Aven wasn’t sure when boredom in captivity turned to sleep. There were only so many times he could circle the same evidence before futility overwhelmed urgency. He only knew sleep had come when a boiling, seething anger in the void jerked him awake.

  His eyes first noticed the silhouette in the corner of the room. The void prickled behind his eyes, adjusting them to the darkness. And letting him clearly see Hanion vis Dreamweaver sitting nonchalantly, cane over his knees.

  Aven jerked out of bed, sheets tearing from the voidclaws ripping up. He didn’t bother suppressing them this time.

  “Hello, Aven,” Hanion smiled paternally and nodded in greeting.

  “How-” Aven cut off the idiotic question. Hanion had plenty of methods for sneaking into places he shouldn’t be. He’d taught many of them to Aven. “Why are you here?” If he was even here.

  “Because we’ve not had a proper chat,” Hanion replied, “and this may very well be our last chance. Helena and I will be taking our leave from the city soon, after all. The Tenebras delegation will fall apart rather spectacularly when Nadyar Velian confesses to conspiring with Ambassador Trellian Rosval to poison Governor Iraias and your mother.”

  Aven’s mind raced, trying to piece together what in the hells Hanion was talking about.

  “Ah, yes, you’ve been rather in the dark about recent events, haven’t you?” Hanion chuckled, tapping the cane against his thigh. “While you were napping, not only was the governor poisoned, but your Mindspeaker friend had time to conduct a full investigation and identify the culprit. Quite impressive. A natural inquisitor, that one.”

  Aven was stuck on another part of Hanion’s claims: “You poisoned my mother.”

  “Nadyar Velian and Ambassador Rosval poisoned your mother,” Hanion corrected with a smile. “Any attempts to connect those horrific actions to me will be completely fruitless. After all, the only person who could make such accusations is the ambassador himself, who will very shortly be found dead. Suicide, poor man. No doubt he couldn’t bear the shame of such a heinous act.”

  Cold dread seeped into Aven’s stomach, worse than any chill from the void. A trap. Every piece of it. But why was Hanion bothering to explain all of this? The void recoiled at the sheer condescending audacity of the man.

  “What in the hells do you want with any of this?” Aven asked, watching Hanion carefully. The dreamweaver was far too calm.

  “Want?” Hanion’s eyes flashed, and for a second his lip twisted in a snarl almost as hideous as Aven’s own rage. “I want Elesmara Genthus and everyone foolish enough to assist her damned schemes to die. I want the empire freed of the void. This gathering is filled with blind idiots scared to pissing themselves over the thought of the void growing at their borders. Too blind to realize that the void is already rotting the empire from within. Elesmara and you are the symbols of that.” He relaxed, smile returning to his face. “But without the esteemed Governor Iraias to hold this gathering together, this effort to claim the empire will end. The delegates will see that banding together to serve your mother’s plan is a useless endeavor. One can always count on self-interest to win out among imperial officials.”

  “And you’re here to gloat?” Aven snarled, taking a slow step forward.

  “No, dear boy, I am here to say farewell.” Hanion leaned forward, swirling many-colored eyes twinkling. “Did you think I’d tell you any of this if you could tell others? Not that anyone would believe raving accusations of a mad voidtouched, of course. But you won’t be telling anyone. You-”

  Aven didn’t wait for further words. He stepped forward and struck. The fastest, cleanest strike he’d ever made. Voidclaws shaped into a spear right for Hanion vis Dreamweaver’s heart. The claw stabbed right into Hanion’s chest.

  Hanion looked down at the claw, then raised his head back to Aven, disbelief on his face. No. Disappointment. “Really, Aven, are you actually stupid enough to think I’m here?”

  The image of Hanion flickered. Then reappeared, leaning against the wall, twirling the cane idly. The illusion of Hanion that Aven had stabbed faded to nothingness.

  “I suppose I only taught you to craft deception, not recognize it,” Hanion mused, eyes out the window as if Aven didn’t matter at all. “All this time, and you still believe what’s right in front of you, in spite of all reason. Twice now, you’ve been arrogant enough to actually believe you’d killed me. And twice you have failed to see that what you killed was simply the illusion I chose to show you.”

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  Aven narrowed his eyes, looking for any sign that the Hanion he saw was fake. It looked entirely real. He split his mind in two, each half searching for signs of illusion. One mind on the image of Hanion. The other searched the rest of the room.

  He remembered everything Hanion taught him about tricks. Sleight of hand, or of mind, wasn’t just about where the illusionist made the audience look. It was about where they made the audience look away from. The shadows as well as the light.

  There. A shadow on the opposite wall. From the angle of the moonlight through the window, it didn’t match the Hanion currently leaning against the wall. If he followed that shadow...

  Voidclaws stabbed empty space. They found flesh. The image of Hanion widened its eyes in shock, then vanished. Around Aven’s claws, Hanion’s body appeared. Blood welled up where Aven’s claws pierced him.

  “You...” Hanion’s body shook. With laughter. “You godsdamned idiot.”

  That body vanished too, leaving Aven alone. He split his mind again. Three pieces, each searching for signs.

  “Not only are you still, somehow, clinging to vain hope that I am in reach of your claws.” Hanion’s voice echoed from all around. From inside Aven’s own skull. “You still haven’t figured out that none of this is real.” The illusion of Hanion’s form flickered back into existence right in front of him, leaning against the wall, twirling the cane idly. “And you’ve so helpfully split your mind up into smaller pieces to handle.”

  Two more Hanion’s appeared. Each visible only to one piece of Aven’s fragmented mind. They laughed.

  “You, much like the rather inadequate guards outside your room, are deep in sleep,” Hanion’s real voice was a smothering whisper in Aven’s mind. The void inside him recoiled from the intrusion. And for the first time, Aven realized that the boiling, seething anger that had woken him was not entirely his own. “And slipping deeper every second.”

  Aven struggled to reach beyond the illusion. As if behind a thick veil, he could feel his own heartbeat. Slow. Pumped only by shallow breaths. Breaths shallowing even further.

  “Your mind is an interesting puzzle. If you split it before I can grasp the whole, then you can hide those pieces away. That’s how you hid your murderous intent from me back then, isn’t it?” Hanion clapped thrice. “Bravo. I don’t think I could be prouder of you as a student than in that moment. Now, however...” Each illusory form reached out as if to pluck an apple from a tree. Then squeezed.

  Pressure tightened around Aven’s skull. The three pieces of his mind were constricted. Each by a different mental vice. The pain was blinding. The void recoiled, then surged. Lashing out at the pain. But its attacks found no purchase. There was nothing to strike but phantoms.

  “I’ve practiced dealing with Battle Minds. Extensively. Now, I know that if I grasp the whole, then each split piece is simple to handle,” Hanion said. “And you’ve practiced so much splitting your mind that it breaks easy as glass.” He wrenched his hand, and Aven’s mind split again.

  Four pieces tried to reason, tried to fight against the mental assault. Four pieces found themselves under assault.

  “Your father could never split so easily, even in his prime,” Hanion said. “He was far too rigid. He could only ever manage a partial split, each piece still serving the greater whole. You’ve gone further. So recklessly. You’ve made a weapon that I can now use against you.”

  Aven tried to force his minds back together. When the pieces slid back together...they missed, slipping aside and refusing to reunite. Worse, they slid further apart. The pain was agonizing.

  “You’ve imagined dying quite a few times, haven’t you?” Hanion waved his hand, and a spear stabbed into Aven’s chest. Sergrud fel-Maies’ spear, exactly as Aven had simulated countless times. “Your mind has a remarkable capacity for imagining your own death. So many possibilities.”

  The spear vanished, but the pain remained. The void tried to heal it, but could only find phantom wounds. In its panic, Aven felt it create more wounds. A half-dozen voidclaws burst from his body, stabbing into nothing.

  “And the void you strain against.” Another wave of the dreamweaver’s hand brought a new wave of hunger, of rage. Not Aven’s own. Or perhaps it was. He could no longer tell. It was all pain and fear. “You can barely control it. You lost control just from seeing my face. You’re barely holding onto your sanity as is. Can a single piece of your mind hold that back?”

  The void rose stronger in one of the four split minds. Too strong for him to fight against it. It spilled out, and pain shot through his entire body. The same pain he felt when drinking the voidblood that Sunshine offered. But this wasn’t an ascension. This was a collapse. Fire writhed through his blackened veins, and searing ice spiked through the surrounding skin.

  The other pieces tried to reunite, tried to stand together to fight the void, but imagined spears pierced his body. Phantoms of Vestra’s wings stabbed into his back. Simulated deathsingers crushed him with their claws.

  “How many deaths can your mind experience before your body believes the lie?” Hanion asked. “How many deaths until you die?”

  Aven couldn’t answer. He could only die and die again.

  Hanion chuckled and lowered his hand, “You know, your father always was fond of naming. The ‘Battle Mind’, the ‘Swiftblade’ style. He said a name gives meaning. Power. Rather gauche, I’ve always thought. But in his memory, I’ll give this a name: the Dying Dream. Of all the skills I’ve learned in weaving dreams, I’ve never killed with a dream before. This will be a first. A final gift to my finest student. Farewell, Aven. Enjoy your final dream.”

  Hanion vanished. Leaving Aven alone to face a thousand enemies in his own dreams.

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