Page 76 of Cursed Dreams
“To me,” he said softly, stepping closer, “you are divine.”
Thalia blinked up at him, her heart beating wildly in her chest.
“From the moment I saw you,” he murmured, “I knew. You were the one the seer spoke of. The one who would change everything.”
He cupped her face again, his fingers warm against her skin.
“My goddess,” he whispered, eyes shining with something too tender to be anything but real. “And I would fall to my knees and worship you every day of eternity, if only you’d let me.”
Thalia’s breath stilled, for a moment, all she could feel was the space between them, crackling, glowing, humming with the weight of his words.
Caelum’s gaze never wavered.
He stared into her like she was made of something more than skin and bone, like she was woven from starlight and dreams, from the ancient threads of fate itself.
She couldn’t look away.
His eyes weren’t just blue. They were swirled with something deeper, something almost impossible, silver glints, faint traces of light moving like galaxies behind his irises. She stared, breath caught in her throat, and fell into them like a plunge into warm, glowing water.
Her heart stammered. There, in that breathless silence, she felt it. That pull. That thread. Something ancient. Something sacred. A soft, glowing light shimmered faintly between them, elusive and warm, like the echo of a half-remembered touch. It edged into her very being, slipping beneath thought and reason, settling in the hollow of her chest as if it had always belonged there.
It didn’t make sense. It shouldn’t make sense. But there was no denying the way her soul responded to his. The way her very blood hummed in his presence. Suddenly, she knew, deep down in the marrow of her being, that she was already falling for him.
Not with the slow bloom of curiosity. Not with the fumbling innocence of a crush.
But with something old, something buried in the roots of the earth and written in the stars long before she ever took her first breath.
He was a part of her. He always had been.
Her lips parted, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. “Caelum,” she whispered, “If I’m meant to save you, how do I do it?”
His expression shifted, softening, warming, as if the question stirred something in him, he wasn’t quite ready to answer. He opened his mouth.
Thalia’s chest squeezed tight, burning like an inferno.
The forest shimmered.
The trees blurred, and the ground tilted beneath her feet. A tug, sharp and sudden, yanked at the core of her being.
No.
Not yet.
“Caelum,” she gasped, panic flooding her chest, “something’s happening, I’m being pulled back ..”
“Thalia,” he said gently, stepping closer, pressing his palm to her cheek again. The warmth of his skin grounded her for a heartbeat.
“I’ll find you again,” he whispered. “Soon.”
Her vision flickered. The mist grew thicker, the moonlight dulling.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Please, ”
“Shhh…” His forehead leaned into hers, their breath mingling, the space between them humming with the unbearable weight of goodbye.
“I’m always with you,” he murmured. “You’ll see me again. I promise.”
Just before the darkness swallowed her, he pressed a tender, lingering kiss to her brow, full of reverence. Of gentle aching affection, and then he was gone.
