The Drowned Gods, #2
Stranger Skies
by Pascale Lacelle
Contents
Chapter 10: Kai
Overview
Kai and Baz return to the Hourglass, but Kai’s blood fails to open it and Baz refuses to manipulate time, prioritizing Emory and Romie’s return over Kai’s risky plan. Their rift deepens as Baz admits fear of losing Kai.
Seeking safer dreams, Kai drifts through others’ nightmares and again confronts the crowned umbra ordering “Open the door,” then finds himself on Dovermere’s beach as corpses emerge—escalating the supernatural threat.
Summary
Kai and Baz descend to the Belly of the Beast in tense silence. Kai again offers blood to the Hourglass, but the door will not open. Baz’s jab that Kai might be “half a key” reinforces the need for a Dreamer, which Kai lacks. Kai proposes Baz reverse time on the door’s lock, citing Baz’s earlier repair of the Hourglass, but Baz refuses, fearing harm to the door and jeopardizing Emory and Romie’s return.
The argument exposes motives: Kai seeks control over his dangerous nightmares to protect others, while Baz, acting as guardian of the door, prioritizes safety and admits he cannot risk losing Kai again. Baz plans for Jae to escort Kai out quietly before the Quadri begins. The moment hints at intimacy but ends with distance as they leave unresolved.
Avoiding Baz’s and his own nightmares, Kai sleeps in Obscura Hall’s fields and steers into anonymous dreams. He enters the hollow terror of an Eclipse-born branded with the Unhallowed Seal, remembering the suffocating loss of magic and feeling powerless to help.
Drawn next to a nightmare steeped in grief, Kai witnesses a woman cradling a child amid corpses, singing a Trevelyan lullaby before killing the sleeping boy. Corpses sit up in unison, and a towering umbra wearing an obsidian crown watches, repeating the command Kai understands: “Open the door.” The dead lunge as Kai forces himself to escape.
Kai “wakes” not in the hall but on Dovermere’s moonlit beach, the command still echoing. He turns from the cavern’s maw only to face a new portal disgorging revived corpses, signaling the umbra’s influence is growing and that the barrier between dream and waking may be failing.
Who Appears
- KaiNightmare Weaver protagonist; fails to open the Hourglass, clashes with Baz, confronts crowned umbra in escalating nightmares.
- Baz BrysdenTime mage and Kai’s anchor; refuses to time‑unlock the door, prioritizes Emory/Romie’s return, admits fear of losing Kai.
- Crowned umbraTowering shadow wearing an obsidian crown; repeats the command “Open the door,” driving dread across nightmares.
- Grieving woman (dreamer)Sings a Trevelyan lullaby, sacrifices a sleeping child amid corpses; her nightmare escalates into a corpse onslaught.
- Sleeping child (dream)Peaceful boy slain in the nightmare, triggering corpses to rise and converge on Kai.
- Unhallowed Eclipse-born (dreamer)Branded victim whose void-like nightmare mirrors magic’s erasure, intensifying Kai’s anger and helplessness.
- Red-haired girl’s corpseSmirking, familiar-looking corpse in the nightmare mound; part of the synchronized rising dead.