Brood of Vipers by Maggie Claire (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📕

be certain the Ddraigs are safe. If danger comes, I can raise an alarm. I can fight to keep them safe.”

“You’re acting as a patrol,” Cyrus surmises, feeling a little small as he mutters, “How did you not see me the night I almost killed myself in this cavern?” Cyrus points to the lip that hangs over the steepest portion of the cave’s mouth. “That’s where I nearly….” He gulps as the feelings from that night take hold.

“You almost—” I drop my head to my chest, my eyelids falling closed, a chill seeping into my bones. How did I not recognize that he was this broken? I accuse myself, wishing I’d been paying better attention. “I sometimes spend the night up on land too. Sometimes the thought of being underground—of being swallowed up by the land itself—it’s too much for me. On those nights, I sleep under the stars.” My lip quivers slightly as I admit, “If I had been here, if I had seen how badly you were hurting, I would have helped you or tried to stop you. I…Cyrus, you have to know I would never wish you this kind of pain.”

Cyrus nods, turning his face up to the cave’s mouth. The angle of the entrance is odd, cutting off most of the night sky view. Still, Cyrus sees a few rebellious stars winking at him in the distance. “Maybe this is a bad plan, Iris. To be this close to the exit may only plague my dreams with ideas of escape. And I…I don’t want to hurt you any more than I want to kill myself.”

I point to the wall farthest from the cavern entrance. “Sleep there. I’ll bed down a few feet in front of you. That way, you’ll have to pass me if you sleepwalk again. I’m not a heavy sleeper anymore, so if you move, I’ll be sure to wake up.”

Cyrus obeys my wishes without another word, dropping his holey bedroll and blanket next to the rocks. He has no other items of wealth or usefulness that I can see. While he clears some wayward stones from his path, I set about building a small fire that will provide some comfort to us both on this first night.

It is awkward as we both prepare for sleep, attempting to adjust to each other’s needs for privacy and routine. By the time we’ve both managed to drop into our bedrolls, the air is thick with silence. For a few blinks of the eyes, we turn and stare at each other, too lost for words to speak. Then we shift away, pointing our backs at the flames as we wait for sleep to claim us.

I must have been exhausted from the trauma of my earlier Gwen vision. For all my boasting, I slept too soundly for my own good that night. I did not hear the scuffles of shoes or the metallic zing of a blade loosed from its scabbard. Nor was I aware of the fluttered disturbance in the air close to my body or the light, careful footfalls of someone approaching my side. I missed all of those warning signs, twisting onto my back to give Cyrus a better aim at my throat.

It is his voice that warns me of the impending strike, forcing my eyes to fly open. Immediately I meet Cyrus’s furious, dead stare, murder playing out in his nightmare. “You stupid, lazy oaf! If torturing you wasn’t this much fun, I’d have killed you weeks ago. Why, the first time I saw you enter my courtyard, I could have ruined you! The only thing that kept you alive was my feelings for Iris. I know she’ll want to be the one who deals the killing blow!” Cyrus’s body slurs the words as he sways, and his body refuses to coordinate his motions. The tone of his voice is altered, as though his body is imitating Cane as he reenacts the hateful memory.

When Cyrus speaks as himself, I can hear the strange, subtle differences in his voice. His fear raises his tone, and the cadence of his words grows erratic. Cyrus’s body trembles from the strength of the terror he still endures. It’s like watching a person possessed, two distinctly different personas being portrayed in the same form. Or a play where two characters are acted out by the same individual. The way Cyrus shifts into and out of Wolf’s mannerisms is eerily accurate, and it raises the hair on my arms.

“Iris,” Cyrus wavers, tears spewing down his face. “She wouldn’t send me here to die! I know she hates me, but—”

“But nothing!” Cyrus sneers as he shifts into Wolf, and I know the words I’m hearing must be from one of the many times Wolf tortured him. “She loathes the very thought of you! The only reason she sent you here is to suffer! She’ll come here and rejoice to find you broken and begging for death.” Wolf cackles, pointing a finger at an unseen addition to the dream. “And I hope the death she brings you is slow, brother. Slow and excruciating.”

“No!” Cyrus goes white, covering his head with his hands. “Iris? It can’t be true!”

Cyrus’s body goes completely still, his voice changing to a high falsetto. Something about the way he stands suggests a feminine nature. “Miss me, Wolf?” he mumbles, brushing a hand down his cheek as he simpers. “Ready to die, Cyrus?”

“No, please, no!” Cyrus wails as he scuttles away from me, cowering into a ball as he screams.

He thinks it’s me, I realize, growing cold as I watch him thrash, his brow breaking out into a clammy sweat. He sees me in his dream, siding with his brother. He actually thinks I want him dead! Dimly I recall the stories of the Vibría monster Wolf bartered for from Déchets, the shapeshifter he used to wreak havoc in Cyrus’s mind. Worse than any hallucination, the Vibría tortured Cyrus physically and mentally, using my face as its own.

Hearing these