Page 71 of Cursed Dreams
She approached slowly, still afraid to speak.
Elric smiled at her as he stood. “It would appear he had recovered. All symptoms are gone. Whatever was afflicting him… it’s vanished.”
“I—” Thalia blinked, stunned. “How?”
“I’ve already asked your classmates,” Elric said, his voice almost reverent. “They said they didn’t administer anything. Did you?”
Thalia shook her head, wide-eyed. “No, I… I haven’t been here since earlier.”
Elric nodded, gaze drifting to the heavens. “Then all we can do is praise Amara. A miracle, indeed.” “We will continue to monitor him, of course, but all my examinations show him to be in prefect health”
He offered Aric’s wife a comforting hand on her shoulder, then excused himself to inform the head healers.
Thalia didn’t move.
She stood there, watching the small family cling to each other, warmth and tears filling the room like sunlight.
How?
Her thoughts spun like a storm.
“Not all the old magic is gone. Some of it sleeps. Some of it waits” Caelum had told her.
A soundless breath left her lips. Her heart soared, warmth blooming in her chest like light rising after storm.
Could it be possible? Could Caelum somehow have done this?
She glanced one last time at Aric and his beautiful family then turned silently and left the room, her feet light.
All she wanted more than anything was to see him again, she had so many questions.
She climbed the stairs to her dormitory, whispering a prayer not to the stars, but to him.
Please… be in my dreams tonight.
Chapter 17
“We thought we’d find you here.”
Thalia didn’t look up right away. Cellen’s voice, light with amusement, echoed gently through the high-arched aisles of the temple library. She sat cross-legged on a cushioned bench by one of the long windows, a heavy tome balanced across her lap, scrolls and books spread out in a half-moon around her like a fortress of parchment.
This had become her sanctuary.
Her days had blurred into a quiet, determined rhythm; classes in the morning, hospital rounds in the afternoon, and hours in the archives each evening, scouring every inch of recorded history for any mention of Caelum, the Forgotten Fae Realms, the High Fae, or even the Dragon Wars. She’d found nothing.
Simply basic texts, summaries of well-worn lore that painted the High Fae as noble martyrs and the dragons as greedy forces of destruction. There were names of gods and generals, of human kings and fae warriors, but none of them bore the face or the name of the male she’d met in the forest of her dreams.
Caelum didn’t exist in any record.
The male she was now convinced had somehow saved Aric’s life. There could be no other explanation.
Her search had turned into something close to obsession. She spent every free moment tucked away in the archives, digging through old scrolls and forgotten records, chasing anything that mentioned dream walking or the Forgotten Realms. Without meaning to, she’d started pulling away from her friends, skipping meals, missing study sessions, always saying she was “just five more minutes.”
Caelum… how had he done it? The question wouldn’t leave her alone. She should’ve seen him again by now. Should’ve been able to ask. So why hadn’t he come back?
Aric had gone from death’s door to nearly dancing in the ward. He was already packing to go home, grinning wide and boasting he felt stronger than he had in his youth.
Each night she had gone to bed eager, her heart fluttering with a wild hope that he would be there waiting for her in that soft, glowing forest. Each morning, she woke disappointed.
