Page 154 of Cursed Dreams
Quickly he righted himself, eyes molten gold, shadows spiralling from his fingertips, Wings spread wide like an angel of death. His were lips drawn back over his teeth in a snarl. He turned back toward Rodric with deadly purpose.
“NO!” Thalia sobbed, the word cracking in her throat as her legs buckled.
“Thalia!” Nyla’s voice rang out behind her, fierce and raw with urgency. “Wake him—WAKE CAELUM NOW!”
Through the haze of her tears, through the storm of pain and heartbreak ripping her apart, Thalia spun and sprinted to thesarcophagus. Her hands scrambled across the ancient carvings, every breath a sob, every heartbeat a war drum. She poured her magic into it watching as the runes, glowing faintly, humming in her bones, shifted beneath her fingers as if alive. There in the very centre, was an oval hollow space. The perfect size for the pendant on her necklace.
With trembling fingers, Thalia yanked it from her throat and pressed it into place.
Magic erupted from her like a star being born, blinding, furious, searing white light that scorched the air. She screamed as it tore through her, a river of agony and power breaking free from its dam. Her limbs shook violently. Her body convulsed with the force of it. The runes on the sarcophagus flared with gold and white brilliance.
In the distance, through the storm of magic and chaos, she heard Vaelith roar again, pain, sorrow and anger etched into it.
Still magic poured from her in wave after wave. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed to the temple floor, panting, her skin slick with sweat, her vision swimming.
The light vanished. She blinked through the tears, the haze, and turned her head.
Vaelith was still as stone. On his knees. Wings, gleaming, golden, magnificent, unfurled behind him, trembling in the fading light.
She looked around to find standing before her, tall and radiant, a silhouette against the broken sky. Her vision blurred the feeling of exhaustion crashing over her.
A hand reached down gently lifting her with such ease. As she looked up into the face of the figure holding her, she was startled by the piercing blue eyes that met her own.
He was even more beautiful than in her dreams. Hair dark as midnight, glowing skin kissed by ancient power, the weight of a thousand lifetimes behind his gaze. His arms held her tightly against his chest, solid and warm, as if he couldn’t bear to let go.
“My goddess,” Caelum whispered.
Epilogue
Vaelith
He was on his knees.
Smoke curled from his skin. Every nerve in his body screamed. His shadows trembled uselessly at his sides, unable to form. The blinding white fire that had broken the curse had also broken him.
He could still taste the agony, could still feel the moment the binding shattered across the realms, the sacred seal severed, unravelling centuries of his people’s protection.
His fingers clenched the broken stone beneath him.
He had failed.
It had been his one purpose, his burden, his vow: to protect the curse that kept the world safe from what lay beneath. And now...Fuck he had failed.
He lifted his gaze through the haze of magic still humming through the temple ruins. There she was. Lit from within. Still glowing faintly with celestial light. Her chest heaving, her body shaking, but she stood. Or rather, shewas held. In the arms of the one who had brought this ruin. The one they had fought to keep sealed.
Caelum.The Prince of Death.
Vaelith stared at the two of them, at the way Thalia looked up into the prince’s eyes, open and vulnerable, as if Caelum were salvation instead of damnation. Red mist distorted his vision.
He had known her magic was different when he first assessed her, had felt it echo against his own, curious and wild. But this… this was not that magic. This was twisted. Distorted. She burned like starlight now. No longer just the young healer from the temple. No longerhislittle healer.
He couldfeelit from here. The ripple of imbalance in her aura. The way her magic shivered wrong.
Used. They had manipulated her magic somehow. Manipulated her mind.
He wanted to grab her. Wanted to rip her away from Caelum’s hands, to hold her and shield her from what was to come. But his limbs ached. His strength had been drained by the explosion. The shadows that once bent to his will now flickered weakly, coiling like dying embers. He was too weak to fight Caelum. Too late to stop what had already begun. And yet, he lingered.
His heart ached. For her. For the female who had once glared at him in a library hallway, whose laughter had cracked his stern edges, whose mouth he had kissed like a starving male in a dream of light and shadow.
