She turned her head just enough to meet his gaze fully. “So of course you think it’s by design.”
“I think,” Alaric confessed, carefully, “that people once dreamed often. Freely. And someone decided it was better if they didn’t.”
The words sat too neatly in the silence.
Evelyne’s voice dipped, more cautious now. “Are you saying someone is stealing them?”
“I’m saying,” he said, “that forgetting can be taught. And enforced. And over time, what’s enforced begins to feel like the truth.”
Her jaw tensed. “So, it's the truth we’ve forgotten.”
“It may be.”
The implication tightened her throat.
She looked at him again, eyes searching. “Are you dreaming, Alaric?”
He hesitated. Just for a second. “No.”
She turned her face away, not in shame—but in exhaustion. “Then maybe Iamcursed after all.”
“No.” His voice was soft, but firm. “That’s what they want you to think.”
A beat.
“Why?” she asked, not sure which they she meant. The Assembly. The court. Everyone.
“To make you obedient,” he answered.
She didn’t respond at once. The words lodged somewhere between her ribs and her pulse.
“Do you know why art, dreams, and magic are treated like a disease?” Alaric asked.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she listened.
“Because they are all the same,” he said. “They’re a source of creativity and truth. In dreams, we see. Through art, we show. With magic, we change. And that terrifies them. Because anything that can’t be controlled, must be destroyed.”
Her gaze was fixed ahead. He was making too much sense, and she hated him a little for it. Hated that he was reckless enough to say such things aloud.
“You really are the most exhausting conversationalist,” Evelyne sighed, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Alaric grinned. “I do strive for consistency.”
“Try striving for clarity next time.”
“That would ruin the mystique.”
“That’s one word for it.”
He tapped his temple. “The archives will remember me fondly.”
She offered a cool smile, tilting her chin ever so slightly. “Do you always babble like that after exertion?”
They joined Vesena and Thalen near the fence. Her brother was demonstrating a flourished bow that looked vaguely dangerous, and Cedric was muttering under his breath about broken wrists.
“Only when the company inspires it,” he said, brushing his fingers through his damp hair. “And I wasn’t babbling. I was philosophizing. You Edrathen always pretend to value that sort of thing.”
She gave him a flat look. “That’s not philosophizing. That’s a cry for help.”
