Dream Walker III

They were already laughing when I woke.

Not a cruel laugh. Not joyful either. Something between, a purr, a whisper, a rhythm in their throats that was not quite human. It echoed against the velvet walls of the Hollow, slipping into my skin like breath on the back of my neck. I didn't shiver. I didn't move. I simply listened.

Sarassis stood closest. The low candlelight turned her skin to burnished gold, and the chains at her collarbone shimmered--tiny linked rings that caught the light with every slow, deliberate motion. Her hips moved as if caught in a tide that obeyed only her will. She did not speak. She rarely needed to. Her presence spoke in silence, and even that could silence the storm.

Beside her, Eshara lingered in the soft shadow. Her skin was luminous, kissed by blue-veined light that pulsed just beneath the surface. She looked like someone conjured from moonlight and still water. Her silence was not absence. It was tension. Like the air before thunder. A warning. And beneath her ribs, as always, the moon-cut sigil glowed faintly--pale and pulsing like breath.

Vaelith turned her back to me. Her hair shimmered between copper and ink, spilling over a spine etched in obsidian. I watched as her fingers danced, drawing glyphs into the air that pulsed and shimmered before fading into nothing. They were not gestures meant for me. They were ritual, memory, power. I had seen those sigils before, in dreams. I never remembered them when I woke.

But this time... something new moved behind them.

She stood apart from the others. Not distant, not excluded. Behind, like a shadow, like a second heartbeat. I felt her before I saw her. She stirred the space around her simply by being there. Her presence pressed into my mind, not like a scream but like a held breath. A presence that had always been there, just beneath the surface of my thoughts. Hidden. Waiting.

Her name did not come in words. It came in sensation. Like an echo in bone.

Only when her eyes met mine did I hear it:

Thae'lyn.

The one who remembers.

Her hair was the black of forgotten ink, strands that curled like questions. Her eyes were silver and lidless, reflecting not light, but thought. She was voluptuous in the way myths are, in the way temples are. Her wrists and ankles bore bands of metal, soft and thin, but many, so many, and they sang softly when she moved--like the hush of wind through glass.

She did not speak. But she asked.

Her question unfurled inside me like smoke: "Why do you tremble, dreamer?"

I could not answer. My mouth refused to form shape. My tongue lay heavy. I did not own my limbs. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't even surprised. Somewhere deep inside, I knew--they had never expected me to run. And I would not have wanted to.

Their voices rose again, those strange syllables curling through the air like perfume and fog. I did not know the language, but I felt its meaning. The words clung to my skin.

Th'ralei.

That was the first. The sensation of being watched while undressing, not just the body, but the memory of the body. The soul laid bare.

Ona'veer.

When Eshara passed close, her shoulder brushed mine and I felt it through every nerve. It wasn't skin against skin. It was a memory I had never lived, darkness that wasn't around me but inside me, a darkness I belonged to.

Sarassis leaned near then, her breath a warm thread against my cheek. She smelled of vanilla, but deeper, like sweet rot and sacred fire. The golden chains at her collarbone brushed against me and I shivered.

Her voice came not in my ear, but between my ribs.

"You are always the last to know what you want," she said. "But we always know first."

Vaelith smiled. Her fingers painted one more glyph. This one I recognized. It struck something deep and terrible in me.

Eshera'luun.

The breathless moment suspended just before climax, that held place between agony and delight, stretched so thin it could cut you.

They circled me then.

Not like predators. Like priestesses. Like architects.

I felt like prey, yes, but not one they hunted. One they had chosen.

Thae'lyn did not touch me. She stood still, behind Sarassis, her silver eyes locked on my back. I felt her stare as if it carved symbols into my spine. She was remembering me. She was pulling memory from places I did not know existed.

The language of the Hollow filled the space between us again.

One word stayed, thick and hot and unfamiliar. It tasted like blood and sugar, like something forbidden whispered in the dark.

Sar'naeh.

The heat of someone's name on your tongue, still unspoken.

And I knew--I was about to say it. I did not know who. I did not know why. My lips parted.

And then Sarassis hummed.

It was low. Golden. Velvet-wrapped. It pressed against my chest and stole the air from my lungs.

My knees weakened. I fell.

Not down.

Inward.

Into the Hollow.

Into them.

I heard the soft music of Thae'lyn's bracelets. I smelled spice, sweat, and sacred heat. I felt the presence of fire before flame.

And then I saw Thae'lyn move.

Her hand reached for my face.

Not to strike.

Not to comfort.

But to remember.

Her fingers hovered an inch from my skin. And in that space, I remembered everything and nothing.

But they did.

They always did.