Guinevere was all alone, running through the dark. Running from…
What?
She came up short, catching her breath, leaning slightly against a shadowed bookshelf. That contact grounded her in this place — the Library. But why was it so dark? She tried to remember, but her mind was a haze, her memories muddled. She remembered her training session with Sheena, and washing up afterward. Then she and Ava had heard the lullaby from Dormouse’s room again…
We went to her. And inside that room…
She shook her head. That was where things grew hazy.
And then her heart skipped a beat. A shiver ran down her spine. She ran on ahead, sprinting down the aisle of bookshelves, turning at her first opportunity, and then turning again. Something was in these halls, something terrifying, something in pursuit of her.
Of her, all alone.
She stopped again, crashing against a bookshelf. Heedless of the pain, she spun about, casting her gaze through the shadows.
But she wasn’t there.
Ava wasn’t with her.
“Ava!” she cried out, her voice coming out shrill, tense. “Ava, come!”
But she heard no bark, no patter of canine footsteps. Nothing at all.
She leaned back against the shelf, swallowing a sob. Terror was pressing in on her in this darkened place, and without Ava, what hope could she have?
Something moved in the shadows ahead, and Guinevere reached for her sword. But when she went to draw it, it wouldn’t budge from its sheath. Something held it fast. With a desperate, heaving tug, she still failed to clear blade from scabbard, and instead threw herself off-balance, colliding with the shelf in front of her…
No. No, she instead caught herself on a wall, a wall that hadn’t been there a moment ago. She stepped away from it, looking left and right, frantically searching the shadows for whatever it was that frightened her.
Instead, she found a familiar corridor. Even plunged in darkness, she wouldn’t fail to recognize it.
She was… home.
But that made no sense. She couldn’t be here. Moreover, she didn’t want to be here. After her daring escape, this was the last place she ever wanted to return to!
“Don’t lie to yourself, Guin.”
Guinevere spun around at the sudden voice, and found Alice.
No… Not-Alice. The girl from the grove, the strange lookalike whom Alice had told Guinevere not to listen to. With a black dress and a black butterfly barrette in her hair, she had frightened Alice so much, and once Guinevere had broken free from the strange spell she’d been under, she’d been frightened, too.
“Don’t call me that,” Guinevere said, taking a step back.
Not-Alice pouted. “You didn’t tell Alice not to,” she said. “And after I made you such a meaningful promise. I thought that was the beginning of a long and fruitful friendship.”
“I don’t want any lies!” Guinevere said. Suddenly, her mind was clear. She remembered, now — Not-Alice had told Dormouse to bring Guinevere’s nightmare to life, and then the dark had descended upon her world.
Her nightmare…
Guinevere spun back, breaths coming rapid, eyes wide, searching the dark for him.
The Nightmare King.
“Oh, he’s here,” Not-Alice said. Casually, dismissively, as if he was no problem at all. “He’ll find you eventually. Or you’ll find him. But that’s the point of all this, Guin.”
“Stop it,” Guinevere said, but she couldn’t put the fire into her voice. She turned back to face Not-Alice, and found the girl looking at her with a surprisingly earnest expression.
“He’s holding you back from your true potential,” the girl said. “And I figured, since we were both here at the Library, and lovely little Dormouse is here, too, why not give you a little push? Fears don’t go away unless we face them head-on.”
“Why would you do this to me?” Guinevere asked.
Not-Alice blinked twice, and cocked her head to the side. “I’m fairly certain I just answered that,” she said. Then she shrugged, and spun, turning her back on Guinevere. “It’s up to you now, Guin. Don’t let him have you. Seriously.” She shivered, and made a sound like she’d just stepped on something gross. “The plans he has for you… I wouldn’t wish them on my own family. Which is… hm. Well, one problem at a time. Good luck, Guin! Don’t let your fears get the best of you. Listen to the song in your heart.” She cast a smile over her shoulder at Guinevere. “You’re going to be amazing. Songbirds are like swords: the best are forged in the hottest of fires.”
She took one step away from Guinevere, and was gone.
Guinevere was alone again.
But not for long.
She could feel his presence behind her. She could see him in her mind’s eye, seated upon his shadowy throne, a crown of smoking shadow atop his head, and his smile, that terrible, beautiful smile, etched on his face.
Against her will, Guinevere turned around.
Towards the Nightmare King.
The world shifted. All around her seemed to vanish, her vision pulled towards the King and his throne, as if he was all that there was in the entire world. And she felt that unsettling sensation, that feeling of a mask on her face, a disguise obscuring her true self…
Stop! she cried. But though she opened her mouth, her voice wouldn’t come. The dark was silencing, deafening, the King all there was in the whole world. All that mattered.
Guinevere’s voice was of no consequence. Her desires were unimportant.
The King wanted her. Why shouldn’t she want him in return? He stretched out his strong hand to her, his posture all confidence, strength, and indomitable presence…
But not intimidating. No, there was something powerfully inviting about his strength, about his confidence. If Guinevere were in his arms, she would be safe, forever. She would never have to fear any danger, for what could possibly harm this King? And he was reaching for her, smiling at her, desiring her.
And yet…
And yet Guinevere wanted to recoil. She wanted to go to him, and she hated that she wanted him, and part of her was repulsed by him, instinctively pulling away. A war within herself.
“We are all fighting a war within ourselves, Guin. Every single day.”
The words of Tycho, her sword instructor, rang clear in her mind. Even so, she couldn’t so easily win this fight, or pull away from the Nightmare King.
Until he spoke.
“Come, my Queen,” he said, his voice warm and soothing, strong and confident.
But his words had the exact opposite effect he intended.
I’m not your Queen! Guinevere’s voice still wouldn’t come, but she shouted out at him anyway. And moreover, you are no King!
With a force of effort — so much more effort than she wished it would take — Guinevere turned away from the Nightmare King and ran.
No more manor halls, here. She was back in the Library, shrouded in darkness. “Ava!” she cried, and her voice rang out shrill and panicked in the dark. “Alice! Sheena! Where is everyone?”
She turned a sharp corner, going too fast. She crashed against a bookshelf, bounced away from it, and steadied herself on the next one before racing forward again. Pain throbbed through her injured hand, and up that same arm, stinging in her elbow and shoulder. She was struggling to get in a full breath.
And then she gasped, and flailed her arms for balance. The floor was suddenly gone in front of her, only a vast chasm awaiting. One foot slipped, and she pivoted, grasping onto a banister for support. There were stairs, stairs heading down, if she could just get onto them. She pulled, but something else pulled at her from below. Not something with a physical grip on her, no — something like gravity, but multiplied, a force of nature, a call of something deep below, some terror that she battled desperately to escape.
She looked up, and there was a hand, reaching out for her. The strong, steady hand of the Nightmare King. He smiled down at her, and spoke soothingly. “Here, now. Take my hand. Let me save you from all of this. Let me protect you.”
Guinevere clenched her jaw and pulled harder at the banister, struggling to get onto the stairs. The Nightmare King reached closer for her, nearly touching…
And Guinevere found herself on a precipice. If the force pulling at her let go, or she broke free of it, she would tumble right into the Nightmare King’s arms. Safety, assured protection, awaited her there.
But if she rejected the Nightmare King, as she was trying so hard to do, she risked tumbling headlong into the dark, into the chasm, into the unknown terror that hungered for her.
What choices were these?
Guinevere looked up at the Nightmare King’s face, at his unshakeable smile, his certain, endless confidence. But in that, and his outstretched hand, she also saw how much he wanted her. And she remembered Not-Alice’s warning, about the plans the shadowy King-pretender had for her.
No. Whatever you want of me… you are not my King. And I will never be your Queen. Why you’re here, why you endlessly haunt and pursue me, I don’t know.
But I really don’t care.
Guinevere didn’t just let go of the banister. She pushed, with all her might, flinging herself away from the Nightmare King. She caught a swift glimpse of his face, expecting dismay, or frustration, but no.
He just kept smiling. He even chuckled, a soft, warm laugh.
And then Guinevere was falling, tumbling into the chasm, hurtling headlong into the abyss. She tried to fling out her arms, her legs, to steady herself, to stop the constant spinning, to try and get a glimpse of what she was falling towards…
And then all there was, was pain. She collided with something hard, bounced off onto something else just as hard, and then was tumbling down rough, stone surfaces, each one slanted just right to keep her tumbling, falling, pain lancing through her whole body. She grasped for a handhold and scraped her fingers against stone, then cut her palm on something as sharp as any sword, and cried out. Slamming into a column of stone, her breath was knocked out of her, and she fell…
Into water.
Flailing, floundering, she struggled for a surface that she couldn’t find. She had mere moments before she had to take a breath, and with only water, that would only end one way. She couldn’t let that happen! Wracked with pain, she felt so heavy, so sluggish, trying to get her feet under her, trying to move her bruised, slashed, aching arms to propel her towards the surface, towards air and some kind of safety, and then…
Her lungs protested. Her mouth opened.
Water rushed in, in place of air.
She tried to cough, to spit it out, to stop herself, but all she got was a burning in her lungs, in her throat. Her arms and legs were like lead, they wouldn’t move, and then she was falling, and the dark was closing in over her, threatening to steal away all consciousness…
This… was the end. And despite the pain, Guinevere welcomed it. If this was the only escape from the Nightmare King, perhaps she should take it. If death was the only way to deny him what he wanted, then that was her course.
And if there was no more fight left, then there was no more struggle. No more fear. Only…
“Oh, stop that.”
Not-Alice’s voice. And a second later, Guinevere was falling — downwards, not up — out of the water, onto a carpeted floor with a heavy crash. She rolled onto her hands and knees, coughing, gagging, spitting up water, gasping for breath.
Her eyes found Not-Alice’s bare feet, right in front of her.
“Dreams don’t kill you,” the girl said. “Even the worst nightmares. Even brought to startlingly real life by Dormouse’s powers. And you don’t really want death. Is your brain so hopelessly addled that you can’t put up a real fight anymore? You’re done with all that fiery, bold defiance you’ve displayed throughout your entire life? I don’t think so.”
“What… do you know… about my life?” Guinevere asked, between ragged gasps of air.
“I’ve been watching you, of course,” Not-Alice said. She knelt down, and tilted Guinevere’s face up, so their eyes met. A smile waited on her lips, danced in her eyes. And Guinevere saw the truth in her words. She was just a child, she couldn’t possibly be more than ten years old. And yet she had been watching Guinevere for more than ten years.
Not-Alice giggled. “Impossible things happen every day,” she said. “Now, then. Do something about this, won’t you?” She gestured at Guinevere with a vague motion, as if “this” meant everything about Guinevere. “Honestly. You and I both know you’re better than this.”
And then the girl was gone. Guinevere coughed again, but try as she might, the burning in her throat wasn’t going to go away. She breathed, as deep as she could, and then, staggering, found her way to her feet. With a hand against the wall, she steadied herself…
In a familiar bedroom.
“What…?” Guinevere started, blinking at her room, her beautiful cage. Moonlight streamed in through the windows. And under the covers…
A girl was crying. Long, thick red tresses fell about the girl’s face, but Guinevere knew that hair. She knew those hands, poking up out of the covers — younger than hers, but the same size, the same shape.
It was her. But younger. How much…
“Someone, help,” the girl whimpered. “Ava? Ava, where are you?”
And Guinevere knew — this was her, ten years ago. Fifteen years old, the night the dreams started.
The advent of the Nightmare King.
“I…” Guinevere started, taking a step towards the bed. But she paused. Battered and bruised, soaking wet and bloody and grimy… she was in no shape to comfort a child. She was in no shape to comfort anyone, let alone herself.
But the soft sobbing, the glimpse of frightened green eyes peeking through her hair…
Guinevere shook her head and, with shaky steps, approached the bed. She meant to sit on it, but stumbled before she reached it, and instead knelt on the carpet at her teenaged self’s bedside.
“Ava is waiting for you, when you wake up,” Guinevere said. “This is just a dream. You’ll be all right.”
“You don’t look all right,” the younger Guinevere said. She brushed away her hair so the girls could look at each other face-to-face. And Guinevere was startled by how natural this felt. It wasn’t strange, or surreal, being face-to-face with her younger self. She reached out her hand, and grasped her younger self’s hand, and that, too, was so natural. Like it was always meant to be this way.
“I’m not,” Guinevere said, and surprised herself when she laughed. Just a short little laugh, but it was something. “You’ll be all right, though. Close your eyes, and you’ll wake up soon. And Ava will be there, happy to greet you.”
“But what do I do about the song?” the younger Guinevere asked.
“Song?” Guinevere asked.
Fifteen year-old Guinevere pulled back the covers, and brought forth something in her hands. When she opened them, a song filled the room, and with it, a glow of golden light, a sphere of magical beauty, radiating within the younger Queen’s hands.
The song was… strange. It was beautiful, but there was something ethereal in its beauty, something haunting and alien. It was familiar, Guinevere thought, too… but as she listened…
“No,” she said, shaking her head. She felt it, a strange sensation in her head, like something was reaching into her, seeking into the depths of her, to unmake her…
“Stop it!” she cried, pulling back from the light.
Not-Alice sighed behind her. “So,” she said softly. “You aren’t ready yet, after all. I’m always jumping the gun, aren’t I? Too bad.”
Guinevere turned, but Not-Alice wasn’t there.
Instead, she found the Nightmare King.
“No!” She staggered backwards, away from him, and collided with her bed. She fell onto it, but not onto her younger self — the younger Guinevere was gone, and the song and the golden light with her. Guinevere rolled across the mattress, frantically rushing away from the shadowed King and his reaching, wanting hands. She found her feet on the other side of the bed, and came up short against the walls of her room, this room that was so lavish, so grand for a bedroom, and yet she’d known it too long, been trapped here too long.
It had always been too small. And now, when space counted most, there was nowhere to go. She couldn’t escape.
“Guin!” cried Alice from somewhere distant. Somehow, Guinevere knew it was Alice, and not her unsettling lookalike. “Tobias says ‘steal the dark’! That will bring us to you!”
“Steal the dark…?”
The Nightmare King reached for Guinevere, and in that moment of closeness, of desperate lack of options, searching for a last resort, her mind was suddenly startlingly clear.
She raised her hand, pressing her middle finger against her thumb. A glyph of purple light, the size of a currency coin, manifested above her fingers. Within the circle, an intricate, complex pattern formed.
Guinevere called upon her glyph artes, honed through ten years of individual study and training. The power to steal, and to set free. She snapped her fingers.
And stole the dark.
Shadows swept aside like a curtain, letting light come rushing in. Not the frightening light her teenaged self had been so unsure of, the light that had brought the song and terrified her, no. This was not so bright, not so magical. It was ordinary lamplight, with no ethereal melody, but it was all around, and it was beautifully bright after so long in the dark.
More than that, Guinevere’s bedroom was gone. She was back in the Library, in some wing she didn’t recognize, hadn’t explored before. But that didn’t matter.
What mattered was: she wasn’t alone anymore.
In leapt Tobias and Sheena, his obsidian blade and her azure blade tracing gleaming arcs as they slashed at the Nightmare King’s reaching hand. The shadowy King-pretender flinched back, and Tobias and Sheena stood between him and Guinevere, swords brandished against him. Elliot joined them, his silver blade shining in bright defiance alongside theirs.
And with them came Alice and Ninian, rushing to Guinevere’s side… and Flynn, Hector, and Akko, dashing to see to her health…
And Ava. Sweet, lovable Ava was here, and Guinevere was no longer alone. She knelt and embraced her dog, finding comfort and safety in her soft, warm affection.
“Thanks for that,” Alice said. “We were trapped, unable to intervene. Until Tobias had an idea, but his voice wouldn’t come through. For some reason, you could only hear me.”
“So he came for you,” Tobias said, and Guinevere looked up. There was fire in Tobias’ voice, and recognition as he glared up at the Nightmare King. “Your battle is with me, remember? Or did you think I’d given up?”
“The other girl was just a test,” the Nightmare King said, his confidence undaunted by his heroic adversaries. “You could do nothing to save her. And you can do nothing to save my Queen. Or have you still not realized? I am the only King there is, and ever shall be!”
“You’re nothing but a phantom, grasping at vain ambition,” Tobias said. “And you will leave here, and never return!”
He and Elliot leapt forward, in a daring double-slash maneuver that they must have trained a thousand times before, executing with flawless grace, leaving a gleaming X in the wake of their blades.
And in that flashing strike, the Nightmare King vanished. Guinevere shuddered, and gasped, as she felt the sudden departure of his presence. It was something that had settled over this dream — over all her dreams — like the pressure before a heavy storm. She’d held it for so long, she’d become accustomed to it. Now that it was gone, she felt… light. Airy.
But… not yet free.
“Are you all right?” Tobias asked, racing to her, kneeling across from her, his summer sky-blue eyes searching hers, filled with concern.
“Why…” Guinevere started, but she couldn’t ask the question that haunted her lips.
Why do you care so much? And why…
Why do you threaten to remind me of him?
Before she could say anything further, clapping sounded behind her. They all turned, and saw Not-Alice standing upon a stage, clapping her hands, smiling at them. “Bravo!” she cheered. “What a performance! Not at all what I’d planned on, but if I cared about things going to plan, I’d have stopped having fun ages ago. Now, then. The Nightmare’s over — so it’s my turn.”
“What have you done?” Alice asked, her voice taut with tension.
As if in answer, the façade of Guinevere’s bedroom fell away. There was Not-Alice upon her stage, but all around them was…
Chaos.
Levels of what probably were a wing of the Library at some point were crashing, crushing, crumbling into ruin all around them. Jutting up from the floor, impaling bookshelves, forming up new barricades, clawing up towards a towering ceiling was black rock, jagged and vicious.
Guinevere had heard of such rock formations. Her heart knotted itself with dread. It couldn’t be…
“Oh, Alice,” Not-Alice said, giggling. “Isn’t it obvious? This is my Fracture. And you’re all my guests! Now the fun can really begin.”