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Hesitantly, I reached out and the shard. It sliced my hand and blood floated in the space, but it didn’t hurt.
The creature clicked, disapprovingly, but didn’t otherwise react.
“Follow.”
Not sure what else to do, I did as commanded. I was afraid to look into the shard. I didn’t want to get pulled into it and lose myself all over again. I could feel energy tugging at me, trying to take me apart, but since I’d entered the storm differently, I was having an easier time hanging on to myself. I also had an idea of what to expect this time.
We walked for another endless moment in time. I could feel a tug growing stronger as I followed the creature. I didn’t even have to ask which shard to take. I reached out. This one didn’t cut me, but when I it, it heated almost painfully hot. Still, I held on as if my life depended on it.
This time the creature led me on a path that made the shards arc wildly around us. I happened to look and caught a field of green stalks showing through the glass shards. Hundreds of shards all showing the same thing. Corn. Fields of corn.
I shuddered. What would have happened if I’d gotten sucked into one of those. I didn’t think I’d be so lucky as to escape twice.
When we finally moved beyond the corn, I felt another tug and followed it to it’s shard of glass. This one had black tentacles reaching out of it, as if trying to escape. Nic. It had to be. I it and the shadow stuff sank into my arm, clinging to me.
I let it.
The creature turned and looked at me, expectantly.
“What now?”
“Step out.”
I twisted in a circle, trying to find a way out. None of the shards were close.
“How?”
When I looked back at the corn creature, she had fractured and pieces of her floated off into the nothing.
“Step out,” she said again, before she was gone.
My eyes watered, but I didn’t have time to break down. I could feel my body unraveling like it had before and like the corn creature’s had. If I lingered much longer I’d fracture just as she had.
“How!” I shouted, clutching the three shards of glass and feeling helpless yet again. If I could have stomped my foot and had a temper tantrum, I would have, but there was nothing to stomp on and I was afraid of sending myself flying back into the corn, or something else terrible.
Wait. Could I step into the shadows from here?
I called the shadows to me. They responded!
A wind kicked up then, trying to rip the shards out of my grasp. I clung to them with everything I had. Which, apparently included some of Baz’s super sticky power. I would have lost my grip in the last gust, but the shards were glued to me.
I tried to step into the shadows, but while they were responding to me, there was no portal out of here.
“Fuck.”
But… hadn’t I made a portal once?
I could barely remember it since I’d pretty much died in the process, only just saved by Nic and a healing potion when we were escaping from the clowns.
I used the essence from the shadows, along with some of the essence I carried in my clothing and molded it into a ring. Then I stuck the shards containing my men to my chest and pressed my hands against the ring, willing it to open into Dream.
The resistance was immense, almost more than I could overcome, but I felt the pull from Baz on the other side, and it guided me and the energy I shaped, until I ripped a hole in the nothingness and stepped out into Dream.
Ember
“Ember, let them go, honey.”
“What?” I jerked my eyes open to find Dio and Geraint’s hands stuck to my chest. Nic had slipped free and lay in the shade nearby.
