Page 43 of Cursed Dreams (Shadow and Dreams #1)

T halia woke with a gasp, the taste of his name still on her tongue and her heart pounding like it had been flung into battle.

The golden glow of the temple’s braziers flickered against the stone floor, casting long, shifting shadows, the heat curling around her didn’t come from the fire.

It came from him. Before she could so much as gasp, Vaelith had her pinned against one of the cold stone columns, his hands locked around her arms, not rough, not cruel, but unmovable.

His eyes blazed molten gold, his entire body taut with fury, breath hot against her face.

“What the fuck have you done?” he snarled, voice rough, low, and burning.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Vaelith, what? what’s happening?”

“I felt it,” he spat. “Your magic. It was, twisting, shifting into something it shouldn’t be. Something that doesn't belong to you.”

He let go of her like he couldn’t bear to touch her, pacing now, his shadows dragging behind him like smoke, like they were reluctant to part.

“You let him in,” he growled. “You keep letting him in. You think this is a game? You have no idea what you’re doing.”

She shoved away from the pillar, anger and panic clawing at her chest “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His head snapped around. “You opened yourself to him. You bound yourself without even knowing it.”

Her blood went cold.

“You were in the dream again,” he said. “With him.”

She stilled, trying to understand what she was hearing “How do you know?”

Vaelith turned slowly, eyes burning as he stepped toward her again. “Because I felt it. The way your power bent around his. The way it cracked.”

She swallowed hard, chest heaving. “You were there?”

He didn’t answer immediately—just stared at her, a flicker of something dark and furious in his face.

Eventually, she forced her racing thoughts to settle enough to speak again. “You were there? How is that even possible?”

He was silent for a long moment. Too long.

“I know him,” he said. “I know exactly who he is.” he spat it like poison. "The prince.”

She staggered back a step, the words slamming into her.

“You know him,” she whispered. “You’ve known this whole time. Who he is and where he is ?” confusion and fury warred inside her at his revelation.

“I know what he is,” Vaelith said, jaw clenched. “And I know where he is.”

“You don’t want him to leave the dream realm, you want to leave him trapped there!” she accused, as she slowly tried to piece it all together.

Vaelith’s expression twisted, pain, fury, grief all dancing across his face.

“That’s not a dream realm,” he growled. “It’s not a peaceful glade or some lost, sacred place. It’s a prison. A locked, cursed edge of the world where monsters sleep behind walls of illusion and silver-tongued lies.”

“That’s not, he’s not—” .

“He is.” Vaelith’s voice was low and sharp, a blade sliding between her ribs. “And I won’t let him out. I swore to keep him there. I helped build the lock.”

His words made no sense, how could he have possibly ..

Thalia’s voice shook. “How could you, how is that even, Vaelith, when?”

“I was there,” he said flatly. “At the end of the war. I saw what he did.”

She was trembling now, the room spinning.

“I will not let Caelum walk this world again,” he said, a shadow twisting around his boots like a living thing. “Even if it means standing between you and him for the rest of my life.

Thalia reeled as the words sank in. He was there. At the end of the war. The war that had wiped the High Fae from the earth. That had ended the age of dragons and shattered the world’s balance.

She shook her head, voice cracking with disbelief. “That’s not possible. No one’s that old. That was—ages ago. That’s .. No I don’t believe you .”

Vaelith’s eyes burned brighter. “You still don’t get it.”

She took a step back, as if putting distance between them could slow the unravelling truth bleeding into the air.

“I don’t want to get it,” she snapped. “Because what you’re saying makes no sense.”

She turned away from him, tried to gather her spiralling thoughts. “Caelum has done nothing but help me. He’s guided me. Protected me. He was there when I had no one. When I was breaking. He—he saved Aric.”

The moment the words left her mouth, Vaelith moved. He lunged forward like something had snapped inside him, shadows flaring at his feet like snarling beasts.

“Don’t you dare,” he roared, “give him credit for that!”

His voice cracked the silence like thunder. The braziers shivered, the flames shrinking under the weight of his fury. Thalia froze.

“Only one thing could have saved Aric,” Vaelith hissed, fists clenched so tightly the tendons in his arms stood out like cords. “Only one force in this world has that kind of power.”

She blinked at him, heart racing. “Then what was it?”

He stared her down, voice like a knife. “A Dragon.”

The words struck her like a slap.

She blinked. “That’s not possible. Caelum is no dragon.”

Vaelith didn’t answer. His jaw clenched. His shoulders rose with the strain of keeping something unsaid.

Thalia’s voice rose. “Dragons are gone. Extinct. Good riddance. They were monsters, everyone knows that. Greedy, power-hungry creatures that nearly destroyed the world trying to steal the gods’ magic for themselves!”

Something snapped behind Vaelith’s eyes. His lip curled in a sneer, the molten gold of his irises glowing with something raw and dangerous. “You sound just like the stories they wrote after they slaughtered us.”

Thalia’s heart stopped. Us. The word echoed, strange and misplaced, like it had slipped out without permission. She stared at him. He stared right back. The firelight trembled between them. The silence was sharp. Vaelith slowly took a step toward her.

“And what if everything you were taught was a lie?” he said, voice quieter now but no less vicious. “What if your beloved prince wasn’t a hero in starlight, but the reason the world broke in the first place?”

She flinched at the venom in his voice.

“You don’t know him,” she said hoarsely.

“And you do?” he challenged. “After a few stolen nights and pretty words? Do you even know what he is? What he’s done?”

“Stop it,” she snapped. “He’s not, he’s not evil.” her voice cracked on the last word.

Vaelith looked at her, something devastating in the shadows of his face.

“I’ve watched people fall for his lies before,” he said, quieter now. “Every single one of them ended in ruin.”

There were others? Why had Caelum never mentioned others? No Vaelith was lying. Thalia’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

“No,” she said, her voice hard and steady. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t know him, not like I do.”

Vaelith’s head snapped toward her.

“I know him better than you ever will,” he growled, prowling closer. But she didn’t back down.

“He’s kind,” she went on, breath shaking with fury. “He listens. He sees me. He tells me I matter. Do you have any idea what that means to someone who’s spent their whole life trying to prove they’re good enough?”

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. His control 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.