Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) by Emma Hamm (scary books to read .TXT) 📕

Every now and then she could see a hand press forward, the hint of a nose or lips, even the outline of a shoulder or hair. The thousands of souls inside of E had never decided upon a shared form, and likely never would.

“Hello,” she said.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Lydia.”

“Are you a Dream Walker?”

“No.”

“Then how did you get in here?”

The dust and dark smoke shifted until she could see a woman’s face. Lydia assumed this was one of the many Dream Walkers that E had absorbed. She would be foolish to assume that it didn’t have at least a few of them. They used to be much more of them than there were now.

She didn’t know how to describe what she had done, so Lydia shrugged and said, “I walked.”

“You what?”

Lydia’s dream was still floating above them. She pointed upwards, watching as the Dream Walker inside E glanced at the ceiling. Its eyes narrowed.

“I broke down the bubble of my dream, and it made a bridge for me. Took me all the way to you, in fact.”

“That’s not possible. Dreams aren't deconstructed, the Dreamer’s mind would shatter along with the dream.”

Lydia shrugged. “I’m finding I don’t play by the normal rules anymore. I wish I could explain it, but there’s really no way for me to understand it all. It simply is.”

“What are you?”

There wasn’t an answer to that question either. Lydia shrugged again, watching the faces swap out each second. It appeared that every part of E wanted to take a little at the strange woman standing in their dream.

One face reappeared multiple times. A square jaw, harshly edged forehead, a scar that ran from the middle of his forehead and to his lip.

“Why are you here?” The question was asked in a thousand voices, and yet, only in one. She heard the deep growl of the warrior man battling his way to the forefront of E’s souls.

“To apologize.”

“For what?”

Lydia hesitated then plunged into the apology she had planned for hours upon hours the night before. “I want to take responsibility for Wren being caught by Malachi. I want to apologize for all the things which were done to her, all the pain she suffered, all the lingering effects of her capture. I should have seen it coming, but in my selfishness, I was not watching her well enough to prevent it.”

The scarred face solidified in the swirling mass of darkness. He quirked an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. “You were not there. I would remember.”

“That is why I am apologizing. I should have been there or, at the very least, sent someone to help.”

“You do not have the look of someone who could fight Malachi.”

She snorted. “You’d be surprised.”

“Explain this to me. You said that you should have been watching her. What does that mean?”

“I-” she hesitated. Her gaze drifted to Wren, who was now leaning back on her hands and letting the sun play across her face. Eyes closed, she was the picture of relaxation. “It’s my job to look after them. To make sure that the ending turns out the right way.”

E splintered back into dust. As she stared, it expanded so large that each dust particle touched each other, like a blanket of black sand. Her soul ached in realization, and she reached forward, gently tapping E's form.

“You aren’t made of ink or dust, are you?” she whispered. “These are your souls.”

“A Legion is much like a Dream World. Each soul adds to our size, but each soul is a single grain of sand.”

“And a world within it.”

“Indeed. You say you are here to apologize, but I have lived millions of years over and I recognize the expression upon your face. There is no repentance required, you have done nothing wrong. You are here because you are lonely. Because you needed to see something of yourself in another.”

“I see that every day,” Lydia sighed. “I see it in Pitch more than anyone else.”

“You see kinship, but you do not see your own reflection.”

“Am I to see my reflection in you?”

“There are many souls I have absorbed, too many for everyone to come to the forefront. Search for yourself within me, and you might find a familiar reflection.”

Lydia furrowed her brow, glancing up at where a face should be. E remained flat and quiet.

Stepping up to the blanket of sand, she ran her fingers over its edge. Something held E together. She couldn’t even get it to bend.

“How do I look?”

“With your eyes.”

Unimpressed, she frowned at it. “I see too much of Pitch in you.”

“Personalities like his come from a culmination of many years. I have suffered the same fate.”

“Sarcasm does not come from experience, it’s a learned trait.”

E chuckled. “You may be correct.”

She stooped, peering at the grains of sand. There were too many to count, and even then too many to see. They were all the same size. Each a perfect tiny black pearl, completely hidden from the naked eye.

Lydia held her breath as she stared as though that might help. Not even the slightest of budge reacted inside E. The many lives it held were carefully protected.

Huffing in frustration, she leaned back. “If I had a magnifying glass, I might sort through these. But it would take thousands of years for me to see every part of you.”

“As it would for me to look through every piece of you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You want to find a reflection of yourself in something equally powerful, but you forget that there are immeasurable intricacies in every life. Be that powerful or not. I am made of a million grains of sand, each a single life. I do not look at one life as more powerful or more treasured as any other. Human, Fae, God. We are all the same in the end.”

“How so?”

“We all feel. We all experience different things. We all have millions of memories that make up who we are. No person is simple to understand.” The blanket of darkness folded in