The Dream Weavers Collection Part 2, K.R. Gomlok [best summer reads of all time TXT] 📗

beneath his hands until there was a hole big enough to climb through. ?Reach out with your mind and touch the world.? He said, starting through the hole, ?I?m not sure how else to explain it. I?m a little new at it so I?m no valid mentor on the subject but??
?Fact of the matter is you can do it,? Chimera told him, following through the fence, ?And if you can do it, maybe you can teach me.?
?Maybe my cousin can,? Zach said hesitantly, ?I wouldn?t put much stock in my own ability.?
Chimera shook her head and smiled, why would he not just believe in himself? He had gotten them out of the alley, had he not? Together they raced down the road, catching hint of the voices again. ?Who is your cousin anyway?? Chimera asked, just to fill the empty space. It felt a little too quiet between them?
?Rusiu Akatsuki,? Zach stated, keeping his eyes ahead. ?You?d know her if you?d met her. She?s? a bouncy one to put it oddly.?
Chimera stumbled, catching herself just in time to not have a close encounter with the street, ?Rusiu is your cousin?? She did not see much resemblance? but it was not impossible.
?Yeah, why?? Zach asked, taking his eyes off the end of the road for a second to throw a questioning glance at her.
?I was trying to find her when I entered the city,? Chimera told him, ?She should be just ahead.?
Immediately after the words left her mouth they ran straight into Rusiu and Sam. Chimera caught herself with Rusiu?s help but Zach was not quite so lucky and had to settle for breaking his fall with an arm. ?Where did you two come from?? Sam asked cheerfully, ?You?re just in time. We sense a group of Weavers just beyond this point.?
?We were just discussing how to approach it with just the two of us when you stumbled along,? Rusiu finished, smiling at them, ?Feel up to it??
Zach and Chimera exchanged a look of uncertainty, a skirmish? Chimera knew she was not prepared for such a thing and Zach did not seem much more confident. ?Well?? She began, raising her eyebrows at Zach in a plea for decisiveness.
?Just tell us how to help.? Zach sighed, lowering his eyes from Chimera?s gaze, ?How many are we facing??
?Three,? Sam said, staring off into the fog, ?and I think one of them is Anuro. Who knew Adam was such a threat??
Rusiu gave him a stern look and turned to Zach and Chimera, ?Just follow our lead,? she told them, ?let loose with your Dream Weaving and hit them with all you?ve got. Once the other two are down, we all converge on Anuro, got it? Good. Let?s go.?
Chimera began to protest but Rue and Sam were already gone. Zach gave her a shrug and took her hand, ?Don?t worry, I?ll protect you.? He told her, ?Just stay close to me.?
Sighing, she reluctantly followed into the battlegrounds where the fog was not quite so thick. Just as Sam had said, three people faced them. Two of them seemed to be of lower rank, wielding short swords and small shields, and the third towered above all of them, holding a two handed claymore forged of obsidian.
Zach rushed into battle, unsheathing the sword at his side and vaulting off of one of the henchmen before dispatching the other. The soldier disappeared while uttering a surprised cry, fading out of the Dream World.
Rusiu took advantage of Zach?s vault and took down the first soldier before joining with Sam and converging on the leader.
But something was amiss, power was stirring in the air. Chimera could sense it? she could sense the Weaving. The Leader, apparently the one Sam had identified as Anuro, lifted his hand and sent a ripple through the street, unbalancing Zach and forcing Sam and Rue to jump With two targets airborne, Anuro slapped both with the flat of his sword, sending them careening into a nearby building, before turning to Zach.
Chimera, who had watched from a distance, felt the strength of his weaving eclipsing Samuel and Rusiu as they struggled out of the rubble. Zach seemed to sense it too, taking a step back as Anuro?s shadow came over him. She felt helpless, there was nothing she could do to save her compatriots. Her mind raced for some sort of solution, awakening an innovative spirit within her that had been absent too long.
?No!? She shouted out, rushing for Zach. She felt his Weaving struggling against Anuro?s and merged into it, throwing her whole being into the effort, touching once more the side of her that she had thought gone.
Anuro halted, surprised at the barrier he encountered, before growling from beneath his heavy helm and sinking into the ground. He was gone in an instant, not only from sight but from the Dream as well. ?What? What was that?? Chimera asked, feeling exhaustion rising at an alarming rate within her.
?Chimera?? Zach panted, giving her a weak smile as he leaned on his sword for support, ?Congratulations? and welcome to the life of a Dream Weaver.?

Epilogue: Isador

Zachery looked at the overcast sky outside the chapel in mixed feelings of sorrow and wonder. Chimera stood at his side on the stone steps, following his gaze to the heavens. They were alone amongst the whispering Oak and Manzanita trees that surrounded the solitary building, here in the silence after the first blow before the heavy chaos of the second. He felt the folded paper in his pocket, running his fingers over the places where he had pressed his pencil too hard, and patted it deeper in to ensure it did not get lost.
Ever so slowly, he turned from the lofty blankets of clouds and smiled at her, taking her hand and heading up the stairs to the wooden doors of the ancient chapel. Their intricate and entrancing woodwork played back and forth between the doors, intertwined like the branches of friendship. Chimera stopped and gave Zach a sideways wry smile. ?It reminds me of Rusiu?s dream.? She said softly, running her hand over the smooth etchings. ?Everything was so? fantasized in that place. In retrospect it felt reassuring to be there amongst such familiar elements.?
?I?m glad Rue treated you well,? Zach replied, returning the expression. ?She may seem a little superficial on the outside but once you see inside her heart? you realize her foundations lie deep in the values that have passed away from the world.?
?Stop, before you launch into a soliloquy on your cousin?s noble heart I think we should just go in and attend the service.? Chimera interrupted, beginning to open the door. ?Besides, we both know how great her heart is, the only one who needs to be reminded is her.?
Zach nodded, still smiling, and followed her inside. At the edge of his mind he wondered if he would say his part well enough, or if he would be allowed to speak it at all. His cousin Rusiu stood down the aisle with her friend Samuel Rakaburn, in the pews leading up to the altar were various members of the Dream Weavers including Karis Flytwind, now back to good health, and Hinter Grey, as well as many Zachery had not met.
Chimera found an open row in the back and motioned for Zach to join her. He smiled and followed her whim as Rusiu cleared her throat and looked out upon the assembled crowd. In all Zach?s experience with her, Rue had never been one to shy from speech when she was directed to, no matter the obstacle. She gave a lofty, yet almost timid look over her audience before her gaze locked onto Sam and she gave a half smile. ?Dear friends.? She began softly, almost too quiet to hear from Zach?s current position, ?We have gathered here for the unifying purpose of celebrating the short but inspiring life of Melina Isador, Master Weaver and close companion to many of us. Though her days were cut short here, she ensured her work would live on in us who share her passion for this lost world.?
She paused a moment and sighed, perhaps gathering her thoughts, ?If every star in the sky is for one of us, the nightly heavens are now bereft of a luminous presence. ? She continued on, looking resolutely back at the assembled Weavers, her eyes coming to rest on Zach and Chimera. He thought for a moment he saw tears in her eyes? ?Yet even as that star dies, its glow burns the brighter in the stars around it, to whom it has given its company. I first met Melina as I walked through my nightmare, trying to find light to run towards, looking for someway out of my own wretched heart. She showed me how to uncover the light in my soul that I had lost and rekindle it with holy fire. She? brought to life the side of me that had died in despair.? Here she stopped again, as if reflecting on the words she had said; evaluating them, wondering if they were enough to show what she felt.
Chimera gave Zach a sharp nudge and a pointed look. ?Help her,? she whispered to him when he failed to respond.
So? he thought, almost amused at that circumstance, I?m going to speak after all?
Zach stood up and cleared his throat, slowly inching his way down towards the front and just as slowly accepting the fact that all eyes had turned to him. ?I?? he began, trying furiously to find those saving words, ?will really miss her. And I?m sure you all will as well. Everyone who knew her, all of you who fought alongside her, we all feel her absence to this day. But? Melina would not have willed us to pain. There is a time for mourning, and it is good in its own right, but we cannot allow it to overshadow our lives. I?ve always seen an unbreakable spirit in her but there at the end? the last time I saw her? she seemed ready to die. She knew her part in the story was over? but she knew we would continue it, she trusted us with that much and it is our solemn duty to carry it out. Her life was not yet lived, barely touched, and yet?? He smirked at the play on words as he finally reached Rue?s side and turned to his audience. ?It is very evident that she touched us all. Let us make it known to the world that there was a girl named Melina Isador who led us in a struggle to end a dark and present menace.
?And I?m not saying it won?t