Page 7 of Somnium

The priests.

Three men filed into the hall, hoods raised, gloved hands swinging smoothly at their sides as they strode toward the dais with synchronized steps. A tingling sensation rippled over Cadi’s skin, and an eerie stillness swept through the crowd as every head turned as one back to the yawning mouth of the passage.

Waiting.

As if formed from the shadow itself, the high priest slipped into the light. The staccato rhythm of his powerful strides reverberated through the stone chamber as he ascended the steps with fluid grace, only the midnight blue of his robe marking him apart from the others.

A black resin mask obscured his features, but there was no mistaking when his eyes swept over the crowd. Cadi shivered, an odd tightness catching in her chest, only to fade as quickly as it had come.

In a smooth motion, the high priest raised his hands, signaling the start of Somnium. Cadi jumped as unseen drums burst to life, the rhythmic boom vibrating deep in her bones. The men on the dais began to move with practiced steps, their bodies shifting to tell a story she didn’t understand, but realized she somehow felt.

Fabric brushed against her arm as worshippers on every side began to sway with slow, smooth movements. The sea of bodies moved as one, their synchronous rhythm wrapping around her, pulling her under until she found herself caught in the collective pulse of the Order.

A plume of smoke billowed from the stone brazier, saturating the air with a fragrant vapor that filled Cadi’s lungs, dulling her thoughts with its comforting haze. She felt herself start to panic, fighting against the way her mind seemed determined to go blank and give into some distant summoning. Her breaths came quick and sharp until she remembered what Zoe had told her.

Don’t fight it. Let yourself feel everything.

Every instinct was telling her to keep pushing back, to hold on to control, but something about the smoke drifting around her felt like comfort, joy, and peace all at once. She realized that she wanted to fall into it, to relax into the tide and see where it carried her instead of wasting her energy battling it. Letting her eyes drift closed, she felt a pleasant warmth curl around her body and guide her deeper. In the distance, deep voices blended with the beat of drums, their words foreign and strange, like haunting echoes lost to time.

Warm light pulsed behind her eyelids, cutting through the fog. Barely managing to crack an eye open against the weight of the high, she could just make out the patterns carved into the red stone walls encircling the hall, but struggled to fully comprehend what she was seeing. She could have sworn the sigils around them were … glowing, their brilliant light surging and receding in time with the pounding drums.

A gentle buzz crept over her skin, the sensation like thousands of tiny sparks erupting in her veins. The drums beat louder as their pace became more urgent and the pulses against her skin grew stronger, so she let her eyes drift closed again, completely consumed by the experience.

With a final strong beat, the drums stopped, leaving their culminating echo to ring against the stone as a dizzying surge of energy coursed through her, stealing the breath from her lungs. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

The soft brush of fabric against stone pulled her attention back to the dais, where the priests descended the steps. The crowd parted without a word, watching their path as they slipped silently into the hallway, their forms once again swallowed by the darkness.

Damon shifted forward, his low chuckle drifting from over her shoulder. “Told you it leaves a mark.”

Zoe turned slowly to grin up at her with a sleepy smile, as if she had just woken up from the best nap of her life. All Cadi could do was grin back, certain her expression reflected a similar level of bliss. Her mouth refused to form words; her mind was still working to clear a path through the pleasant fog.

“Right?” Zoe said.

“What was that?” Cadi asked, finally regaining the use of her tongue as they began to move with the rest of the crowd filing out of the hall.

“That,” Damon said, draping an arm around her, “was Somnium: the power of dreams.”

Cadi’s brow pinched. “It was what now?”

“Basically collected dream energy,” Zoe explained. “Honestly, I’m not super sure how it works, but the rite sort of induces a trance and just pulls it out of us. It’s how Oneirios sustains himself.”

Something inside Cadi bristled at the idea of being put into a trance so a god could harvest her dreams, or even dream energy, but she had to admit the experience wasn’t exactly unpleasant. As far as she could tell, there didn’t appear to be any lingering side effects either, so she could see how it was a small price to pay for what the Order offered in return.

“What was in that smoke?” she asked, but Zoe just shrugged as she gracefully side-stepped a slow-moving gnome.

“I’m not sure,” the nymph replied. “But it’s nothing that will show up on a ten panel, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She shot Cadi a coy smirk as they stepped out of the temple, and Cadi’s jaw dropped when she saw that the sun had already begun to dip below the city skyline. She dug into her pocket, pulling her phone free to check the time. 6:30 p.m.

They had been inside for a full hour, but Cadi could have sworn it had been no more than fifteen minutes.

“Gotta love that dream trance,” Damon teased. “It kind of fucks with your internal clock the first few times, but you get used to it.”

Cadi scoffed, her mind still reeling as the four of them gathered at the top of the stone steps.

“Where should we go tonight?” Zoe asked.

“Can we please go somewhere new? I’m so over Eclipse,” Celine replied.