I pulled them off gently and set them aside, then eased him back against the pillows. The moment his head hit them, he exhaled like he hadn’t breathed in hours.
I stood, about to leave. To give him space and darkness and the rest he so badly needed.
But then his hand reached out and caught mine.
“Stay with me,” he whispered, his voice raw. “Just until I fall asleep.”
My breath caught.
I didn’t answer in words.
I slipped off my boots, slid beneath the covers beside him, and let his arm curl around me.
And in the quiet that followed, I listened to his breathing slow, steady.
I stayed.
Zander’s warmth seeped into me like the gentlest kind of magic, no sparks, no fire, just steady presence and the thrum of his heartbeat beside mine. His arm rested against my waist, anchoring me. Calming me. My eyes fluttered shut, and the ache of the day ebbed slowly into silence.
Then—
The world shifted.
I was standing in a place that didn’t exist in waking life, an endless glade bathed in silver light, the sky above dark and starless, the air thick with memory. Flowers bloomed at my feet, blood-red and moon-white, swaying without wind.
Before me stood a woman I had never seen. And yet, I knew her.
Her hair was as silver as snowlight, falling in loose waves to her waist. Her eyes… gods, her eyes were mine. Only older, wiser, deep with grief and centuries of knowing. She was fae, regal and radiant, dressed in a gown that shimmered like water over glass.
“My name is Eliran,” she said softly, with a voice like wind through branches.
My breath caught. “You’re my grandmother.”
She nodded once. “You feel it, don’t you? In your blood. You carry more than magic. You carry memory.”
I carried sadness and shame. And I couldn’t ignore either here. How I had wanted to learn where I came from only to find I was related to the most monstrous man of all. Eliran’s husband.
But as I stood staring at her, there was no denying her beauty or her purity. Her face was as stoic as it was stunning.
Tears stung my eyes as I stepped forward. “Am I destined to be evil? Because my grandfather turned against his people—against his family?”
Her expression darkened. “No. Do not make the mistake of tying your worth to his.”
“What happened to you?” I whispered.
She inhaled, and the dreamscape pulsed with her sorrow.
“I loved him. Veralin. I trusted him, even when the others said he reached too far into forbidden power. When I realized what he wanted, it was too late. He killed me. To take my gift—my ability to walk the dream realm. To influence it. He severed me from my body and stole my voice.”
My hands trembled. “And your daughter?”
“She defied him. Refused to let him use her the way he used me. So he imprisoned her, bound in crystal, in shadow—hidden from the world for centuries.” Her eyes burned now. “Until Loretha escaped.”
I gasped. “My mother. I’m so sorry… How did she die?”
But the woman’s expression didn’t change.
“She does not walk among the dead.”
