a quick scrub at his hair. “About that.” He turned back to Wil. “I should apologize. It should have dawned on me before, but…” His hand waved about.

“Distractions and blind alleys, and every other diversion meant to throw a hunter off-track. I’ve taken so damned long to come around to it that now I’m… Well, I’ve decided to blame it on the tree-to-the-head. Or the lack of sleep, come to it. Getting stabbed didn’t help.” He peered at Wil with sincere contrition. “Something’s coming. I can feel it, and it’s close. I mean to be gone before it gets here, but in the meantime, there are some things we should talk about, and I want to do it without Calder hovering.” He paused. “Now, or after you’ve had some sleep?”

Wil rubbed at the back of his neck. “That,” he told Dallin mildly, “is rather a stupid question.”

Dallin nodded, as though he’d expected exactly that 221

The Aisling Book Two Dream

answer and was entirely satisfied that he’d got it. “Right.”

He made to turn for the door and stopped. “I’m going to put on a shirt. Light some lamps, will you?”

“The thing is,” Dallin murmured thoughtfully, fingers absently tracing a crease in the sheet, “the shape of this thing is a lot simpler than I’ve been thinking. I kept coming at it as though I needed to… well, to use an apt metaphor, needed to find dozens of threads and figure out where they wove into the greater pattern of the mess, untangle them. Except it’s not really a mess.”

They’d pushed the little cot against the wall, both of them now using the cold stone for a backrest, the blanket and the more-or-less useless pillow stuffed behind them as buffers. Wil wondered if the relaxed posture of Dallin’s extended form—long legs spilling over the side of the small bed and stretching halfway across the floor—was something new, or if he’d looked like this before and Wil just hadn’t allowed himself to see it. Rumpled trousers, beltless and so slung a bit low, and shirt loose and mostly open; Wil could just see the top of the length of linen still wrapped about Dallin’s muscled torso above the stretched

‘V’ of the opening, a light thatch of curly gold fanning above it. Wil remembered slipping his fingers through that little bit of a ruff, remembered how that wide hand had rested warm on his hip, setting a rhythm that sent his mind—

That line of thought would do nothing but distract him, so he pushed it away. With a bit of a flush, Wil realized Dallin was staring at him, silent and measuring, eyes slightly narrowed.

Wil cleared his throat. “Sorry, I’m listening.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to—?”

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“No,” Wil cut in quickly. “Now.”

“Good.” Dallin nodded, bent one leg up at the knee and rested his arm loosely atop it. “It didn’t dawn on me until after you’d slipped out earlier. It was sort of strange—I was lying there, and I wasn’t sure if I was asleep or not, I thought maybe it had all been a dream, and then I heard you curse me and then I heard you apologize, all murky-like, and then I wondered if
you
were a dream. Everything just…” He flipped a hand out. “It just tumbled.
Clicked
.

All at once. One moment I didn’t know, and the next it just started to fall into place—everything. Well, all right, nearly everything. I think.” He paused, pensive.

“I realized… Do you remember saying once that you thought it was strange that Aisling means Dream and not Dreamer?”

Wil nodded slowly, wary now. Something had just curled cold in his gut. “You said I was borrowing trouble.”

His words were measured, a faint note of accusation he didn’t think he really meant beneath them, and it was as though he almost knew why, wanted to know why, but wanted to get up and back away just as badly. “You said translations are always getting bollixed.”

“I did.” Dallin’s mouth went a bit tight. “Except in this case, it’s not bollixed translations that are the problem—it’s the near-complete lack of translations in general. You—the Aisling—it’s all been kept so deeply secret that it’s like…” He shook his head impatiently. “It doesn’t matter, and I don’t want to get too far from the point. The point is… Wil…”

He stopped again, hands going fisted before he realized what he was doing and visibly forced them open.

Whatever it was he was trying to get ’round to saying, it must be pretty bad. The anxiety simmering in Wil’s chest was starting to bubble and pop in reaction before he even knew what he was supposed to be reacting
to
.

223

The Aisling Book Two Dream

Wil dipped his head, drew his knees up and wrapped his arms about them. Drawing himself inward and not even trying not to. “Please.” So much smaller than he would’ve liked. “Just say it.”

Dallin sucked in a long breath, and laid his big hand on Wil’s shoulder. “Earth, air, fire, water—that takes care of the four, but what about their kin?—the Father and the Mother? What do they hold sway over?”

What was this, a test? Wil’s brow twisted, guarded. All of his defenses were abruptly quivering, chewing into his nerves with sharp, panicky little nipping teeth.

“The Mother… healing. Cultivating and reaping.

Comfort and nurturing. Protection.” He flicked a look at Dallin. “War.”

Dallin nodded, somberly encouraging. “The Father?”

No, no, no, don’t answer, no good will come of the
answer, you know what’s waiting inside it, and maybe the
not knowing will make it never be true.

“Music,” Wil answered, voice going wobbly, fainter with every word. It was coming, he knew it was coming, and if he let himself, he’d know
what
was coming… he didn’t let himself, but the answers wouldn’t stop forcing themselves from out his mouth. “Harmony of the seasons.

Beauty. The stars…” His mouth kept working but his voice all at once abandoned him.

Dallin leaned in close, wrapped an arm about Wil’s shoulders, dipped his head down and spoke low into his ear: “Dreams, Wil,” he said, softening the words so they wouldn’t cut so deeply. Too late—they’d already started to draw blood. “He dreamt you into life. Aisling means Dream because that’s what you are.”

Everything went hazy for a moment, gray and muffled.

It wasn’t a surprise—that was the problem. He’d known.

He’d known forever. He just hadn’t
wanted
to know.

Because if he knew, that would make him… it would make
every
thing…

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Pointless. Nothing. All of the pain, all of the fear…

it’s not even real. I’m not anything but someone else’s
nightmare.

Without even realizing it, Wil jolted, tried to jerk himself up and away, but Dallin—clever, shrewd Constable Brayden, damn him—had once again been several steps ahead of him, had got them twined in a position that made it difficult to move, let alone bolt. His arm was locked about Wil’s shoulders, curling around and pressing Wil into his chest, his mouth right next to Wil’s ear.

“Listen to me,” he whispered. “You can’t take it literally. It doesn’t make you not real. It doesn’t make anything empty. It makes you more real than anyone in the whole of the world. You weren’t some chance get of random-man-and-random-woman—He wanted
you,
and He set out to make you, in the way of His own Making.

Haven’t you ever noticed how much you look like Him?

He gave to the Mother everything She loved about
Him
.

And then He took that dream and made it real.” He squeezed a little tighter. “You’re real. It hasn’t all been for nothing.”

How could he just…
know
like that? How could he speak these impossibly wrenching things and take the knives out of them with only the power of that low, soothing voice?

“Then

why
?” was all Wil could breathe, weak and watery, and he hadn’t even meant to say anything at all.

Every dark thought in his head had just been articulated in that calm basso, the rumble of it vibrating against his cheek and temple, strangling him with rationale, when all he wanted to do was scream in panic.

Dallin was silent for quite a while, just holding on, before he sighed and ran his hand firm up and down Wil’s arm. “I think the question is, rather, ‘how?’ And as soon 225

The Aisling Book Two Dream

as it’s safe to let you go, I’ll tell you what I think the answer is.”

Wil only squeezed his eyes shut tight, shook his head, only slightly piqued but a lot confused that he didn’t really want to be let go at the moment. “Just
say
it,”

he demanded, a weak snarl through teeth
this close
to chattering.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m going to be throwing up in your lap pretty soon, if you don’t just get on and
say it
.” It wasn’t an exaggeration—Wil’s stomach was roiling and thumping along in rhythm to his heart, which was, in turn, trying to drum itself through his ribcage. Surely Dallin could feel it?

“All right.” Dallin gave Wil another reassuring squeeze. He sat back, dragging Wil perforce with him.

“It’s really just a matter of finding Point A and following the path logically. Point A, in this case, is the Father and whatever’s wrong with Him. I mean, think about it—who could subdue a god, after all?”

Wil pondered that for a moment, bit back
How the
fuck should I know?
and tried to approach it from the side of reason and logic.

“Another god,” he finally murmured, opened his eyes, narrowed them, stared at the creased weave of Dallin’s shirt in the folds gathered in the crook of his elbow.

“Æledfýres. Dearg-dur.”

“Right,” Dallin agreed. “Wherever he was, is, whatever, someone found him, woke him up, and I’m betting it was Siofra.”

Wil dragged himself up at that and peered at Dallin closely. “What makes you think that?”

“Because the simplest answer is most often the correct one. I think I forgot that for a while. But think about it—

thousands of years, these people looked for the Aisling, 226

Carole Cummings

and then he just stumbles over you? Before you were even born?” Dallin shook his head, a cagey look of cynicism flashing quickfire over his face. “The Old Ones couldn’t even find you, not unless you wanted them to, they have to be Called. And if he had the kind of magic he’d need to do it, he wouldn’t’ve stopped at subduing yours. Someone told him. Most likely the same someone who’s… well, I don’t know—weakening the Father somehow.”

There were several things to be addressed in that. Only one twanged sharp little razor-teeth and set them gnawing at Wil’s gut: “Subduing mine?”

“Ah.” Dallin rubbed at his mouth. “Right.” His other hand was still resting on Wil’s shoulder; now it tightened a smidge—a gesture surely meant to be reassuring, but Wil was beginning to recognize it as a nervous habit, a harbinger, which wasn’t helping his own anxious state.

“This isn’t exactly my area of expertise, and I’m still stumbling a little blind here. But what you’ve got, Wil…

it’s huge. Don’t you know that? Can’t you feel it?”

Wil swallowed, looked away. This was the hardest part to accept, the part that…
hurt
. Offended. Scraped at what little sense of right and fair he had and clawed it raw.

“Hey.” The warm hand on Wil’s shoulder tightened again, shaking him lightly. “
Hey
.”

It was the first time in quite a while that the touch felt heavy. Wil couldn’t help it—he shifted a jerky shrug, flinched out of the grip. “No,” he muttered, near-truculent, “I can’t feel it.”

He wanted to feel it. He wanted to touch it, tame it to his hand, direct it wherever he pleased and… and do what?

Burn the world, like Calder feared? Cure it? A little bit of both? Perhaps aim it at a select few and never have to run again?

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The Aisling Book Two Dream

“Well,” Dallin said slowly, a little more cautiously than before, “we’re going to need to change that. Soon.”

A pause and a heavy dip in the mattress to Wil’s side as Dallin’s bulk shifted. “We’re going to test it. And then we’re going to keep testing it, and you’re going to learn to use it, so that, if we end up coming up against Siofra, or anyone else that wants to hurt you or take from you…

well. It won’t be so easy this time.”

Wil paled—he actually felt it. Stared at his hands as they clenched tight in his lap.

Easy
.

“What was the word Millard used?” Dallin went on.

“Design, right? He said you were blind to yours, that you wouldn’t be able to see it until you were ready. So, we need to get you ready. Because I’d lay down just about anything that the dreams, the Threads—that isn’t what you’re meant to do.”

Abruptly queasy, Wil sprang from the cot, lurched the few steps across the little room, propped an elbow to the wall and leaned into it. Through a whining buzz in his head, he heard the cot creak.

“Wil? Are you all—?”

“
Don’t
.” Wil flung his hand back, warning, acidly satisfied when the creaking stopped abruptly.
Touch me
right now and see how fast you lose the hand
, rattled at the back of his throat. He choked it off, shook his head and laid it to his forearm. There were too many things shrieking in his mind, too many questions, too many answers he didn’t want, too much anger and fear, and fear of the anger, and all of it clogged in his chest. “There was nothing bloody
easy
about it.” Nearly a wheeze, forced past the scalding blockage in his throat.

“I know that, I wasn’t—”

“There’s nothing bloody
easy
about knowing it now.

How d’you know?” Through his teeth. “How d’you 228

Carole Cummings

know
any
of this? How
can
you… I don’t…
how
—?”

“Because, Wil, it isn’t normal to
bleed
, it isn’t normal to be in pain all the time. You work your fingers bloody because it’s too big for you; it’s not your job, it’s
His
.

It hurt you when Siofra made you change the patterns because they’re not yours to change, you said it yourself.”