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No choice but to see the sense in it; no choice but to acknowledge that the only thing he could ever remember truly
wanting
was now in the safest hands possible. No choice but to weep angry, scalding tears that those hands were not his own.

His

name
. He actually
felt
his heart bleeding in slow trickles behind his breastbone.

“The river, Wil. I’m waiting for you there, but you have to come to me.”

Wil shut his eyes, laid his head to Dallin’s shoulder, tears squeezing from out the corners, wetting the shirt, winding into the weave. “But I’m lost,” he whispered.

Blinking and squinting, Wil stared at the threads of the shirt that blurred beneath the spreading pink stain of his own bloody tears. “I don’t know how.”

“I’m wide open,” Dallin told him softly. “I’m looking for you, waiting for you, and I’ve opened myself so wide I’m scared to death. You won’t let me in, so it’s up to you—
you
have to do this. Look for me and you’ll find me.”

“I don’t want to go back.” So small, Wil wasn’t even sure he’d said it out loud. “I want to stay
here
.”

Here in this morning when he’d woken safe and content. Or perhaps in the night before when he’d discovered it was all right to
want
safe and content. Not all of it, not the first time—he’d been too selfish then, hadn’t given himself permission yet to believe—and not all of that harsh revelation that came after the first time.

But that second time and this morning… yes, he could stay here with this not-Dallin, this dream-Dallin who somehow still didn’t say everything Wil wanted to hear.

Stay here and relive those moments until everything just went away, until he dissolved into the black, and then it wouldn’t matter because he wouldn’t know anymore.

“It hurts, I know,” Dallin answered. “Everything 340

Carole Cummings

hurts, and you’ve endured it for so long.”

“So

long
…”

“I know.” A gentle kiss to the crown of Wil’s head.

“And I’m sorry, but you’re not done yet.”

Wil shut his eyes, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks.

“
Please
—”

“The Father needs you,” Dallin told him, stern now.

“You’ve seen what He fights. You’ve seen who.”

Æledfýres
.

“Yes,” Dallin replied, though Wil was
sure
he hadn’t spoken that time. “He’s been holding it all since you were born, Wil, keeping it all back, but how much longer d’you think He can keep doing it? He’s dying.”

“I don’t care!”
Terrified. Near-rabid in the denial.

A soft, sympathetic chuckle; a tightening of the embrace. “You do. I know you don’t want to, but you do. And I know you’re scared, but you know I won’t let you do it alone.” Not-Dallin took Wil by the arms and pushed him back gently. “He needs you. And as much as you think you want to, you won’t let yourself stand away.” A small, firm shake of his shoulders. “Find me, Wil. You know how.”

A widening stain flowered over the weave of Dallin’s shirt where Wil had wept blooded tears on his shoulder.

Wil stared at the pattern, marking how the threads knit and plaited themselves—the kink of a fiber here, the jag of a strand there…

“Do

you
need me?” he whispered, kept staring at the stain, following the loops and lines.

Because I’ve only just this second understood that I
need you, and it hurts to know it, it’s bloody terrifying.

Except knowing that you cared stopped hurting when I
realized that I cared back; I think it might be all right that
I need you if you need me back.

“I’m not real,” Dallin answered gently. “I can’t answer 341

The Aisling Book Two Dream

that. Find me at the river and ask me again.”

It would do no good to weep, to scream, to beat at that wide chest and whimper that he was too terrified to move, too broken and lost to muster the strength. He did it anyway, let those strong arms stay twined about him, hold him tight, rested his head against Dallin’s breastbone, listened to the steady
ka-thump ka-thump ka-thump
, and closed his eyes. Wept until he couldn’t breathe, that stain beneath his cheek widening, defining itself with each tear.

I’m wide open. Look for me and you’ll find me.

Wil touched the stain with shaking fingers. Found a strand where warp met weft.

Followed it.

It isn’t chill and frosted over this time; it’s warm, the
sun is shining bright on the water, glaring into his eyes.

The grass is cool against his bare feet, green and soft with
just a touch of dew from the mist of the river. The trees
are full and flowering, fragrant apple blossom and heady
dogwood, soughing whispers shivering through branch
and leaf on the soft breeze. The chuckle of water over
stone sings with the voices of the stars, though the sun
eclipses their faces.

A wide, gold-limned figure stands on the strand,
shoulders hunched, hands stuffed into trouser pockets.

Hair like chaff wafts and glints red-gold-flax with every
slight shift of the gentle wind. Those dark eyes are shut
tight, brow twisted in concentration, jaw set hard.

His patterns are brilliant, shifting and re-threading
even now, a constant re-making. Gold to red to blue to
jade—striating out from him in every direction in shards
of burnished radiance, scintillating out into thin air,
reaching, stretching…

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Carole Cummings

Searching.

Seeking.

I’m wide open… I’ve opened myself so wide I’m scared to death…

Open… doesn’t quite cover it. Open is too small a
word.

Bared, exposed, raw and defenseless. Wil doesn’t
think he’s ever seen anything so terrifyingly beautiful
in all his life. Honor and fear, love and rage, pride and
worry, virtue and sin—all of it scorching into Wil’s eyes,
a resplendent aura of lambent passion.

“You

see
me,” Wil had once said to him; he doesn’t
think he looked half as astonishing.

One tentative step forward from Wil, and Dallin
spins, blinks. He only stares for a moment, like he’s not
sure he’s actually seeing what he’s seeing. Then everything
collapses, a chaos of color disintegrating, folding back
into a fixed template with the relieved droop of Dallin’s
shoulders, the quickfire release of tension from whatever
was holding him strung together.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Dallin breathes, shaky and thick.

He stalks over to Wil in five swift strides, jaw set, eyes
ablaze. For a moment, Wil thinks maybe Dallin’s going
to hit him, but then he’s being snatched up, nearly off
his feet, hauled in and crushed to Dallin’s chest so tight
it knocks the breath from him. “When I tell you to run,”

Dallin wheezes through his teeth, “you bloody
run
, and
you bloody
keep running
, understand?”

There was a question Wil had wanted to ask, it had
seemed so important, but now it’s gone, and he thinks
he doesn’t really need to ask, because he knows. That
look, this embrace—whatever the question was, this is
the answer. A tearful laugh wants to wend up from Wil’s
chest, but it’s cut off by the strength of the hold.

“Keep telling me not to leave you alone, and there you
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The Aisling Book Two Dream

went—” Dallin chokes it off, grip tightening. “And I’ve
got Calder giving me I-told-you-so’s and Shaw nattering
at me to ignore Calder, and you wouldn’t… wouldn’t
hear me, I couldn’t find you, and damn you, don’t you
ever
do that to me again!”

“Sorry, I…” No good. Wil twists a bit, trying to push
gently. “I can’t breathe.”

Dallin lets go so abruptly that Wil almost totters
backward, would’ve done, if not for the fact that Dallin’s
wide, strong hands are now gripping Wil’s arms like he’s
afraid to let go. “Sorry,” Dallin breathes, as close to
losing control as Wil has ever seen him. “Sorry, I just…”

His face screws up, and he shrugs helplessly, tightens his
grip until Wil’s sure it’ll leave bruises, shakes him lightly.

“Don’t do that again, all right?” It’s shaky, taken from a
demand to a request from one word to the next.

Wil’s ashamed that no steady reassurance will rise to
his tongue. Instead, he reaches up, sliding gentle fingers
over the red-blistered burn, shiny and gruesome-looking,
on Dallin’s left cheek. “How—?”

Dallin’s hand is over Wil’s, gently pushing it away,
curling around it. “Things got a little crazy in Chester.

It’s how we managed to get out relatively easily.”

Wil frowns. “Fire?”

“Um…” Dallin looks uncomfortable now. “The rain
put most of it out before it could get out of control.”

Ah. Wil thinks he sees now. He thinks he was seeing all
along.

“Though the Constabulary is probably lost,” Wil
murmurs, distant.

Dallin’s eyes narrow. “How did you know that?”

Wil just shakes his head, jerks his chin at the burn.

“Did I do that?”

A pause, then: “You weren’t yourself,” Dallin answers
steadily.

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Carole Cummings

Wil puffs a bitter snort. “Ya think?” He shakes his
head. “How long?”

Dallin sighs. “It’s been almost two days now.”

Wil scowls this time, unaccountably filled with
sudden, sharp wrath. “So why isn’t it healed yet? Fuck’s
sake, Dallin, you need a nursemaid to natter you into
healing yourself every time you get hurt? How did you
ever manage to live this long without someone behind
you all the time, nagging you to make yourself better?”

A stunned almost-laugh, but it dies before it can make
itself. “I’ve been…” Dallin doesn’t finish, just shakes his
head, takes a long, deep breath, closes his eyes and leans
into Wil.

I’ve been using up everything I had on you
, is what he
didn’t say, and Wil sags, leans in, too, wraps tentative arms
about Dallin’s torso, soothed when a gentler embrace is
wound about him this time.

“I know,” Wil says quietly. “I’m sorry. I can’t… I
don’t know if I can do this.” He pulls back, pulls away,
walks slowly over to the strand and looks down into the
water. He could be blind and deaf, and still he’d know
that Dallin was behind him the whole way. “The things I
saw,” Wil whispers, shudders and clenches his jaw. “The
things I felt—
feel
—it’s all just so…
big
, I don’t know
how to put it all in order in my mind, everything keeps
blurring together, slipping away then slamming back into
me, and I…” The tears are rising again; he blinks them
back, swallows. “Calder worried what might happen if
my mind broke.” He turns slowly, peering at Dallin over
his shoulder. “I think it might have done. And if that
means I won’t have to do what I know I have to do…”

His shrug is heavy as he turns back to the water. “Maybe
it’s not such a bad thing.”

“And what…?” A pause, the weight of Dallin’s hand
on his shoulder, grounding. “What do you think you have
to do?”

345

The Aisling Book Two Dream

Wil blows out a heavy breath. He lifts his chin, staring
at the banks of rolling green on the other side of the
river. “Æledfýres.” Like a lead weight, dropping from
his mouth, thudding at his feet. “He gave me to Siofra;
he’s been trying to give me to the Brethren. He needs
something from me, and he needs one of them to get it
for him. And once he has it, he can… I’m not sure. Finish
the job with Father, I think.” He looks down, turns his
gaze slowly back to Dallin’s. “You know my name.”

Dallin’s head jerks back, and he stares at Wil, brow
drawing down, eyes narrowing. “How…?”

“Because you just would—if anyone would figure it
out, you would.” Wil reaches up, sliding his fingers under
his hair, over the lumpy scars on his scalp. “You were
trying to heal me, to find me, I think I felt you, and you
found my name instead.” He shakes his head and drops
his hand. “I’ve held the key to my cage all along. Fucking
irony.” Dallin opens his mouth, but Wil shakes his head
reluctantly. “Don’t tell me.” The words are almost a
physical pain in his chest. His name, his Self—he’s wanted
it for so long, it twists his heart to have it so close. “Seal
it up tight, keep it safe for me. If I know it, he might find
it, and then I’m really fucked.” His hand goes back to
his head, fingertips toying lightly at the raised symbols.

“Can’t read,” he mutters, resentful, “no danger of me
finding out by accident.”

Dallin steps in and takes Wil’s hand away. He grabs
up the other and holds them both tight. “As long as you
remember that it’s yours, that you can have it for the
asking.”

A sad smile twitches at Wil’s lips, and he nods. “I
wouldn’t be doing it, else.” He leans up, lays a kiss to
Dallin’s mouth—not the frantic, desperate one from
when he’d been lost and trying not to know it, but soft
and sweet, just a brief brush of intimacy, connection. He
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