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in question.
    Jaqueline turned to him and leaned forward, closer than she had ever allowed him to be. Before he could react she framed his face with her small, delicate hands and kissed him deeply on the lips. Ander closed his eyes and felt himself drift into sleep.
     
    She had been sick. Dying, in fact. Ander knew. Youth and desperation made him believe that he could fix her, that he could set things right. He would drive the sickness from her. All will be well again by morning, he assured her. Just sleep and dream. I won’t let you go. He arranged the ritual in their bedroom, drawing the circle of white runes on the floor at the foot of their bed. He laid her sleeping form in the middle and began shaping the words that would banish her sickness. But he was too young, too new at this. He misspoke.
    White lights flashed from nowhere, blinding Ander. An unseen force pushed him on his back. A formless shadow seeped out of nothingness like fresh blood from a wound and descended over his wife. She gasped as her final breath was stolen from her. Her eyes opened one last time to look at him.
    Ander felt himself drift again. Now he was in a forest clearing, miles away from anywhere he had ever known. On a stone dais covered in red, glowing runes, a woman was giving birth. She had black hair that clung to her body, which was drenched with sweat. White lights flashed from nowhere. A shadow hovered above her heaving form, but in the instant the child drew its first breath, the demon was gone. It had been summoned elsewhere by some folly, and by that same folly the child had an instant to be her own person. Although that other self was soon stifled as the demon returned and marked her body for its own, she would never have existed otherwise .
     
    Ander opened his eyes and sat up. The moon was high overhead. As he stood he noticed a single set of wolf tracks lead away into the forest that bordered his land. He smiled to himself and went inside for his first dreamless night.

 
     
     
     
     
    To Be Continued…

Excerpt from Dreamwalker, Part II
     
     
    By the time the empty vial struck the ground, its contents had already taken effect. Draven fell to his knees, his head lurched back as though he were seizing. Veins bulged black from his neck and along his temple and he released a terrible, animal groan. Ander stepped away as he watched, his body tense with pain as he watched his friend suffer while he, helpless, could only retreat. At last the soldier rose to his feet, his body hunched and his face dripping with sweat. When he looked up Ander saw that his friend’s eyes were black as tar, and when he looked into them he felt the first real sense of fear he had in a long time.
    “Kill him.”
    The old man’s voice was clear and calm, and Draven responded without hesitation.