A Shiver of Light

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

TWO MORNINGS LATER I woke to magic breathing and prickling along my skin. I had a moment of staring into the darkened bedroom and then Frost had me around the waist and was lifting me out of the bed, holding me one-armed behind him, while he pointed a sword at the other side of the bed. I gripped his arm where he held me, but I couldn’t see the threat around his body, and where was Doyle? Why wasn’t he with us?

Frost said, “Doyle, Doyle, it’s me, it’s your Killing Frost, and our Merry.”

A low, deep growl came from the other side of the room. It was a sound to raise the hair on your neck and tighten your body, ready for fight or flight.

“Doyle, do you know me? I am your lieutenant, your right hand, your Frost, do you not know me?” Frost’s voice got lower as he spoke, a gentling voice.

The deep, bass growl came again, and I knew in that moment that Doyle was in the room with us. He was just in his dog form, a black dog the size of a small pony.

“Doyle,” I said, softly, hesitantly.

He growled again.

Frost leaned ever so slightly so my feet could touch the floor and he could turn himself full toward the threat that was our dearest love. He spoke very carefully as if he were afraid to even move his mouth too much. “Very slowly, we back to the door. When we reach the door, turn the knob carefully, and open the door slowly.”

“No sudden movement,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said.

The door started opening behind us, and I hissed, “Stop.”

It was Usna’s voice that said, “What is that?”

“Doyle,” I whispered, because I knew that he would hear me. Usna’s mother had been cursed into cat form, and it had left him with a lot of very feline traits, including calico-colored hair and skin and extremely good hearing, especially for higher-pitched noises, like women’s voices.

“Why is he threatening you?”

“Hush. Usna, when I say so, open the door and grab Merry through,” Frost said carefully as he backed us closer to the now partially opened door. He changed our angle slightly to take advantage of the crack in the door.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I will come with you, but your safety is all.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, but if Frost was actually going to have to fight Doyle in his hellhound/phouka form I wasn’t sure I could bear to watch. Why was Doyle still stalking us, growling? It was like a nightmare, and then I had an idea.

“He’s dreaming,” I said.

“What?” Frost asked, moving us agonizingly slowly closer to the door.

“Doyle is dreaming. He’s not awake.”

From the other side of the door, Usna said, “You mean he’s sleepwalking?”

“Yes.”

“He has never done that before,” Frost said, and that meant in centuries of friendship Doyle had never done such a thing, so why now?

“The king trapped me in dream,” I said. We were almost to the side of the opening. I touched Frost’s bare back gently, changing our angle slightly to leave room for Usna to open the door wide enough for us both to escape.

“You escaped,” Frost whispered.

“I had to fight, and my father’s sword came to me.”

“And we had to prevent you from attacking us with it,” he said, slowly.

“Shit,” Usna said.

“Yes,” Frost said.

That evil, frightening growl echoed along my spine, much closer this time. We had to wake Doyle, but how? What had brought me back to myself?

“You and Doyle touching me brought me back.”

“If you’re close enough to touch,” Usna said, “you’ll be too close.”

I agreed, but … I peeked around Frost’s body to see the great black dog. It took a moment for my eyes to distinguish it from the darkness of the room, and then it moved, and I could see the shape of the great beast like a piece of the night formed into something of muscle and skin and fur, and a slow, thundering growl. It stepped one paw closer, and the light from the door fell on it. The paw was bigger than my hand. Its lips curled back and teeth gleamed in the light from the hallway behind us.

I moved slightly out from behind Frost, and said, “Doyle, it’s me, your Merry.”

“Do not …” Frost began, and then the dog rushed toward us from less than four feet away, and there was no time for words.