Anusha wondered if she was spinning fantasies no more likely than her first panicked invention of a soul- stealing stalker.
The only way to know what afflicted her was to experiment. As her tutor so often tried to instill in her, only repeated observation, study, and questions could uncover real knowledge. She needed to explore the experience again.
Her heart's pace quickened once more, but now in anticipation.
Could I, she wondered, walk purposely as a dream in the waking world?
Anusha dumped all the clothing, shoes, and purses she'd pulled from her closets into the great leather- padded travel chest Behroun had ordered delivered to her room. The chest was so large it reminded her of a coffin.
Once the bed was cleared, she settled herself on the soft, pink-hued coverlet and closed her eyes. Beneath the coverlet, her costly feather mattress pressed only lightly into her shoulders, calves, and ankles, but her skirts and blouse made her feel uncomfortably warm and confined. Sounds of distant horns, shouts, and braying animals in the market competed for her attention. The nearer clattering chime of servants working at their own tasks in other parts of the manor jangled at discordant intervals.
Sleep seemed far away.
She tried to evoke the sensation she'd felt when striding unseen down the streets of New Sarshel. She had been 1 neither cold nor warm despite wearing only her sleeping gown. Not the least breath of wind had caressed her cheek, it; nor had the cobblestones pinched her bare feet. Yes, some-I; 'thing like that.
This is not working!
She groaned and left the bed, feeling a sudden pinch as she rose.
'Oh,' she exhaled quietly.
A girl still lay half swaddled in the quilt, fully dressed, eyes closed. It was herself.
She had dream-skipped out of her body again!
Anusha gazed down on the sleeping form. Her body breathed in a slow but regular pattern, very much like sleep.
She glanced away from the sleeping body and instead drew her dream hands up before her face. They looked completely normal, maybe a bit hazy if she squinted.
Anusha rubbed her hands together. The sensation was exactly what she expected.
She was further surprised to see her dream self dressed in the very same clothes worn by her sleeping body. Then again, why was she surprised? In a dream, anything was possible, wasn't it? Insofar as her consciousness existed beyond her mind, perhaps dream logic ruled what she could accomplish, just as in regular dreams.
Turning, she tentatively reached for the closed travel chest. She touched it. She could discern its leathery texture. It was cold, and slightly gritty with dust.
With a deep breath, she tried to reach through the closed lid.
She pushed her hand through the top of the travel chest as if it were mere smoke. The sensation was not unlike pushing her hand into a thin stream of falling water.
Inside the chest, her hand brushed the heel of one of the shoes she'd thrown into the great piece of luggage. She grasped it and pulled it out. Right through the still-fastened chest.
She could do more than observe the waking world; she could affect it!
The possibilities of what she might accomplish, why, they were endless!
What couldn't she do? She giggled as exhilaration burst up through her chest and throat. She dropped the lone shoe on the travel chest's top and strode to her door, just as it banged open.
Behroun stood there, scowling. Her irritated half brother stood only five feet from her. But he looked right past Anusha as if she weren't there at all. Instead, he fixed his glare on her real, sleeping body.
Behroun growled. 'She sleeps when she should be preparing for her trip. If she weren't essential, I'd kill her myself.'
Anusha gasped and took an inadvertent step backward. Her hand brushed her vanity mirror poised on a small stand. It shifted, wobbled, then fell to the tiled floor. It shattered with a violent, crystalline retort.
Behroun started. He swiveled his head back and forth, his eyes narrow and searching, his breathing accelerating. He took a half step toward the shattered mirror, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he spun around to look back into the hallway.
'Who's there?' he demanded, his voice's normally basso rumble rising in pitch.
Getting no answer, Behroun returned his regard to the broken mirror, then to her sleeping form. His composure was as broken as the glass. He grimaced, then stalked off, rather too quickly for his dignity.
The scene would have been comical, Anusha thought, if Behroun hadn't just offhandedly revealed his desire to see her dead. He was talking figuratively, right?
She wondered.
She'd watched him utter those words, thinking himself unobserved and free to reveal his inner self. Anusha judged he'd meant them.
'You bastard,' she breathed, as fear shivered her own composure.
She couldn't deny reality any longer. Her half brother was a perfect villain, as she'd always suspected but refused to ponder.
He was no fitting heir to Marhana.
'If I help him, am I any better?' Inaction on her part was as good as helping Behroun achieve his ends. His actions threatened to stain her parents' memory, with her as his unwitting accomplice.
Unless she took a stand.
A new surety of purpose enveloped Anusha.
She nodded her head, thinking yes, I will obey Behroun's command to leave the manor. But I'll choose my own destination!
He wouldn't be able to use her heritage to advance his claims of nobility. As little noble blood as she possessed, less Sowed in his debauched veins.
And why shouldn't she depart on her own road? Although, her best bet would be to set herself actively against Behroun's — schemes.
A smile curled across her lips. 'You'll see, Brother. Or, actually, you won't!'
With her dreamer's ability to walk unseen, like a ghost even, dangers she would normally shrink from were transformed in her mind's eye.
Imagine, she thought, what sights I can witness, safe from all harm, only needing to awake to find myself safe back in bed!
She could go anywhere from the safety of her room! Except that wasn't right. She recalled the very first time she walked knowingly in a lucid dream. She had dream-stepped down toward the docks, a fair distance from her sleeping body. Only to be yanked up short before she quite made the distance.
Despite her inexperience with her ability, she thought it likely her dream form could reach only so far. What was the radius she could travel from her sleeping body before her dream self's connection became too attenuated? A mile or two, the dock experience suggested. She needed to experiment to discover her exact range, but it wasn't enough to allow her to stay safe at home.
If she desired to dream-step into danger, her real body would have to be somewhat close too.
Later that day, using her dream form, Anusha slipped unseen into Behroun's office and altered a bill of lading for the merchant ship Green Siren to include her travel chest. A travel chest to be delivered straightaway to the docks. A travel chest that would contain more than clothes-it would contain Anusha too! And a tidy sum of water, rations, and perhaps her journal. Once on the ship, safely packed away in the hold, she imagined she'd have the opportunity to physically emerge from her luggage to get occasional exercise and use the lavatory when no one was watching.
Her plan hadn't quite worked out as she'd hoped.
The barefoot sailor had proved a little too curious about Anusha's travel chest.
She'd seen him poking around a couple of days earlier. To distract him, she had created a ruckus in the aft hold by knocking over a crate half filled with belaying pins. The effort to push over the crate, something her physical body could have accomplished with relative ease, proved almost beyond her, but she'd managed it.
