His hand reached out to catch on a sharp edge of stone. The roses hadn’t managed to gain much height yet. They were trailing up the stairwell in the same path someone would walk.
A vine wrapped around his leg and pulled. He grappled onto the wall and angrily growled as the stone bit through his hand. The vine was easy to tear as he pulled against it. The soft sound of roses shuddering warned he had made the monsters angry.
“This is what you want?” he yelled as he pulled his way up the stairs. “You want to hurt me?”
The roses seemed to pulse around him. Was this her heart? Were the roses blood that had spilled? Burke couldn’t understand what she was doing. Why she was controlling the dream like this.
Finally, he fought his way past the angry plants and onto the stairs. He put a good distance between himself and the flowers he now hated and looked up.
Had this ruin grown? It appeared much taller than he had originally surmised. Placing his hands on his hips, he gathered his breath before beginning the long trek.
“Why are you making this a battle?” he asked her because he knew she would be listening. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”
The stones behind him began to crumbling.
Cursing under his breath, Burke began to run again.
“Wren!” he yelled as he skillfully traversed the stairs. “You know me! And I know you!”
The stones beneath him were giving way. He pushed hard against the rocks that were falling and launched himself once more onto the wall. The steps were no longer safe. He clung to the stone wall. The stairs crumbled to the ground that was suddenly much further away.
“You don’t want to see me, I take it,” he muttered as he turned his attention towards the top of the crag. “But I need to see you.”
Hand over hand, he climbed. He had a feeling that cheating would only make this harder. Though it was tempting to turn into a bird and fly into her face, he was going to have to do this the old fashioned way.
His hands cramped quickly. He had never been much for climbing. Burke preferred to do things the fastest and most efficient way possible. Therefore, the easiest.
“This is getting a little ridiculous, sweetheart,” he grumbled as he stretched for another hand hold. “You know I’d do anything I can for you, but this is getting old quick.”
He grabbed onto the stone that was jutting out and put most of his weight onto that hand. This was his mistake. At the last moment, the stone retreated back into the mass it had grown from. His handhold officially gone, Burke had a moment of startling thought.
If he died here, he wouldn’t wake from his trance. Death was still death even in the dreaming world.
He tumbled backwards into the air and figured that he would. This would be the end of him. It wasn’t a terrible way to go. He was dying for a woman he loved. He could admit that to himself now. He loved her in such a way that the word was far too weak.
Every corner of his soul and body were filled with her. She was in every shadow that made him a bad person and every bright spark of good was her doing. Wren had wiggled her way into being the most important person he had ever met.
And he didn’t get to tell her that.
Burke closed his eyes and waited for the solid thump of his soul hitting the ground. The sound did not come. Slowly, he blinked open his eyes to feel his body gently lowered onto the very top of the stone mountain.
She was close to him. He didn’t need to look around for her. Burke could feel her soul, because his own rose to answer hers.
Wren had always been a question. She was a question in his life that he had never known the answer to until this moment. When it came to her, the answer would always and unequivocally be yes.
He turned onto his knees and stood. She was at the very edge of the peak he stood on. Her body was covered with a dark cloak that hid the fine white dress he could see dancing at the edge of her ankles. Curls of smoke billowed from underneath the fabric that covered her form.
“Are we done fighting?” he asked.
“I don’t know if that’ll ever happen.” Her soft laugh was music to his ears. “But you are now here. What do you want, Burke?”
“Are you sane for now?” He couldn’t help but ask. “I need to actually speak to you.”
“As sane as I can be. I am not myself.”
“No, you’re not.” Again his hand touched the vial around his neck. Reassured, he continued. “We found something that can save you.”
“I don’t know if I want to be saved.”
Her murmur stunned him, but it was the sight of her face when she turned that made him flinch backwards. It wasn’t Wren underneath that cloak. Not entirely.
She was made of smoke and fog. A creature that had no form, no entity, no original thought. Wren was nothing more than the outline of herself. Beloved features were hidden or erased entirely as the breeze fluttered around her.
“You must,” he said quietly. “You must be saved.”
“For your precious prophecy? I have no wish to be part of your prophecy.”
“No.” He stepped forward and froze when she stepped dangerously close to the cliff edge. “Not for the prophecy, you foolish girl. For me. I selfishly need you to return with me.”
“Why?”
“Because you are as much a part of me as Dream Walking.”
Her intake of breath seemed to be a good sign. He continued.
“I missed you when I was no longer in your shop every day. I felt whole again when you
