Gray gasped, reaching out with fingers splayed. A soft, scaley hand grabbed his. He felt the claws bite into his skin, but that pain was better than what he felt ripping through his chest.

  He smelled salt, his own stink, and realized he was on a boat, rising and falling, rising and falling, through waves. He opened his eyes to see a cramped room, the wood stained by time.

  The masked woman was there. Through black mesh of her mask, her red eyes stared down at him. Red eyes? Well, if she could cast spells, why not have red eyes?

  “Hush, child,” the woman snapped. “You’re not the one I wanted, but you’ll do, I think. I will repair you. It might take months, and it won’t be pleasant, but I have need of your magic.”

  Gray swallowed. “No. Such. Thing.” He laughed a little. “Neither are there women with scales, unless you are a dragon. Was I saved by a dragon? Might as well be a fucking angel.”

  The masked woman sighed. “Yes. How quaint. I forget how isolated the Nursery Islands are. For being at the center of the world, you certainly are far away from anything that really matters.”

  “The necklace, Blind John, they’ll go after—”

  “Hush, child. I can’t have you awake for this healing, and I can’t wait a second later to start. You will be my weapon, however imperfect, but I’ve made do with uncertain tools before. Sleep.”

  Gray fought to stay awake, but no, he couldn’t. He tried to breathe, couldn’t, and the stillness in his chest was too much for him to consider. If his heart stopped beating, he’d die. No, the pain would kill him.

  The darkness was the cure, and he let himself fall away into nothing again.

  *

  He was dreaming, he had to be, because he wasn’t in the cramped room on the ship anymore. He was walking across the sea itself, and Gray was good at any number of things, but walking on water was not one of them.

  Above him, the sky had too many stars. There were no constellations he could recognize. That was a bit more worrying to him than the fact he couldn’t see any islands or trees or mountains or beaches or anything. It didn’t feel like a real place. Not at all.

  “I’m dreaming,” he said.

  A voice answered with a gentle giggling. “Don’t be too sure of that. Maybe you are the dreamer, dreaming the entire world, and when you awake, the world as you know it will be gone, and all you have known will have been just a story you told yourself to pass the time.” The voice was soft, feminine, but aged, filled with both amusement and love.

  Gray had heard such things before and wasn’t impressed. “If we’re going to do riddles, let’s do riddles. I rise with a golden fiery breath, yet by my feast, I bring day's death. What am I?”

  “You mean the sun.” The voice sighed. “It’s a good riddle, but then, you were always so smart. You had to be, didn’t you? The other boys were stronger, better fighters, or simply rich. Riches bring a strength all of their own.”

  “On the ship, you still wore the mask. The natural assumption is that you are the woman who saved me, and yet, your voice is different. Which makes me think I am dreaming. I would rather be the dreamer than the dream, but what choice do I have?”

  “You have every choice while you still breathe,” the voice answered. “It is only when you die are you stripped of desires. Death is the great silence, , but you and I, we still live and we can make every breathe a scream. Let us rejoice and be glad.”

  “Where are you?” Gray asked. “I’d like a face to match your voice to a face. You sound very pretty…if you don’t mind me saying such a thing.”

  “Why would I mind? I complimented you, and now you are complimenting me. My voice is pretty. I’ve had it for a long time now, ages in fact, as rivers and wind carve canyons into the flesh of the world. You are going to awaken for a time, and the pain will be bad, but we have to trust her. She thinks she is in control. I can tell you, she isn’t. However old she is, I am older.”

  “I would ask how old you are, but it’s impolite to ask cryptic dream women their age.”

  She laughed.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Laughing at my jokes. Now, I’m certain we can be friends.”

  More gentle chuckling. “Oh, Grayson Fade, I’ve waited for this moment. I was there at your beginning, born during the hurricane eclipse, when the winds threatened to destroy all of Cradleport as the darkness devoured the sun. I watched you—cried with you in your sorrow and laughed with you in your joy. Your great victories and your simple defeats. You did the one thing I needed you to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You kept yourself alive. As an Arena slave in Cradleport, that wasn’t an easy task.”

  “I won’t comment on how it’s slightly unnerving that you’ve watched my every moment. There are certain things that would bring me shame. No, let’s move on to names. You know my name. What’s yours? Ow would that be impolite to ask?”

  “You learned your manners well. But then, Old Agatha saw in you a willing student. As did Blind John. Such a clever young man you’ve become.”

  “I’m just glad you’re not calling me a slave boy. I’ve heard that too much recently. I knew asking your name would get me nowhere, since you and this place are so very mysterious. Well, dream woman, I can’t very well force you to answer me. I don’t even know where you are. Or as you just a voice in the wind?”

  “I am simply a voice in the wind. I was more, at one point, but then the world, like a headstrong child, rushed away from me. Perhaps I shall be more again one day, but I’m not concerned about me. I am more interested in you, Grayson Fade, and the adventures that await you, in the Belly of the World.”

  Gray shook his head. A dull excitement filled his belly. “She can’t be taking me there. It’s weeks, if not months, on that ship. The room is so small, I can’t even change my mind in there.”

  More laughter. “You learned to laugh at the world, Gray, and I am glad for that. It is a skill that will serve you well. Her name is Sette Sevanya, but she will want to call you Settie. Know that she wants what is best for you, as long as it serves her. Don’t underestimate her, and while you might be tempted, don’t despise her for her selfishness either. Pity her for she has known even more sorrow than an Arena slave boy in Cradleport could ever know.”

  Gray snapped his fingers. “And here I thought we’d get through this dream without the whole ‘slave boy’ thing. My you don’t need a name since it’s just the two of us. Is it all just sea and stars here, or do you have a little shack where I can get some charbrew and maybe some frycake?”

  “I do like frycake,” the voice answered. “And I do have a name, though names come and go for someone like me. Call me Oma for now. There is an irony there that one day you will understand.”

  A light appeared in the distance, not a star, but a light like a lantern filled with seacow oil, giving out a warm, buttery glow. He could see a shack on an island, windows and doorfame glowing. The scent of a frycake vendor in the Arena Market filled the air. Gray felt the hunger keenly.

  It seemed Oma did as well. “That is only going to get worse. Make your way to the shack, as you call it. Know that if you survive, you will emerge weaker than you were before. Your road to strength will take a long, long time, Grayson Fade. I’m sorry for that, but there is nothing I can do.”

  “Except visit me in mysterious dreams that will soon fade. Not unlike my last name. Not sure where I got it from. Blind John told me to grateful that I had one. He didn’t.”

  “The Children of Order gave you your name, because you were so gray that you seemed like you were fading away to nothing. Old Agatha knew it was your heart, of course. Everyone always knew you had a hole in your heart. What they didn’t know is that someday, it would be filled.”

  Gray felt tears in his eyes. “It is a good dream, Oma, to move me so.” He touched his chest, and felt the stillness there. Then, he remembered he couldn’t breathe on the ship.

  Then, the pain returned.

  And the hunger, a hunger he’d never known, and being a servant of the Arena, where the boys were underfed on purpose, that was saying something.

  Yes, he kept thinking about that shack, the warm light, the comforting smells of breakfast lingering in the air even when it grew unbearable. He could find solace and comfort in that shack, and Oma would be there, waiting for him, to hug him and kiss him and praise him.

  He didn’t know who Oma was, but he loved her. He had to. It was like she didn’t give him a choice, and that bothered him more than anything.

  Well, not more than death. Death was a lot more bothersome.

  *

  He woke again, and he heard screaming. It couldn’t be him, could it? He was in the ship, and the woman wasn’t there, but he was too weak to get out of the bed.

  Screaming meant breathing, so that was something to consider. Yes, breathing! Hurray. And for now, the pain in his chest was gone.

  Someone was beating on the door of the chamber. That person was also yelling.

  Gray thought to call out for help, but no, going back to the world of water and stars was the better option. He was walking across the water to that shack, and he knew there would be a plate of frycake ready for him.

  Frycake on a paper plate. Charbrew in a little paper cup, strong and as bitter as a stupid man’s hate, or that was what Blind John would say.

  A second later, he was unconscious again.

  When he woke up, the ship was gone, and he was on a cart, rolling across an uneven stone road. The woman in the mesh mask was hovering over him. Above was a blue sky, and it was hot, unbearably so. She must’ve been roasting in her hat, mask, and cloak. However, since she seemed to be a dragon, maybe the heat didn’t bother her at all.

  He went to talk, to tell her how bad the pain was, but she didn’t seem to care.

  “Hush, child. We’re nearly there. You will feel better when I have you in my home.” Her laughter was bitter. “Then you’ll know demons both inside and out. Then we’ll see if I have wasted my time in collecting you, in all this very silly travel on ships, and carriages, and carts.”

  He’d missed the carriage. That was a shame.

  Then he was out again.

  He woke up in a room, with a cold wind blowing snow through a cracked window. The bed was comfortable, and the place had curtains and wallpaper and was rather grand, or it had been, at one point.

  Now, it was a crypt.

  And he was the corpse.