—A Guide to Traveling through Domacca, by An Dao

Adelina Amouteru

Enzo visits me in my nightmare tonight.

It is evening, and the lanterns in the corridors of the Fortunata Court are already lit. Laughter floats from the Daggers’ underground cavern, but Enzo and I make our way up the steps to the courtyard. Out here, the night is silent. This is the night after the Spring Moons, I remember through the haze of my dream. After we attacked Estenzia’s harbor.

Enzo and I kiss in the courtyard, oblivious to the light rain falling all around us. He walks me back to my chambers. But in my dream, he doesn’t bid me good night and then leave. In my dream, he comes inside with me.

I don’t know if my power is at work … but I can feel his locks of dark hair against my cheeks, can sense the ripples of heat that his touch sends through my body. His lips brush past my ear, then touch my jaw and my neck, working their way steadily downward. I sit on the bed and pull him closer until we are a tangle of limbs. This is where we first met, after all, when he came to sit beside me and offered me a chance to join the Daggers.

Now his face stays buried against my skin. Currents of heat rush through me until I think I might burn alive. His shirt slips to one side, exposing his shoulder. Is he really here? Am I really in the Fortunata Court, in all its former glory? My finger traces the ridge of his collarbone. He sucks in his breath as I tug off his shirt, then run my hands down his chest. He pushes against me. This is real. It must be.

This is what could have happened that night.

“I love you,” he whispers in my ear. And I am so enveloped in my dream, so lost in his trail of kisses, that for a moment I let myself believe it.

Enzo pauses. He coughs once. I turn my head enough to see the angles of his face in the darkness. “Are you all right?” I ask with a smile. My arms reach up to wrap around his neck and pull him closer.

Enzo stiffens, then coughs again. His brows twist into a knotted line, and he frowns. He pushes away from me and sits in a hunched position on the bed. His coughs come again and again, until he can’t seem to stop. Spots of blood stain the sheets.

“Enzo!” I cry out. I scramble to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. He waves me away and shakes his head, but he’s coughing so hard that he cannot speak. There’s blood on his lips, glistening in the night. His face contorts in pain. One of his hands comes up to grip his chest, and when I look, I notice with horror that a deep, scarlet wound is growing in the center, right over his heart.

He needs help. I leap out of bed, run to the door, and throw it open with all my strength. All of my limbs feel like they’re dragging through the darkness, struggling through some invisible current. Behind me, Enzo’s breathing turns desperate. I stare wildly down the hall.

“Help!” I scream. Why are all the lanterns dimmed now? I can barely see through the shadows of the corridor. My feet pound silently against the floor. I can feel the coldness of the marble. “Help!” I cry again. “The prince—he’s hurt!”

The hall goes on and on. Raffaele will know what to do. Why can’t I find the way back to the underground cavern? I keep running until I remember that Raffaele isn’t at the cavern with the others. He doesn’t come back on this night, because he has been captured by the Inquisition.

The hall is endless. As I run, the paintings lining the court’s ornate walls begin to peel away, burnt and ashen, the corners ruined by fire. There are no doors or windows. Somewhere in the distance comes the sound of pouring rain.

I pause to catch my breath. My limbs burn. When I look behind me, I can no longer see my own chambers. The same hall stretches in both directions. I continue forward, walking now, my heart pounding against my ribs. New paintings begin to appear on the walls. Perhaps they’ve been there the entire time, and I’ve just noticed them. None of them make any sense. One of the paintings shows a girl with large, dark eyes and a rosy mouth—she sits in the middle of a garden and holds a dead butterfly in her hands. A second painting is of a boy dressed in white Inquisition armor, his mouth stretching from one ear to the other, his teeth scarlet red. He crouches inside a wooden box. A third painting runs from the ceiling to the floor. It is a girl’s face, and half of it is gruesomely scarred. She does not smile. Her brows are knotted in anger, and her eyes are closed, as if they might open at any moment.

Fear begins to gnaw at my stomach. There are whispers here, the familiar whispers that plague me. I start to run again. The hall grows narrower, closing in on me from all sides. Up ahead, it finally reaches an end. I pick up my pace. Help! I call out again, but it sounds strange and distant, like an underwater cry.

My steps now make a splashing sound. I stumble to a halt. Water is pouring down the hall, black and cold. I start to back away, but the current sweeps me off my feet, and the water swallows me whole. I cannot think, I cannot hear, I cannot see anything except for the swirling darkness all around. The cold numbs me. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. I look for the light of the surface, but the same darkness yawns all around me.

The Underworld.

Black shapes swim through the depths. Through the darkness, I finally see a set of stairs that I instinctively know leads back to the hallway. Back to the living world. I try to swim toward the stairs, but they never seem to get any closer.

Adelina.

When I look over my shoulder, a shape materializes out of the blackness. It is a monstrous form, with long, bony fingers and milky, sightless eyes. Her mouth is open in a snarl. The fear in my heart turns to terror.

Caldora. The angel of Fury.