She hated to dream.
While she was awake, she could keep her visions under control by focusing her consciousness. But while unconscious—when the boundaries of reality began to loosen—nothing could stop her dreams. Death and destruction, hate and violence; if anything kind or gentle existed in the world, her ability refused to show it to her. She never saw anything but scenes of misery.
Images unfolded before her. A part of her mind understood that it was seeing a vision and fought against it. She didn’t want to watch.
Please, don’t!
The mask. For a moment, she was almost relieved to see something so familiar, so comforting. But then it moved aside to reveal the most hideous smile she had ever seen—a ghastly grimace tinged with hate and fear.
She couldn’t believe that it was the real face of the man who’d always been so kind so her. She withered under the piercing gaze and begged for the vision to stop, but nothing she could do would banish that horrible grin.
Stop! He doesn’t look like that!
Seeing her agony, the man’s ghastly smile widened. The mouth opened, the head tilted back, and the man laughed at her pain.
Raquel strolled around the island, lost in thought. Something had been bothering her, and she wanted to consider it without distractions.
She wasn’t able to activate her spells.
That wasn’t the case with all of them, obviously— Thor had worked fine, meaning her other attack spells were probably all right. But when she tried to cast any explorer or communication spells, nothing worked.
She had checked and double-checked the wordings of the spells until she was positive that she wasn’t remembering them incorrectly. For some reason, although she could remember the spells perfectly, the words weren’t connecting to the outside world the way they usually did. She could recite spells, but not activate them.
She could think of a few reasons why this could be happening.
Raquel’s mother had once told her about something called an “error field,” a place where, for some reason, magic simply wouldn’t work. Magic was a will-driven force that operated as direct interference to the normal laws of physics and nature, but nature tended to spring back very quickly from the interference of physical spells. The greater the effect a spell had, the greater the reaction of the world would be to correct it. In order to make any lasting change to the natural world, multiple spells usually had to be cast to stabilize, amplify, and adjust the reaction, or ordinary physics would quickly reverse the spell.
Error fields were places where the natural world’s hold was absolute, and hence were beyond the effects of magic. These places were extremely rare; even Raquel’s mother, who had once been a high-ranking palace sorcerer, had never been to one.
Another possibility was simply that her magical ability had suddenly gotten weaker. Raquel didn’t know of any reason why that would occur, but she had to consider it an option.
The only other thing she could think of that could stop certain types of spells from being cast was an active block by another sorcerer, but no sorcerer could keep such a spell going indefinitely. Spells with long durations (such as the sensor spell Asgard) were actually caused by similar spells being cast over and over, a technique that required huge mental capacity and stamina. Raquel seriously doubted that this small island was home to any sorcerer with enough power and control to cast unending blocking spells over the entire area.
Raquel frowned. Nothing about this situation made sense.
“Hello there!” a voice called out, interrupting her thoughts. “You’re up awfully early this morning.”
A few men sat on crates outside of a warehouse, taking a break from their work. Boxes full of food, probably intended for the islanders, were stacked around them.
“Yes…”
It was the morning of the siblings’ fourth day on the island, and all three of them had spent most of their time wandering around. This was partially out of boredom, but mostly because they needed to get familiar with the layout of the island if they wanted to make a quick getaway.
Although they had complied with Reynard’s wishes, Shannon, Raquel, and Pacifica had no intention of settling on the island permanently. The three of them had agreed to leave as soon as they could.
They knew the dangers of staying in one place for too long. The memory of what had happened in Taurus was still fresh in their minds; Pacifica still had nightmares about it every few nights. They all agreed that no matter how secluded the place was or how safe they felt, they wouldn’t stay in any town or village any longer than necessary.
Of course, explaining the situation to Reynard wasn’t an option. That’s why the siblings had decided to slip away unnoticed. None of the villagers had tried to stop them from roaming around, so they had to assume that they didn’t expect an escape attempt.
“Where are your brother and sister?” one of the men asked.
“I think Pacifica and Shannon are taking a walk somewhere else,” she replied. “They like to rough it a bit more than I do.”
The Casulls’ hometown Manurhin was surrounded by cliffs, rivers, and valleys, and both Shannon and Pacifica had spent their childhoods running around the countryside. Raquel had grown up reading books, practicing magic, and collecting trinkets, and had never had the physical stamina of her siblings. She had let her brother and sister investigate the rough terrain.
“I don’t have any particular plans,” Raquel told the men. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
The workmen grinned at her. They seemed to like the idea of her company.
“That’s very kind of you,” one of them said. “Would you mind making us some tea, then? You’ll find everything you need in the hut over there.”
“Sure.” Raquel followed where the man pointed, her steps light.
Elfitine awoke, sweating and gasping. She sat up and took a few deep breaths. The leader of the Blasphemers’ Garden couldn’t be seen shaking and terrified; she needed to regain her composure as quickly as possible.
Once she finally slowed her racing heart, she released a long sigh. She had had difficult nights as of late. She never slept until she was rested—only until the sickness and horror woke her from her dreams. She ran her fingers over her damp face.