Chapter 4

  Not Dreaming; Nightmare-ing

  My sleep is filled with nightmares. I see the Guard and Soldiers. I see them fall over and over and over again. I see dust pour from every bit of their bodies, whispering a million promises as it blankets the ground in piles that grow and grow until they meet and then rise until the Guard and Soldiers die standing, held upright by the dust and dirt and sand. I see the Throne Room covered in the very material I should be able to control, but it does not respond, even as I beckon it, and I’m helpless as it rises and rises in the Throne Room and I tip my head back as the dust rises to my chin.

  My vision warps, and the Throne Room clears and I begin to forget why I thought it wasn’t clear to begin with. The Guard and Soldiers advance upon me again, bows nocked with arrows and swords drawn and all at the ready. Again, their bodies spit out sand and dust. It spills from their mouths in whispered promises of the power of the Amethyst Throne I know is somewhere here in the Throne Room, but I cannot see it, yet still it lurks, an ever-watching, ever-present thing. An element never to be escaped. The dust tells me a thousand, a million, a billion promises of what the Amethyst Throne can do for me, whispers them right in my ears, and I listen. I hear the promises, and they call to me in the most tantalizing kind of way. I want it so bad. I want the peace the dust tells me the Amethyst Throne can bring, the power I will have.

  But at the same time, I remain there, watching as the Guard and Soldiers fall again and again and again to the very powers the dust tells me to embrace.

  I don’t want that. I don’t want to just… kill.

  The snake slithers into my dream. Nightmare? At this point, I don’t even know what this is. I know I’m not awake. I know I’m dreaming. No, not dreaming. Nightmare-ing? Yes, perhaps that: Nightmare-ing. Perhaps that describes the strange happenings in my unconscious subconscious and the images it has created for me.

  I need to get out of here.

  I try to pinch myself. I try to wake myself. I try to escape the nightmare.

  Except that again, I see the Guard and Soldiers fall to the dust once more. Instead of the room filling with dust and dirt and sand, the Guard and Soldiers fill up, expanding until they’re almost spherical, inflated like I once saw someone do with animal intestines. When they pop, blood and guts splatter on me along with dust.

  xxxx

  I awake scratching at my face as I try to scrape off the pieces of the Guard and Soldiers from my face, from my neck, from my chest, from my shoulders, from my arms, from my hands, from my everywhere across my body. I scratch until my skin is raw.

  Stop it, Dust Devil. You will make yourself bleed.

  I need to get them off. I rub at my throat. I can feel the blood dripping down my jaw. I can feel the flesh as it thwacked onto my cheek with a wet shlick. I can feel the muscle as it slid down my collarbone and beneath my shirt, and I all but rip the fabric from my skin and rake my fingernails down my chest as I try to rid myself of the flesh and organs covering me.

  Dust Devil! the snake hisses. Stop this nonsense! This is stupid! You were dreaming, and now you are awake. There is nothing on you. Look at yourself. You are fine. I thought you were better than this.

  You are wrong, I say. I’m covered in blood. The Guard and Soldiers exploded. They are all over me.

  I run my fingers through my hair, and I can all but feel the bits of organs and flesh coating the strands. When I pull my hand back, I’m shaking so hard I can barely see, but I know it’s there. I know the blood and the flesh and the organs and the pieces of the Guard and Soldiers are there. I know they are. They’re there. The snake’s wrong. It just can’t see it.

  My lungs are too small, and I can’t catch my breath, and I can’t breathe, and there’s not enough air, and I’m going to pass out, and I can already see the sides of my vision closing in, and the snake is screaming at me from the depths of my head where it resides, and I cling to my hair as I gasp for breaths that won’t come, and I cough and sputter as my throat closes up, and my eyes widen, and my body goes numb and tingly, and I start to sway.

  Before I can fall, the snake barrels forward, slamming into my mind as it rears up with a spit that drips with venom that burns my head. It catches me off guard enough that I manage to drag in a wheezing breath. It rakes across my throat. I pant, shaking as sweat beads rapidly across my skin.

  Get yourself together, Dust Devil. It’s an embarrassment to be seen like this. How can you call yourself the Dust Devil like this? It was a nightmare, if you’d even call it that. I can give you a nightmare if you’d like. No one would allow something like that to affect them in such a way. Decide to pull yourself together, and see Bryant when you’ve chosen to be the Dust Devil again.

  xxxx

  I don’t know how long it takes me to calm down enough to go through the habitual motions of changing into my underclothes, then make sure my armor is all up to the orders Bryant wants before slipping into it. I fasten every buckle, pulling each one snug, then take several deep breaths before I open the door to my little room.

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

  I’m only a couple paces out the door when a young Guard approaches me, steps uncertain but with a confidence that I’ve seen in a few. It’s the kind of confidence that I know will get them far. Some part of me twists at that, but I push it down.

  “May I ask you a question?” the Guard asks, face a young puppy’s— eager to please and wide-eyes, unbroken.

  “Sure.” I nod.

  “What’s it like, being a Guard or Soldier for My Sovereign, His Excellency, His Honor, His Highest of all Highnesses, King Garonda XIV? I have never had the privilege to speak with a Soldier of your status; everyone says you’re one of the best, if not the best, Dust Devil.”

  “It’s…” I trail off, thinking over my words. It’s not like I can be honest.

  I will kill you, you ungrateful—.

  I am grateful, I quickly say to the snake to get it to be quiet so I can think and choose my words carefully. I’m grateful. I’m very grateful. I’m so grateful.

  “It’s a lot of work,” I start, because it is a lot of work. “I can only speak to being a Soldier, but I had to put in a lot of early mornings and late nights. I spent a lot of time in the sparring rings and put in a lot of time training to learn how to fight. But it’s not just fighting— it’s getting stronger, making sure you get food and sleep when you can, listening to your King of Ragdon because he is the rightful King of Ragdon. It’s more work than you have likely ever done before, but if it’s the job for you, then it’s all worth it, right?”

  The last word slips in without my consent, but I cannot help it.

  The new Guard’s eyes widen as they drink up every word I say, hanging on each syllable like every one is something precious.

  “Whoah,” they breathe. “Thank you so much. I… I-I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I never thought I would get to speak to a Soldier like you— someone of your… status so soon. It’s been a privilege, Dust Devil.”

  The Guard sticks out their hand, and I take it before I can second guess myself and overthink my way into another panic attack. I try not to let my skin crawl or my hand shake. I try to keep my grip and my handshake firm but not too tight. I don’t know that I succeed.

  xxxx

  The two Soldiers standing guard at the entrance to the Throne Room heave open the massive double doors as I approach, pulling on the rings in the mouths of the miniature replicas of the Dragon.

  I keep my gaze low, trained somewhere near the base of the Amethyst Throne. When I reach close to the end of the violet walkway that stretches from the doorway to the foot of the Amethyst Throne, I begin to drop to my knees as habit has me do, but Bryant’s sharp voice keeps me from doing so: “What do you think you are doing?”

  “I…” I frown.

  “We are equals! Silly Dust Devil.” Bryant laughs, the sound so opposite the sweat beading on my neck and between my shoulder blades. “Lucius and Erebus, what do you think you are doing? Stand up. Never drop below another, Dust Devil. You’re above them all. You were chosen by the Amethyst Throne; you are the Dust Devil.”

  Like I’ve told you, the snake murmurs in my head, voice swirling around everything, clouding over my entire mind.

  “Right, I know,” I reply. “I apologize, my King of Ragdon.”

  Bryant squints at me, before he breaks out with a massive grin. “It’s no worry. You just don’t need to kneel before an equal.” He waves his hands in a dismissive gesture. “Now, I have a job for you.”

  “Yes.” I stand up straighter and push a few stray strands of hair out of my face, tucking them in with the rest.

  Bryant leans forward on the Amethyst Throne, looking down at me. Torchlight glows on his violet suit, and light from the Amethyst Throne reflects in his purple eyes.

  “Show the world who you are,” Bryant says. “Show Ragdon who the Dust Devil is.”

  “How will you have me do so, if it pleases you to share?” I ask.

  “Speak freely, Dust Devil,” Bryant chastises. “We are equals. You are my righthand man.”

  Righthand man is not an equal, I want to say.

  How dare you correct the King of Ragdon, the snake hisses, coiling in my mind like it’s about to strike. Its eyes flash with irritation and frustration.

  “How shall I show the world who the Dust Devil is?” I ask.

  I don’t know what to say, and I don’t know how to say it. This new relationship I have with Bryant is something I don’t know how to figure out. He says we’re equals, but he’s the King of Ragdon, and I’m a Soldier in his army, while I’m also the Dust Devil. I will follow his orders as I should, and I will obey him. I will listen to him. He will give orders to me, and I will not give orders to him. He is the King, and I am not.

  “I am having a stage built where you can showcase your talents. Model Soldier that you are, I want everyone to know who the Dust Devil is. I want more to aspire to be like you.”

  No—.

  Careful what you say next.

  I…

  I trail off, thoughts not my own. The snake curls through my mind, twisting what I’m thinking until my head swims and I cannot tell up from down, what’s my own thoughts and what’s the snake putting ideas into my consciousness. I bring a fist to my mouth as I squeeze my eyes shut, wrapping my other arm around my middle.

  He’s got it wrong. I just didn’t want them to know that my ankle hurt. I just wanted to be like the others. It’s a mistake.

  The snake hisses in my mind, chains clinking as it writhes with rage. The Amethyst Throne makes no mistakes.

  I groan in pain. Please.

  Begging? Maybe the Amethyst Throne needs to transfer the power of the Dust Devil to another Soldier.

  I wonder if that would wash away the blood, but I know it won’t.

  I’m trapped here, but there’s nowhere to go. I must serve. I have to do my duty. I signed up for this. It’s my job. There’s nowhere else I can go other than the Barracks at night, and the King’s castle during the day. It’s the never-ending cycle I will repeat until I die and meet Lucius or I can perform my duties no more, in which case I will retire and train new Guard and Soldiers, still never leaving the Barracks until inhaling dust and exhaustion takes its toll and my mortal body gives out and Lucius takes my soul.

  And you realize it, the snake murmurs. You are trapped with us. Trapped with the power. Who would believe you? You have such a gift. You have been given something so many want. Something so many would kill for. Who would believe that you want to give it all up? You, someone so small, will turn your back on someone such as the King of Ragdon? The King of Ragdon who you are now the righthand man of, the King of Ragdon who you are now the equal of, the King of Ragdon who you are now the confidant of? You have heard things he will tell no one else.

  What has he told me that he will never tell another?

  That is for you to figure out.

  So nothing, I determine. This is… I cannot make sense of it. I don’t know what to do.

  But I know what my training tells me to do.

  Yes, the snake whispers, lurking close behind in my mind. Its eyes glitter, twin shards of bright amethyst. You know what to do.

  “I…” I trail off. “I will show everyone who the Dust Devil is.”

  I’m Luke. I’m not the Dust Devil, but if it’s what the King of Ragdon wants. If it’s what Bryant wants, then I can do it. I can showcase the talents of the Dust Devil.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please comment your thoughts and consider a favorite/follow, as well as a rating or a review!

  Up top is the Guard that Luke was talking to. I have drawn what the Soldiers' armor looks like, and so I figured that it was about time to consider drawing the armor of the Guard... so I did so with this particular Guard. They do not have a name, but instead are the Guard who happened to cross paths with Luke and approached him for a conversation

  How will Luke showcase his talents? How will this 'showcasing' go?

  What do you think of Luke's internal battle between the snake and the Dust Devil and Luke halves of himself?

  Which 'side' will win, if there are the different 'sides?' Luke has chosen the Dust Devil here

  I hope you're having a nice week, but if not, I hope tomorrow brings something nice your way