A Dreamwright steps forward as I finish, her hands stained with ink and ore dust, her face solemn in the way of those who watch the multiverse breathe.
“Lords,” she says, voice carrying. “The flow is stable. Dreams move clean again. The forges sing. Nightmares are fewer.”
A ripple of relief spreads like a warm wave through the gathered people.
“And,” she adds, eyes glinting, “we have reports from the other realms.”
I feel it—subtle, like distant thunder.
The connection.
The invisible thread between Nightfall and everywhere else.
The Dreamwright lifts her palm, and a small image forms above it—an echo of another world.
Earth.
A dark bedroom in New Jersey—to be precise.
A child—maybe eight, maybe nine—stirs beneath a blanket patterned with dinosaurs. Their mouth curves into a sleepy smile as they whisper something into the dark.
“Dragons,” the child breathes, delighted. “And a castle… and a lady with wings…”
The image shifts—another bed, another world, another child. This one laughs in their sleep, clutching a stuffed bear like a lifeline.
Color returns to their dreams like water to a dried riverbed.
The crowd goes silent.
Not out of fear.
Out of awe.
Phoebe’s hand flies to her mouth. Delia blinks hard like she’s fighting tears. Alina squeezes Dagan’s fingers, and even Dagan—stone-faced Dagan—looks like the earth inside him has gone soft.
Jules turns her face into my shoulder.
“See?” she whispers. “It matters.”
“It always mattered,” I whisper back, holding her tighter.
I look out over my people—over our brothers, our mates, our children—and I let the truth settle in my bones.
Nightfall is not a weapon.
Nightfall is a promise.
And for the first time in an age, we are keeping it.
I lift my cup.
“To the Four Crowns,” I say, voice rougher than I intended. “To the Dreamwrights. To the miners. To the ones who bled in the dark so hope could be forged.”
I glance at my brothers and their viyellas.
“And to our mates,” I add, because I am not too proud to name the true power behind any of this. “The ones who made monsters into men worth following.”
Thorne grunts like he’s about to argue.
