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Chapter 7

Everything crumbled around him, but he made no sound, no movement, did not even spit out the foul ashes in his mouth. His Dreamer had accomplished the one thing he had never expected, perhaps the one thing he should have expected. She had not only defeated his deadliest minions, she had released them from his power forever. He could find other servants, but he had searched long for those two, and had chosen them not only because they seemed to be the best, but because he had wanted, desperately wanted, her death to come at the hands of creatures she had herself created. If he could not kill her himself, at least something she had given birth to, something else she had spurned and deserted could.

There had been a risk, a risk he readily accepted, that she would remember them if they weren't quick enough with their kill, and in remembering, would gain some small power over them. Yet there had been just as great a risk that she would recognize his touch on any minions he sent, and in recognizing, hold them at bay. As long as he was banned from killing her himself, such risks were inevitable. That was why he had tried to strike so quickly, why he had lured her into a place where he and his minions would be the only powerful ones, a place where she should have been stripped of all the powers she had ever known dreaming, all the powers she unknowingly possessed as long as she remained in her own waking world. And when that place had failed to hold her, at least she had entered a world where Figments, once allowed in, were stronger than they could have ever been even in the void itself. A place where they might even be stronger than the Dreamer who had given them life, perhaps even strong enough to break through all those protections she had unconsciously dreamt for herself, especially if he made them even stronger, made them stronger than every other beast he had ever touched. And although she too was in many ways stronger in this new world, he was certain that even the power to realize her dreams should not be enough to help her shake the stalkers whom he had made strong enough to follow, strong enough to dog her heels, more than strong enough to look in her eyes and still kill.

Yet they still had not been strong enough, had still seemed doomed to fail, and at last there had been no other choice, so he had made his minions even stronger yet, made them mindlessly and inescapably lethal, and had then delivered them almost directly to their prey, so that once again they would have the unmistakable advantage, just as they should have had the advantage in the nightmare trap he had set to ensnare her. Knowing just what his minions were capable of, he had no real fear of actual defeat; never in his wildest moments had he ever expected her capable of so much more.

So it would be a waste seeking and shaping others, a true exercise in futility, for she had always had the ability to keep one step ahead of him, just beyond his grasp; each time he had thought he felt his fingers closing around her, she had evaded him again. And now that she had been reminded of his true existence, she would be more alert than she had been in years, and he would have no chance to gain the freedom he so craved. In fact, her reawakened awareness would probably restrict him far more than he had been restricted since he had been created, for at last she knew he was more than just a dream, knew that he was as alive and real as she was, and far more dangerous than she could ever be. And she knew, knew without a doubt, that he sought her death. He had been born strong, and had grown stronger because she had been taught doubt and disbelief in her own dreams; he had gained even more strength when she had at least partially abandoned him to the memories of her childhood, but now she would never abandon any part of his memory again.

The icy breath on his neck came just as he had expected, as did the icy voice mocking in his ear. "Such a shame, really. Two such promising beasts, and they never had a chance against one little Dreamer. Quite an impressive display on her part, actually. Perhaps you need to reconsider your tactics for dealing with this one. Where the beasts seem doomed to fail, maybe beauty could succeed."

Still he did not move, did not respond to the cruel gibes in any way. He simply stood, eyes fixed unblinkingly on nothing. Already he could feel the change, for he could no longer see the Dreamer however he might try, and although he could sense she was still alive, the sharpness of her presence had dulled for him perceptibly. She was withdrawing, now that she knew he was truly there, setting up a barrier she didn't even realize existed but that would shut him away from her forever. She would be completely lost to him soon, lost not only to his sight, but also lost to his sensations, and as long as she remembered, as long as he remained trapped within her thoughts, pinned down by her attention, he would be bound here in the dark, weaker than he had ever been, until the distant day she died.

He had been the strongest in the realm of the void, but that had not been enough; he had felt chafed by the constraints his Dreamer had unknowingly placed upon him just by the fact of her continued existence, had wanted more than anything to escape from the face that had brought such disgust and horror to her eyes, so he had gambled everything, had gambled all by finally consuming his minions so that they reeked of him, had gambled all and lost all. Either he must accept his fate, or accept the one alternative he had steadfastly avoided. There were risks if he took advantage of the one desperate chance still available, but there were also opportunities that only he fully understood. He had gambled before, and given the choice, he would gamble again, would eagerly gamble away the last of his freedom if it gave him that one last hope of winning everything after all.

"So," he demanded harshly without turning to face the coldness at his back, "what do you want?"

"Why, just to commiserate with you on your unfortunate loss," she breathed with a billow of frost that briefly numbed his ear.

"And to perhaps watch me languish here in the dark?"

A freezing finger trailed along his spine. "There is that too, of course, but as enjoyable as that may be, there are things that could be far more enjoyable for both of us."

She could hear the quickening of his lungs, but she could not see the speculative narrowing of his slitted eyes. "So what do you have in mind?" he rumbled.

Two frigid arms encircled his waist as she leaned into his heat. "I give you want you want, and you give me what I want."

"We both know what I want," he growled. "What is it you want?"

Since he refused to move, she circled around his massive body, her arms still entwined about his waist, and looked up into his fiery eyes with her frosty ones. "I want the one thing you are no longer willing to give me. You." She pressed against him until steam seeped from all of the places their bodies touched. "I want you to touch me the way you touched me so many times before. One more time is all I ask. One more time for you to take me however you wish. I just want to feel you, and then I will ask nothing more ever again."

His arms shot up and claws sank through the ice to pierce her shoulders, drawing blue-streaked drops of blood, but unlike the last time, it served her better to reveal her intense pleasure; she had drawn him in with her frosty indifference, and now it was time to drive him to distraction with her biting desire, so she groaned longingly without reservation. Blue lids drooped heavily over her eyes, masking her entire face in unfeigned physical desire, hiding those less sensual yearnings which lurked a bit deeper. As the heat in his hands tore through her body she shuddered, and then her quivering lips fell apart in invitation as the ice melting from her skin sizzled and splattered against the ground. The heat of his desire exploded against her, scattering sharp slivers of ice through the void, but still he refused to lower his head and glut himself with the sweet and icy taste of her blood on his tongue. Despite his arousal, and despite her mounting desire, he restrained himself; even now he did not trust her, for there were good reasons not to trust her however badly he wanted to plunge himself into her icy core.

"What game are you playing?" he demanded roughly, the words flaming off his tongue and scorching her cheeks.

"No game," she whispered, voice raspy and uneven as if she had inhaled too much smoke. "A fair exchange. You want your Dreamer and I want you. A death for a last fling. With your Dreamer dead there will never again be anything else I could ask, or any service I could possibly provide. Her death is your freedom even from me, but in return I get to savor you for one small space of time." She leaned forward and with teeth as cold and keen as icicles bit through the skin of his chest, lapping his scalding blood with her wintry tongue as he shivered ecstatically beneath her touch. "It's your choice," she murmured, pulling away, his blood trickling from the corners of her lips. "You can have her dead, and have me as you choose, or you can have nothing at all."

With a howl he dropped his mouth to hers, his tongue lashing out to lick his own blood from her face, his fangs splitting open her swollen lips. For a moment they clung together, shaken like trees in a storm by the passion they usually held tightly in check, and then with a strength greater than anything in nature, they wrenched themselves away from each other and stood panting, sparkling ice and raging fire in both their eyes, acrid smoke and frosty mist rising from both their bodies.

"If you kill her all I must do is take you," he gasped, his mind equally ablaze from her nearness and the memory of the kiss they had shared the last time they had met, "and there are no other conditions."

This was the moment she had been preparing for, the moment when everything would hang in the balance. "There is just one small thing," she said nonchalantly.

His roar rocked the void and would have shattered any Figment less powerful, but she stood closest to him in strength, and where others would have crumbled, she did not even quail. "Tricks, all you do is play tricks! I knew better than to listen to you!"

Despite the fierce writhing of his skin and the dangerous flexing of his claws, she stepped closer, veins of blue branching across her skin, shards of ice heavy in her voice. "You must take me in your hand and carry me to the world where she hides," she said coldly, as if he had never interrupted, as if she had never felt the explosive heat of his anger, or even known his scorching passion. "If I am to kill her, you must take me to her first."

The slits in his eyes expanded and contracted, and his mouth compressed into a slashing line as he reigned in his anger to gaze at her expressionless face as if it hid a secret that he must solve. "Why would you need such help?" he demanded harshly.

Careful to hold her frozen facade in place, she shrugged. "I made the mistake of entering there once before, and I've never been able to return."

"Why were you there?" he rasped, the sound sending a thrill of pleasure through the ice.

"To kill my Dreamer."

His talons closed around one icy arm, honed edges again extracting glossy pearls of blood. "So why is that world still closed to you?"

Frozen lashes hooded her eyes. "The Keeper banished me and his defenses would never let me return."

"The Keeper is dead."

"Perhaps his defenses are still in place. Or perhaps it is the new Keeper still keeping me out," she replied with seeming indifference.

He glowered at her with eyes that could dissolve flesh and bone, but the ice shielding her flawless face remained as unyielding as the surface of a frozen lake clutched in winter's hand, and as treacherous in its lustrous beauty. "Very well," he finally growled. "I will send you, and if you succeed I will pay your price, but then you will never enter my presence again."

"Agreed," she answered, the crack of her smile opening a chasm beneath his feet that would be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid tumbling into.

 

The vision of the dying Figment shone clearly in Drew's eyes: the gleaming yellow left behind as the bloodred drained from his eyes, the receding of his jagged fangs, the sagging of his face into something softer, something almost human. Yet the image that clung more tenaciously than any other was his expression the moment he realized that he was indeed going to die, for in that instant his entire face was transformed not just by a relief that nearly buckled Drew's knees, but by a joy so overwhelming that the very sight of it pinched her lungs and constricted the veins webbing her heart. More than anything, that fleeting look of incredulous joy proclaimed to Drew the true nature of her real enemy, and she was left shaken to her core.

With an arm around her waist, Gyfree lowered Drew gently to the ground, while Timi, her face awash with contrition, rustled through her pack to scrounge up a hasty breakfast. Drew accepted everything she was given without even glancing at the proffered food, for everything tasted like ashes, and she only ate because eating was something she must do to stay alive. And at the moment the suddenly difficult task of staying alive was the one thing that fully occupied her mind.

Breakfast was long over and the sun sifting through the trees far more intense by the time Drew lifted her eyes to Gyfree's and murmured, "They were killers, but they were victims first. He made them what they were and sent them after me."

Gyfree shook his head, shadows of his own nightmare memories saturating his eyes. "Why didn't he come after you himself?" he asked.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe I didn't seem worth the effort. Maybe now he'll change his mind."

"It doesn't feel right," mused Gyfree as a frown stalked across his face. "You must have dreamed him as a child, and it doesn't make sense that he would wait so long."

A phantom of random memories flitted through Drew's eyes. "I don't think he did. I think he tried more than once when I was small, but for some reason, he could never get close enough to kill me."

"It still makes little sense," Gyfree objected. "My own Figment hasn't tried to reach me for years. I think there comes a point when we no longer are that important to them. A time, I suppose, when they grow up and move on to other things."

"Or perhaps," Timi interrupted, her eyes as intense as the sunlight baking the forest floor, "they are both infinitely patient and have simply been biding their time until a likely opportunity presented itself. There is a reason you've stayed here all these years, Gyfree, and it's not just because this is your home. This world became your home in the first place because you would never have survived in your own world. For all you know, that's as true now as it ever was."

Gyfree shifted troubled eyes to Timi's flushed face. "You're full of surprises, aren't you?" he remarked. "One minute you're incapacitated by fright, and the next you're seeing straight to the possible heart of things. You're as . . ."

"Changeable as a Figment," Timi finished, her face as suddenly pale as it had been rosy only a moment before.

"You're nothing like a Figment," Gyfree retorted, "but there is more to you than I ever realized." Then, as if an unwelcome visitor had suddenly intruded within the confines of his mind to startle him, Gyfree jumped, twisting his head from side to side, his eyes sweeping the clearing. "Where is Mischa?" he demanded. "And where is your Figment?"

Timi's own eyes widened in alarm. "They should have come back by now. Even if Mischa expected us all to be killed, she would never have just gone on without checking on us first."

Gyfree leaned over and grabbed the pale young woman by the shoulders. "Timi, you must tell me everything you know, or even just suspect, about your Figment. I have a feeling there is more happening here than you're willing to explain."

A painful pink erupted in Timi's cheeks, and she immediately dropped her eyes.

A look of startled comprehension burst from Gyfree's eyes, and he rocked back on his heels. "How long can you clearly recall being a Dreamer, Timi?" he demanded in a voice that could not be ignored.

The color in Timi's cheeks deepened, although the effect was to render the rest of her more pale rather than more vibrant, as if the bloom in her face was separate from her, and there to only draw attention to her true lack of color. "A couple of years," she admitted in a threadbare whisper.

Gyfree's own face had grown so pale that he seemed no more present than Timi, and his hands had started to visibly shake. "You don't remember dreaming before that?" he asked hoarsely.

"No, never."

"You never dreamed as a child?"

Timi shook her head.

"So your Figment is a creation of your adult mind," Gyfree stated in a voice as unsteady as his hands, "and the product of the only strong dream you've ever had."

Timi only nodded.

"Your dream came on a hot summer night when even the trees seemed to restlessly protest the heat."

Timi's eyes finally rose from the ground, and she gazed at Gyfree like a child who realizes her most painful secret has never been a secret at all. "How do you know?" she whispered.

"Because I finally realize that it was my dream that made you dream in the first place," rasped Gyfree.

Timi neither flinched nor gasped, and for the first time since Mischa's absence had been noted, the color in her face made her seem more, not less alive. "Maybe your explanation should come before mine," she remarked.

Gyfree sat back with a thump, his fingers unconsciously weaving an intricate pattern through Drew's as his body settled close to hers. His eyes filled with the distance of a long-ago dream as he began, "It hasn't been easy being the only Dreamer in this world. I've always felt set apart; perhaps less set apart than I would have been in my old world, but still different from everyone surrounding me. A couple of years ago I went through a short period of time when I even considered trying to go back. Yet this was my home, and I couldn't find the will to leave. So one summer night, a night just like the one I described to you, I dreamed that I was not really alone, that there was somewhere another Dreamer in this world dreaming at that very moment just as I was dreaming."

"So I am a Figment!" blurted Timi.

"No," Gyfree responded, "because I dreamed that someone already living in this world would become a Dreamer, not that a Dreamer would suddenly spring into existence. I didn't create you, but I did change you."

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner? If what you're saying is true, it must have occurred to you who I really was, once you discovered that I was a Dreamer."

Gyfree shook his head in bemusement. "I don't have a good answer for that. Maybe it's because I always assumed I would recognize you immediately, that somehow that secret bond we shared would be impossible to miss. And because I never felt particularly drawn to you, I overlooked what should have been obvious. Like it or not, we Dreamers can be amazingly blind when it comes to recognizing the truth about our own dreams."

"Yet you knew what you had dreamed. So you must have known what your dream had done to someone, whether or not you recognized that someone as me," insisted Timi.

"Yes, I knew," conceded Gyfree, eyes dark with memory. "It was a very powerful dream, and even while I still slept, I was horrified at what had happened. I could feel you out there somewhere, could feel your Figment slip from your dream, and I knew that I must help you banish him, although even in my dreaming, I feared that simply banishing him would not be enough. So I cast myself through the dream universe, seeking a nightmare so fierce that no one could ever survive it, hoping that if your Figment could be sent there and destroyed, my offense and your transformation would never be discovered. Perhaps it was because of the heat of that night, but I envisioned a vast, fiery desert, and then in my dream I was there, standing just outside, feeling all the searing fear and pain that had given birth to such a devastating dream. And knowing what unbearable pain awaited, I still dreamed that you would send your Figment there, for I was truly afraid that I had finally dreamed something dangerous enough to force my exile from this world, and I knew that, however apart I might be, I wanted to stay here as fiercely as I had wanted to stay when I had first arrived so many years ago. I could feel when your Figment vanished from this world, and I knew a moment of intense remorse for inflicting such pain on any creature, but then I could feel that you had not sent him into the nightmare after all; somehow you had sent him through it, beyond into a small, pocket world uninhabited by people, a world somehow connected to the nightmare, a world that felt as if it had been created as a refuge from the unbearable heat. And I was content to leave him there, for suddenly I was sure that no one could ever again pass through the nightmare as you had done."

"I was still dreaming when the nightmare you found unfolded below me," whispered Timi, her voice and eyes full of a distant pain. "I could feel the heat rising from it so intensely that I was almost certain that I would awaken to find my eyebrows scorched and my face blistered, but I would have still dropped my Figment there if I hadn't heard his voice in my head, begging me not to let him burn, begging me to let him stay with me. I couldn't let him stay, whether because of your dreaming or my own fears I still don't know, but I couldn't destroy him either. Yet even as I hovered above the merciless heat, dreaming that there must be another way, it seemed as if a path opened before me, and at the end of that path was another world, and I dreamed that the world I glimpsed would hold him, and that the path I had found would never open again."

"Not bad for a first-time Dreamer," Gyfree remarked. "Especially for one who had grown up never knowing a dream."

Timi looked at him with eyes finally free from the ghosts that had been haunting her. "So I didn't accidentally dream myself here. I am really here, completely here. A Dreamer, perhaps, but not a lost Dreamer, wandering far from my body and far from my real home."

"You belong here as much as you did before you ever knew a dream," Gyfree informed her.

A faint smile crooked Timi's lips. "You know, I've never again dreamed like I did that first time. Ever since my dreams are as airy as the Dreamers who usually arrive here. I still dream, but nothing is strong enough to slip beyond my control."

"I dreamed that for you too," admitted Gyfree, his voice raw. "I knew it was dangerous to place another Dreamer in this world, especially a new one, but I couldn't dream you back to the way you had been before. I felt less lonely knowing you were somewhere in this world, as if I had a little sister or brother whom I had never met. So I dreamed you less power, but I did not dream your dreams away."

A preoccupied silence filled the clearing like a luminescent mist, only to be dissipated by Drew's sudden sharp words. "What kind of power exists in dreaming that it can change another person?"

Gyfree shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes darkened with uncertainty. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'd never done such a thing before, and I've never done anything like that since. I don't know how I could have possibly done what I did."

Drew met his puzzled eyes with her own, feeling as if, buried somewhere deep inside, they each held the missing jigsaw pieces that would make the other whole. "And what of Timi's Figment?" she finally asked. "How did he call me to him? Because he did call, and I was compelled to come."

Gyfree nodded, and with a visible effort, returned his attention to Timi. "What exactly did you dream?"

This time when excess color surged through her face, it was as if a vibrant flower had bloomed within her to stain her cheeks with hidden life. "I felt so alone, so undesirable, that when I did dream, I dreamed of someone completely different from me, someone who could be and do more than I could ever be and do. You've seen what I dreamed," she mumbled. "And you've seen what he can do."

"I'm not sure of exactly what I've seen," Gyfree said softly. "I've had my mind on a number of things, and your Figment wasn't even one of my more pressing concerns."

Timi's eyes flashed. "Why didn't you banish him when I asked? He is, after all, a Figment, and Figments are always banished from this world," she countered.

Gyfree opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Drew interrupted, "Because your Figment wouldn't let him."

"What do you mean?" demanded Gyfree, his eyes back on Drew.

Drew's intense green eyes, however, had turned to Timi. "That's what he does, isn't it?" she continued. "He insinuates himself into your mind and imposes his will on you. He's an ultimate seducer. If he can, he makes you forget yourself and your concerns, makes you want to forget yourself and your concerns. He makes you feel that there are no real concerns other than his. That's how he trapped me. He caught me in a moment of weakness when I longed to escape myself, and he promised that if I would just come to him, he would give me a new life. A life free from everything that bothered me about myself. A life devoted solely to him. He might not have known exactly what he was doing, but he did it regardless. He was created to seduce everyone around him so they would devote themselves to fulfilling his needs."

"Wait a second," protested Gyfree, his face now as flushed as Timi's was once more pale. "I may not have agreed to banish him, but I have felt very little interest in him or his needs. My attention has been focused on much more than him." The color in his face deepened as he looked accusingly at Drew. "And you seemed to have your mind on other things as well."

"He doesn't have the same hold on everyone," Timi interceded. "His influence on the two of you has been minimal. As Drew said, he was able to call her in a moment of weakness, and probably to prevail upon her feelings of sympathy so she would agree to rescue him. He was also able to convince you, Gyfree, to overlook him, to treat him as if he was indeed harmless. It's even possible, now that I think about it, that when he persuaded you that he wasn't worthy of your attention, he encouraged you to miss what you should have recognized immediately: that he was a Figment you had already helped banish, a Figment whose creation you were partially responsible for. But he must have realized almost immediately how tenuous his hold was on each of you, so he used his much more intense hold on Mischa to convince her to run away as soon as an opportunity offered itself."

"What makes us different from Mischa?" questioned Gyfree.

Timi actually snickered, a sly look adding a sparkle to her once dull eyes. "As you remarked, you both had other things on your minds, and those other things were impossible for him to dislodge. For all Mischa's flirtatiousness—and yes, Gyfree, she has been known to try flirting with you however impervious you might have been—there was no one else with a strong enough hold on her mind and interests to keep him out. For him, she was a perfect victim. Unattached, yet ripe for attention."

"And what of you?" questioned Drew, as flushed and self-conscious as Gyfree.

"I've had time to think about that," Timi admitted. "At first I couldn't understand why my own Figment should show so little interest in me. I finally realized that it was because his power, the power to completely seduce an unattached mind, could never be used on me. I am his Dreamer, so I have at least some small power over him, and that keeps him from being able to exert full control over me. What he desires is total domination, but the relationship between Figment and Dreamer is far too complex for him to ever be able to completely dominate me." She flushed again, ever so slightly, like the faintest touch of dawn as the sun first tipped the sky. "And of course, he had no interest in seducing me. I could serve no useful purpose, like Gyfree, and he preferred the vibrant beauty of Mischa and Drew. He tried to seduce Drew, and quite successfully seduced Mischa, but even if I had not been his Dreamer, he would never have made the effort with me."

The corner of Drew's mouth quirked although she was still careful to avoid the intensity of Gyfree's eyes as they rested on her face. "If it hadn't clearly already happened, I would say your lack of self-esteem was going to land you in serious trouble one of these days."

Timi shrugged nonchalantly, but the intense color suffusing her cheeks gave her away. "Instead it may have landed all of us in trouble," she confessed. "I don't think we can continue to the Source until we find Mischa, and do something about my Figment."

"Agreed," Gyfree declared.

"So for the time being you're allowing me to stay?" Drew questioned, her eyes finally braving Gyfree's, her face as pale as Timi's had once been.

"Yes," he tersely replied.

"Is the presence of Timi's Figment really more dangerous than the presence of a Dreamer like me?"

"I don't know," answered Gyfree as he scrambled to his feet, pulling Drew up behind him. "But I do know which of the two of you I'm willing to lose."

As Gyfree moved toward the crumpled blankets beside the ash-filled fire pit, Drew followed, but before she could think of a suitable response to his words, a shimmering spear of silver-flecked light crashed into the clearing, causing her and Gyfree to both recoil as if they had either been licked by flames or bitten by ice. When a form coalesced within the silver light, however, only Timi took the time to scream.

 

She stood before him in all her deceptive beauty, silver flecks sparkling from her skin, her smile as frozen and deep as a snow drift over a chasm. She stood and she waited, her icy eyes as impenetrable and unyielding as winter itself. This was how he had first desired her, how he so often desired her still, for he yearned for the moment when she seemed as implacable and hard as a snowstorm. There had even been a time when he had possessed her in winter's guise, believing she would always be so cold and severe, just as he would always be fiery and unrestrained. Yet just as spring followed winter in the waking world, in time she had changed on him, slowly at first, but then with a rush, as if all the seeds of lost summer had embedded deep within her to blossom in one foul assault. Desire had melted the ice from her eyes and blood had banished the blue from her lips, but it was not until her passion had suddenly uncovered a completely transformed face that he had known he had been betrayed, and would be betrayed again if it suited whatever purposes she still held hidden inside.

He desired her still. Perhaps even more than before, for her own unbridled desire ignited even a greater fire within him than had her icy facade. But the total abandon he had known throwing himself into winter's unforgiving grasp would never come again. He wanted her, as he had always and would always want her, but now he knew what treachery winter hid beneath her smile. Undeniably he wanted her, could not stop wanting her, and even though he had resisted, he knew that it was inevitable that he would succumb to her once again. That was why he had agreed to pay her price, why he had agreed despite the fact that there was clearly more to her price than she acknowledged, much more than he could probably afford. But he would finally have his Dreamer killed, for he knew just how deadly his wintry lover could be, and he would have his ice queen once more, would plunge into her freezing depths until she melted in his arms. He would have her, but he would not trust her.

She stood before him, as ruthless in her patience as an advancing glacier, and for a moment he almost took her, almost threw her to the ground, almost gnawed through the ice to draw blood from that immaculate face, but he restrained himself. She might not realize, as he did, that his power would be far greater the moment his Dreamer was killed, and any tricks his lover might intend to play would have considerably less of a chance at success. So he would be patient as she was patient. He would burn with patience, burn with the suppression of his desire.

She stood before him, and finally he reached out his hand, reached as if he was extending himself through the farthest folds of the void, and wrapped his invisible claws around her shimmering form. She shuddered in his grasp, and once again he had to rein in his desire. "You must enclose me completely," she moaned, her voice muffled, as if she had already been carried far away. "Your presence must smother mine."

His hand expanded until he seemed to see her wavering form through a fine red mist. Her eyelids drooped sensually and an indecipherable smile played across her lips. "Whenever you are ready," she called. "Take me straight to her."

A growl built deep in his chest until his hand clenched and his claws itched to pierce through her icy facade. "I will drop you where I last sensed her," he finally rumbled. "You will have to find her yourself."

Within his fist, she was careful not to show her elation, but within herself, she squirmed with pleasure. Once again she had maneuvered her lover into doing exactly what she wanted, precisely when she wanted it done. He had submitted to her price, but only after she had driven him so ruthlessly that he had finally blundered, driven him until he had left his mark on his minions so unmistakably that they could not afford another failure. Yet fail they had, just as she had expected they would, and now the Dreamer truly remembered, and in remembering had closed herself away from her creation's sight and senses. Yes, everything was happening just as she wished, just as she had envisioned in her icy scheming. And as her demon lover hurled her through the void and past the Barrier she could never have crossed on her own, her inner ice tinkled and chimed with delight, for everything she wanted would soon be hers.

She could feel the ground of a waking world solidify beneath her feet, could hear the shrill sound of a scream, could smell fear, but not just any fear. She smelled the fear she had waited so long to smell, so close, and this time she made no attempt to hide her gleeful smile.

Drew felt frozen in place as she watched the exquisite face unfolding from within the silver flecks. It took a moment for her to realize that she was cold, unbelievably cold, and that her body was frozen to the ground as if she had stepped on a frigid metal rail with wet, bare feet. She tore her eyes from the inhumanly beautiful face and looked down to see thick blue threads zigzagging up her legs, and a quick glance toward Gyfree revealed that heavy cords of blue were also binding him in place. She could sense the faintest touch of her demon Figment upon this beautiful, ice-cold apparition, and she suddenly was more afraid than she had been since that long-ago night when she had opened her dream filled eyes to see him standing hungrily at the foot of her bed. Yet her own fear was forgotten even more quickly than it had been remembered, for when she raised her eyes to Gyfree's face, his eyes were filled with flinty ice crystals and his skin was as blue as a corpse.

The stunning vision stepped gracefully across the frozen ground, her feet gliding through the chunks of ice strewn across her path as if she was a bride wading through rose petals. A veil of ice even seemed to drift across her face like the most delicate veil of fine lace, and the icicles that dangled from her clasped fingers were more lovely than the freshest wedding bouquet. She moved slowly, as if in time to the stately march that brought all women to their intended grooms, her eyes on the man who had brought her to this long-anticipated, glorious moment when she would proclaim her final conquest to an audience held in thrall by her unearthly beauty. He had tried to run, her smile said, but no man could resist a woman like her forever, and now his running days were over. Permanently.

As she reached Gyfree's side she raised a blue-fingered hand to stroke his cheek, leaving five streaks of frost like a brand frozen into his skin. "Well, little boy," she murmured in a voice that sent chills down the spine and thickened blood in the veins until the very heart felt clogged with slush. "You've grown up rather nicely, haven't you? You were such a scruffy, skinny child, but you're actually a rather attractive man." She pulled his head down with one hand and pressed her lips to his. When she released him and stepped back, Drew could see that his mouth and chin were white, as was the back of his head where the vision had touched him. His eyes, however, were so black it seemed that the icy slivers within them had melted away. The vision smiled again, and to Drew it was as horrible as if winter itself had smiled at the same moment that it had unleashed an earth-shattering blizzard. "We have so much to catch up on, don't we?" the vision purred. "I hear you've done fairly well for yourself. You're even Keeper here now. I was worried about that. You have kept me away from the Barrier all these years, but you never dreamed of what would happen if I found a different way in. That was quite foolish of you, but as Keeper you might, just might, have still been able to cause me the slightest bit of trouble. Lucky for me that you and your foolish companions hadn't budged from this spot before I dropped in. I hate having a good surprise ruined. Don't you? Which reminds me. As the saying goes in your old world, business before pleasure. Where is the Dreamer he sent me here to kill?"

"I'm here," chimed in a shaky voice, and Drew turned startled eyes toward the place where Timi stood, the shadow of a dream flitting through her eyes, her chin lifted defiantly as if daring the exquisite Figment to touch her with an icy hand.

The Figment's glorious eyes narrowed as she surveyed the young woman whose face was so drained of color that she almost appeared like a pillar of ice herself. She stepped away from Gyfree and the nearby Drew and toward Timi, cold eyes so intently drilling into the young woman that she did not see the ghostly shape of a hummeybee materialize directly behind her frost-rimed head. Unlike the real hummeybees, Timi's dream version sped on silent wings, its razored stinger as long and glowing as a poker that had rested continually deep in the heart of a fire. Timi was careful to avoid looking at her lethal creation as it dove toward the back of the beautiful ice queen, stinger aimed directly between the frost-covered shoulder blades, but her caution was wasted. The spectral hummeybee plunged into the ice queen's back, only to instantly vanish, the hissing sound of burning metal doused in water the sole evidence that it had ever been given birth.

The ice queen paused, her delicate brows raised above frost-filled eyes. "No, I think not," she mused. "If that is the best you can do, you are definitely not the one I seek. Your dreams are too tenuous to pose any threat. Dealing with you wouldn't even offer sport; you're not worth the effort it would take to kill you. So stop bothering me." With the airy gesture of someone blowing a kiss, the Figment exhaled a silver-flecked breath in the direction of Timi's face, and the young woman crumpled soundlessly to the ground.

The interruption provided by Timi, however, had afforded enough time for the frozen heaviness in Drew's mind to melt away, and a dream now filled her eyes with all of the heat and rage of a wildfire. If ice was the weapon she must fight, at least her dreams had often seethed with the perfect counterweapon. The heat of her dream spread rapidly within her mind and through her body, until she could feel the life flowing once more through her limbs, could even see the ice binding her melt and then evaporate into the air. She flexed her toes against the thawing ground, and flexed her fingers in the warming air, and as the last grip of the ice fell away, stepped closer to Gyfree and took his stiff, icy hand in her own. The heat traveled from her palm into his, and she could feel his fingers twitching as he weakly tried to return her clasp. Yet there was not enough time to accomplish more.

"You, on the other hand," the cold voice whispered in Drew's ear, "are definitely of interest. In fact, of all Dreamers alive or dead, you may be the most interesting of all." The beautiful woman moved from behind Drew to stand directly before her, exquisite face coldly amused. "Yes, very interesting indeed," she murmured, and as Drew watched, the lovely face shimmered and dissolved, silver flecks swirling as if caught in a turbulent storm. When the storm settled a man as breathtaking as the woman, but with eyes equally biting, stood before her on the frozen ground. The man reached out a hand to cup Drew's face, but where his skin met hers, a thin stream of steam drifted into the air. For a brief moment the eyes in the flawless face widened as if in surprise, but the moment was fleeting, and as she looked into the ice-hard face, Drew wasn't certain whether or not that single moment had existed only in her dream.

A smile curled the man's sensuous lips, but it reminded Drew of jagged lightning as it skated across his face. "Do you even know what makes you special?" asked the man. "You created the most powerful Figment of all. You created the one Figment so alive that his form is as permanent and fixed as yours. More permanent, in fact, because where you change over time, he remains forever the same. He is the one who makes all other Figments bow down and call him master. All Figments, that is, except me." The cold eyes traveled down Drew's body to the hand she held clasped in Gyfree's. Another smile streaked across his face, splitting apart the icy stillness. "Very touching, but I'm afraid this one is mine," he murmured, reaching out a hand with fingers as long and pointed as icicles to touch Gyfree's arm. Within the heat of Drew's grasp, Gyfree's fingers again stiffened with cold, and his warm palm hardened beneath a layer of ice. Pain shot through Drew's fingers, as if she clutched freezing metal in her bare hand, but still she held on. "Too bad for you, really. Considering how much you have in common, you would have probably made a perfect pair. Unfortunately, neither of you bothered to destroy your creations when we were still weak enough to kill. Through all the passing years, we've grown far stronger than even the two of you could ever dream. And now it's no longer within your power to destroy us. The most you could ever accomplish these days is simply keeping us at arms' length. And as you see," the cold voice pressed, the inhuman face wavering back and forth between the perfect features of a woman and a man, "even that ability will ultimately fail."

Drew's eyes sparked, red flames licking at the black centers focused on the wavering face. "So why isn't my Figment here if he's so strong?" she demanded. "Why isn't he here to kill me himself? Why did he send you instead?"

The vacillating face laughed, and despite the fluid changeability of the features, the voice was still as hard and unforgiving as the heart of winter. "I told you that you were special. You have a particularly strong ability to keep him at arms' length. Even before he blundered, you managed to keep him away without even consciously trying. That's why he sent me to kill you. No other Dreamer could have kept him away for so long, but then, no other Dreamer could have dreamed him in the first place. You may be special, but he's also very, very special. Especially to me."

"Is that why you agreed to kill me? To please him?"

This time it was the woman's face that threw back her frost-filled hair and laughed, the sound rumbling through the trees like a distant avalanche. "I didn't agree to kill you. I begged for the opportunity, although actually pleasing him was the last thing I had in mind. That is one way he and I are exactly alike. Everything he does, he does for himself. Everything I do is for myself and only myself. I needed his help to get here, and I used his craving for your death to get him to unwittingly help me. I did come here to kill, but not to kill you. I would prefer you to stay alive, at least for a while. As long as you live, and as long as you remember him, you will limit his power. And by limiting him, you will strengthen me. You will give him and all of his power to me, and then I will have the force, the vitality, the substance that he alone now claims. No, I have no intention of killing you."

The fire leapt in Drew's eyes, but as much as she filled her daydream vision with flames, she still could not return warmth to the frozen hand held immobile in her grip. "You're Gyfree's Figment," she stated. "You came to kill him."

The man's face answered. "Of course. He kept me away for years, but I watched and waited until an opportunity to slip past his precautions offered itself. Let that be a lesson to you, Dreamer. I hope it's a lesson you learn well. Never drop your vigilance, or he'll descend upon you, and you'll have no more warning than my Dreamer here. To warn you is to empower you, and that is something neither he nor I are foolish enough to allow." The face shifted again, the eyes ringed with tiny crystals of ice that sparkled like precious jewels against the flawless skin. "Although if I have my way, he will no longer be around to haunt you. In fact, you should wish me success, and surrender my Dreamer to me freely. This one's death will make me stronger, and the stronger I am, the better my chances of defeating my demon lover, and the only chance you'll ever have of living life without needing to keep one eye always open."

"And if I refuse?"

The man's face smiled cruelly as he answered, "I'll kill him regardless, but I might accidentally hurt you in the process." The lovely face solidified once more, and the woman of ice stood calmly before Drew. "Don't consider it a loss when he dies," she sighed, her breath redolent with the stench of all the decay and death buried deep beneath the pristine surface of fresh snow. "Passion can only make you weak, will distract you from what is truly important. I lost my hold on your demon in a moment of passion, for I forgot to keep hidden my changeable nature. Men, even demon men, are so obsessed with what they want us to be, that they are very unforgiving if we expose something more. It has taken me a long time to regain at least part of the position I lost in one moment of passion, to get close enough to my former lover to finally lure him into my trap. Don't let passion expose you to disappointments, or even dangers, it would be much better to avoid. Just like me, you'll be stronger when my Dreamer is dead."

Freezing eyes locked on burning eyes, and Drew knew, knew without question, that in any direct confrontation, she would lose. Ice would conquer fire, and Gyfree would be dead. There was nothing she could do to stop it, not if she played the ice queen's game. Instead she dropped her head, smoky hair falling across her face to hide the new dream pouring through her eyes, her shoulders stooped as if in defeat even though defeat was not something she intended to accept.

The ice queen suddenly seemed far away as Drew cast her mind fully into her dream. She was hidden beneath the stairs again, lying on the bed, but she wasn't alone. Gyfree was with her, wrapped in her arms, her mouth above his breathing hot air into his lungs, her smoldering body pressing insistently against his. In her dream he was as impatient and inflamed as she was, and his lips devoured hers eagerly as his hands slid up her back, crushing her against him until she felt her flesh melting into his flesh, felt the blaze of a fire that threatened to consume them both. And still they kissed, their breath quick and urgent, their hearts raging against each other, their bodies clinging together, burning with the abandon of a wildfire.

In the frozen clearing the ice queen smiled in triumph as she laid a blue tipped hand over her Dreamer's heart, and her eyes glittered as she felt his blood thicken, felt his veins harden, felt his heartbeat falter, and then felt the last feeble contraction of his heart, and finally, after years of waiting and yearning for this moment, felt him die. His lifeless body crumpled to the ground, and as he fell, so did the other Dreamer, his hand still clutched in hers. The beautiful face fell away, and something truly hideous laughed raucously, but Drew paid no attention, for she was far away, Gyfree's lips devouring hers, just as fire seemed to devour their two bodies. "Poor Dreamer," the icy nightmare mocked. "For all you know, I will devour his cravings when I devour your demon, and I'll soon be back seeking your death. In the meantime, however, I will need to take him something to convince him you are already dead. I'm sure you won't mind, but he's going to demand at least some of your blood." Reaching out a jagged blue claw, the Figment ripped through the sleeve of Drew's borrowed clothes, slicing through her skin from shoulder to wrist, catching the blood that gushed forth in the palms of her icy hands before vanishing into a swirl of silver flecks.

Locked in Gyfree's embrace, Drew could still feel the sharp pain tear through her arm, as if a blade of ice had sliced her open all the way to the bone. And almost inseparable from that distant pain was the sensation of Gyfree's hand lying motionless and icy in hers. But here two insistent hands gripped her back, and just beneath her body was his responsive body, and where their two bodies touched she could feel the rush of heat through his veins, could feel his lungs gulping the same fiery air she breathed, could feel his heart surging wildly against hers, could even feel him suddenly shudder violently. Opening her eyes, she stared down into his. "She's gone," he whispered, breath warm against her face. "Now what?"

"Now we dream, as vividly as we can, that I knew what I was doing."

Drew remembered few stories from her childhood, perhaps because few stories had seemed as relevant or as real as her dreams. There had been one story, though, that had somehow clung to her memory as tenaciously as any dream, and that had been the story of Snow White. There had always been something about the idea that everyone thought she was dead; they had even encased her body in a coffin. But it had been clear to Drew that Snow White couldn't be dead, because a kiss could not bring a dead person back to life. Yet a kiss might very well wake someone from a dream, so it seemed obvious that Snow White was alive and well, living happily in a dream while the waking world wailed and wept around her. Prince Charming had not brought her back to life. He had disturbed her dream and awakened her, and whether that would guarantee a happily ever after for the two of them remained to be seen. If he forced her awake every time she was in the middle of a pleasant dream, he certainly wasn't going to be around for long.

Like Snow White, Drew dreamt a pleasant dream, and in her dream Gyfree was no more dead than Snow White had been; he was happily alive in a dream somewhere. In fact, he was alive in the same dream she inhabited, and all it would take would be a kiss in the waking world to rouse him from his deathlike slumber. Here in the room beneath the stairs she hugged Gyfree close, her lips pressed firmly against his, and at the same time, back in the clearing her lips moved as if they had a life of their own, trailing across the still, cold face that lay on the ground beside her dreaming body. There was no breath drifting across the icy lips when her mouth found his, but she still parted his lips with her own, kissing him as deeply as she kissed him in her dream. At first nothing happened, and despair seized her, threatening to drag her into a nightmare in which Gyfree's ghost would haunt her forever, but then the cold lips quivered, and the burning lips in her dream stilled. The heat rushed back into her deserted body, and she found herself laying on the cold, hard ground, kissing Gyfree as he lay beside her, his body pressing against hers with a force that finally rolled her over onto her back. After a few minutes that left her breathless, the lips on hers lifted, and she cracked her eyes open to stare at the golden brown eyes glowing down at her. Then Gyfree smiled, and it was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen; so wonderful that she doubted Prince Charming could have been more stunned than she felt when the cold corpse he had touched with his lips was transformed into his dream princess.

"Do you two want to be alone?" a voice teased weakly from across the clearing, and both Gyfree and Drew turned their heads to see Timi wobbling unsteadily on her feet. "I can just go hide behind a tree."

"That won't be necessary," Gyfree answered lightly. "There's a little hideaway we can get to as quick as a dream if we want to be alone. And no one except the two of us will even know we're gone."

Whether it was the strain left by the ice queen's visit, the fear she had known with Gyfree's death and the even greater fear that preceded his return to life, or simply the sense of anticlimax that followed a dream so passionate it had brightened her room beneath the stairs, Drew's emotions required some release, and she laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks and her sides ached as much as her arm. When the laughter and tears had finally subsided, Gyfree pulled her gently up to sit beside where he now knelt on the ground, but even his slight tug sent a bolt of unbearable pain down her arm. The world around her swirled with a gray that had nothing to do with any dream, and from a distance even farther than the room beneath the stairs, she could hear Timi's shrill shriek. As if from an insurmountable height she gazed down at her arm. The long gash left by the Figment was filled with tiny crystals of ice that swarmed like maggots in rotten meat, and the blood that seeped from the wound was blue, just as the surrounding skin was blue, the unhealthy blue of a corpse. Then Gyfree's hands were on her, were covering her festering wound, and the pain was being sponged away; the gray receded from the world and Timi's voice sounded directly in her ear. "Is she going to be okay?"

"She'll be fine," Gyfree answered, his voice as unsteady as his hands were calm.

"I'm already fine," Drew informed them both. "What's one more Figment wound to a Dreamer? Especially a Dreamer who has someone nearby who can heal even the nastiest bite or gash."

Although it wasn't the first time, it was still a very nice feeling to have Gyfree take her in his arms and hold her close despite the fact that they both seemed to be fully awake.

 

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Framed