Kaelren took my hand again. “Come on.”
The meadow faded, and we were walking through a forest of giant ferns and flowering vines. The air here was thick with perfume and possibility, warm and humid in a way that made my skin tingle. I could hear water rushing nearby, growing louder with each step.
We emerged into a hidden grotto, and I stopped breathing.
A waterfall poured down from heights I couldn’t see, but it wasn’t made of water. Light fell instead—actual light that flowed and splashed, ranging from ghost-pale where it was thin to deep bronze where it thickened. When it struck the pool below, the collision produced music: clear ringing tones that traveled through the ground and into my bones. The pool’s surface remained smooth as glass everywhere except where the falls disturbed it, and when I looked into that mirror-stillness, I didn’t see my reflection. I saw other things: moments that hadn’t happened yet, scenes from different choices, glimpses of paths not taken.
Around the edges of the pool, impossible plants took root in the moss-covered stone. Flowers opened petals made of actual flame—red and orange and blue—that gave off warmth but left nothing scorched when I brushed against them. Vines climbed the rocks, heavy with fruit that wasn’t quite solid: translucent spheres that chimed when they knocked together, each one holding what looked like captured giggles frozen mid-sound. Lily pads broad as dining tables drifted across the surface, and perched on them were tiny people no bigger than my thumb. They had dragonfly wings that blurred with movement and faces that were fully formed—sharp little grins and knowing eyes that tracked my every move with obvious amusement.
“It’s perfect,” I breathed.
“It’s ours,” Kaelren said. “For tonight, at least.”
Then, without warning, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed itaside.
I forgot how to breathe.
I’d felt his body before—through combat, through the bond, through stolen moments of closeness. But seeing him like this, in the dream-light of this impossible place, was something else entirely.
His torso was a canvas of controlled violence. Lean muscle carved sharp lines across his chest and abdomen, the kind of build that came from years of fighting. His carved marks continued down from his face and neck, spreading across his shoulders and chest in intricate patterns that seemed to pulse with their own light here in the dream. They should have been ugly—self-inflicted scars born of desperation. Instead, they were mesmerizing, like watching lightning frozen in skin.
But it wasn’t just the marks or the muscle that made my mouth go dry. It was the scars. So many scars. Some thin and precise—knife wounds. Others jagged and brutal—claws, perhaps, or worse. A few looked like burns, twisted tissue that had healed wrong. Each one was a story of survival, of a man who’d been broken and refused to stay that way.
“You’re staring,” he said, and there was dark satisfaction in his voice.
“You knew I would,” I managed.
“I hoped you would.” He moved to the edge of the pool, the light catching on his skin. “Are you coming, or are you going to keep pretending you don’t want to?”
It wasn’t a request. It was a challenge.
My flower dress dissolved at a thought, and I was grateful for dream-logic that let me skip the awkward process of undressing. His eyes tracked over me with the same hunger I’d felt looking at him, but he didn’t move closer—just waited at the water’s edge like a predator giving prey one last chance to run.
I didn’t run.
I walked to the pool’s edge, and without giving myself time to second-guess, I dove in.
The water—if it could be called water—was perfect. Warm but not hot, with a texture like satin against my skin. It seemed to hum with the samemagic that filled everything in this dreamscape, making every nerve ending sing with sensation.
I surfaced to find Kaelren already in the water beside me, droplets of liquid sliding down his chest and catching in the hollows of his collarbones. His hair was slicked back, making the sharp angles of his face even more pronounced.
“Show off,” I said.
“You dove in first,” he pointed out, moving closer. “What does that make you?”
“Impulsive?”
“Brave.” His hand found my waist under the water, pulling me closer. “Or reckless. I haven’t decided which I prefer.”
We swam together, and it was easy—playful even. He showed me how the mystical water responded to movement, creating patterns and ripples that sang different notes depending on how you disturbed them. I splashed him, and he retaliated by pulling me under briefly, both of us emerging laughing.
This was Kaelren without the weight of failure, without the corruption eating him alive. This was who he might have been if the world hadn’t broken him.
“There’s something behind the waterfall,” he said after a while, nodding toward the cascade of light. “Want to see?”
I did.
We swam toward it, the current creating resistance that made us work for it. But then we were through, behind the curtain of radiance, in a hidden alcove where the sound of the waterfall created a cocoon of privacy.
