“Will do, brother,” Royak said, his pale lavender eyes full of worry. “I will make sure you are both well taken care of if it comes down to it.”
Zirene nodded and rushed into the doorway.
“System. Emergency Shutdown. Prince Zirene Darcaw. Code 5312.”
“Confirmed,” the Dreamdome’s robotic voice reported. “Emergency Shutdown Complete. Welcome, Prince Zirene Darcaw.”
The lights rose at a gradual pace, revealing the Dreamdome’s chairs lined up in an arch along the wall. Selena was leaned back in the master chair, her body jerking uncontrollably as her head whipped back and forth.
Zirene ran up to her, concern flooding him. She should be slowly regaining consciousness now that the Dreamdome was shutting down, but there was no explanation why she wasn’t. The Dreamdome was completely safe—no one should be convulsing as she was. Zirene inspected her. There wasn’t anything amiss—other than Kaede’s scent was all over her dark clothes.
He growled. Now wasn’t the time for him to be angry about last night’s events or jealous of the fact she was wearing something of Kaede’s.
Slowly, Zirene picked Selena up from the master chair, holding her close to his body as he prevented her from falling. Her thrashes fading as her draped body started to still.
Gasps and heavy breathing filled the silence.
“Selena. Come back,” he begged. “Wake up.”
The gasps became worse.
Even with the system shutdown, Zirene was afraid of leaving the Dreamdome with her in this state. Never before had this happened to someone—not any of the engineers, his pilots, or to him. If a pilot’s ship was destroyed, his consciousness was left intact—they had tested what happened if the Dreamdome lost power or was destroyed with an occupant many times before making a group-sized version.
But all the occupants to this Dreamdome had always been Aldawi—until the day he invited Selena’s clan to experience it.
Was there a glitch in the system? Or had someone tampered with it?
None of it mattered when Selena’s body stilled and went limp in his arms.
“Royak!” he yelled. “Royak! I am losing her!”
Not waiting for his brother’s reply, he needed to act. The body couldn’t live without its life-essence. Hers was slipping. Where, and why? He didn’t know, but the only way to find out and save her would be joining her in their void’s chamber, forcing his way into her dreamscape, and merging it with his own before pulling her back to the present.
Zirene leaped into the master chair and lowered Selena between his legs, holding her in his arms. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to calm as he breathed deeply, following the steps of Aldawi meditation ingrained in him as a cub.
Eyes closed. Even breaths. Steady heartbeat. Calm mind.
Zirene repeated those words, chanting them like a mantra, ignoring the abnormal ringing in his head, his body feeling as if it was on fire.
He was the second prince of the Aldawi Empire—one of the strongest Aldawi ever in existence. He had the pedigree and strength to fight this.
And the Fates and the Stars bound her to him to challenge him. She was meant to keep him grounded and not spiral out of control, only to get lost in the void. Blackness surrounded him as the darkness of his mind became one with its shadow—the shadow cast from his Nova.
Selena's life-essence was a bright golden sphere, drawing him in like an asteroid attracted to a planet’s gravitational pull.
A burning flame. A shooting star.
So bright, he was afraid to look away for fear if he turned his gaze, she would be gone.
There was always a great need to reach out and wrap himself around her—to protect her from all who wanted to take his light, his Nova, away.
She was his first. No one would take her away from him.
Not now. Not ever.
Selena’s golden sphere flickered, its intensity dimming each time.
Zirene studied their shared void. By bonding with her nestmates, she created doors in it without knowing. Their once exclusive chamber now had closed paths to all nestmates, colored by her mental threads to them—Xylo’s teal, Odelm’s pale green, V’dim’s turquoise, and Z’fir’s emerald.
