Page 103 of Cursed Dreams
His jaw clenched, but she didn’t stop.
“You think you know everything, but you’re just a bitter, cryptic bastard who sneers and sulks in corners and throws half-truths at people like they're supposed to thank you for it.”
“Thalia—”
“You think snarling warnings makes you righteous, but you never actually say anything. You just… glare, like that’s enough.”
The shadows at his feet thickened, coiling like snakes around his boots.
“I trusted you,” she said. “I wanted to trust you.”
Vaelith’s voice snapped like a whip. “And I trusted you not to be this stupid!”
The silence that followed rang through the temple like a bell.
She recoiled like he’d slapped her.
He surged forward again, pacing, gripping his hair with one hand, the other sparking with barely restrained magic. Hiscontrol was slipping. His shadows had lost their smoothness—now jagged, twitching, crackling underfoot.
“I always thought you were intelligent,” he hissed. “I thought you had a good head on your shoulders—that you could see through illusion.”
“Don’t talk down to me,” she said, voice low and shaking. “Don’t you dare.”
“You’re better than this,” he growled. “You’re better than a pretty face and sweet words. You’re smarter. You—” He cut off, clenching his jaw so hard the muscle ticked. “You don’t even know what he’s doing to you.”
“I do,” she shot back. “He’s loving me.”
Something in Vaelith’s expression fractured. Like a crack across a stone wall, subtle but fatal. The golden heat in his eyes dimmed, replaced by something rawer. Something wounded. He looked at her like she had just driven a dagger into his ribs and twisted it. For a moment, he said nothing. Just stared at her. When he finally spoke again, his voice was hoarse.
“You really believe that?” he asked.
Thalia’s hesitated “I…” She faltered, the sharpness in her chest not from anger anymore, but uncertainty. “I don’t know. I think so.”
Vaelith stared at her for another long second. Then he looked away. He looked away and Thailia sensed if he met her eyes again, he wouldn’t be able to hold it together. But she wasn’t done.
“I don’t care what you say,” she whispered, chin trembling but voice steady. “I will save him.”
Vaelith’s head turned slowly, his face unreadable.
“I will find the Temple of Kek. I’ll find the Forgotten Forest. And I’ll bring Caelum back. He deserves to live again. He..he deserves to be free.”
His eyes burned. Not molten gold, brighter. Wilder.
“You think that’s mercy,” he said, low and bitter. “But it’s not. It’s a death sentence.”
“For who?” she snapped. “For you? Because you can’t stand the thought of him being alive? Because he’s everything you’re not?” the words were out before she could even think. Shadows exploded outward like a wave. Thalia stumbled back, breath stolen from her throat as the very air pulsed with heat and fury.
Vaelith stepped forward, firelight catching on his face, his skin glowing from within. His silver hair burned white as the hottest flame. His eyes were no longer just molten but searing, sun fire trapped behind shattered glass. Fear held her in its grips, her chest burning .
His voice came out ragged, stripped of every shield he usually wore.
“You don’t understand. You never did.” His chest rose and fell with the force of his breaths. “You want to save a prince who was never meant to be freed. A creature who was meant to be locked away.”
“You talk like you know,” she whispered. “Like you were there.”
“I was there,” he growled.
And then his voice broke, more honest than she’d ever heard it.
