Page 63 of Cursed Dreams (Shadow and Dreams #1)

The priestesses moved as one, their spells surging through the air like a living storm.

Light magic blazed toward Vaelith in great arcing lashes, but he didn’t falter.

Shadows unfurled from his palms, thick as smoke and sharp as blades, intercepting each bolt with precision.

Not once did he strike out to kill—but he didn’t hesitate to neutralize.

The ground cracked open beneath his feet. One priestess slammed her hand into the stone, sending jagged spikes of earth thrusting up toward him. Vaelith leapt clear in a blur of movement, shadows coiling beneath him like wings.

Another priestess, younger and cloaked in blue, summoned a torrent of water that shot through the air in sharp, twisting tendrils. Vaelith’s cloak snapped as he spun, his shadows wrapping around the jets and forcing them back into mist with a hiss.

Air shrieked overhead as gusts whipped toward him, blades of wind spinning like thrown daggers. He ducked low, rolling forward, then surged up, grabbing one priestess’s wrist and flipping her to the ground in one fluid motion. She landed hard but conscious, her weapon skidding away.

Merryweather’s voice cracked like a whip, summoning thick vines from the ground, thorned and writhing. They lashed toward Vaelith with terrifying speed, wrapping like serpents. For a moment, they caught, tight around his arm, his waist.

Thalia cried out as more priestesses surged forward. “Stop it! You’ll kill him!”

Her plea was drowned in the roar of another spell. Fire and lightning now, lashing the air. Vaelith bared his teeth and snarled, not in pain, but fury. With a violent surge of shadow, he exploded free of the vines, shoving Merryweather’s magic back with a sound like cracking stone.

Still, he didn’t attack them. His shadows moved with purpose, snaring wrists, diverting spells, binding ankles just long enough to disarm. Never once did he aim to harm beyond what was necessary.

Thalia tried to run forward, toward Marand, who had been thrown to the ground in the first explosion, but a wall of air magic surged in her path, knocking her back. Nyla grabbed her arm. “We can’t get through!”

Thalia’s heart thundered in her chest. Marand lay motionless, barely ten paces away, her dark hair streaked with blood. Cellen was yelling, trying to push through, but another spell swept past, scattering them back.

She couldn’t breathe. Every part of her screamed to reach her friend, to stop the fight, to make it all stop.

But the priestesses wouldn’t listen.

Merryweather raised both hands, her face twisted with rage.

The ground trembled. More vines erupted, sharper, faster.

One caught Vaelith’s shoulder, tearing through his cloak and drawing blood.

He didn’t flinch. His shadows surged outward in a pulse, throwing the magic back in a wave that swept the courtyard, sending several priestesses tumbling.

The air cracked with energy. Dust rose. Light pulsed. The ground shook with every strike.

Through it all, Vaelith moved like a storm contained. Powerful, deliberate. Holding back when he didn’t have to. Fighting with fury but without cruelty.

His eyes met Thalia’s across the chaos, molten, desperate. And in them, she saw not power, but restraint. Not rage but resolve.

He wasn’t trying to win.

He was trying not to destroy them all.

Thalia watched as Marand, slowly, regained consciousness. Relief crashing through her.

Marand looked around dazed at the sight before her. She got herself up on to her feet and ran for Thalia, she opened her mouth and screamed “Thalia, please you need to stop this!” “Please, Vaelith is ...”

Something dark cut through the air. a sliver of blackness, fast as a blink.

It pierced her chest.

Her body jerked mid-step, the breath stolen from her lips. For a heartbeat, she stood there, as if stunned by the sudden silence, then crumpled

“No—NO!” Thalia’s knees hit the earth hard as she dropped to her side.

“MARAND!” Cellen’s roar tore through the temple grounds like an animal breaking loose. He was already running for her, falling to his knees, pulling her into his arms. “No. Please. Please, no—!”

Thalia rushed to them, hands glowing with shaky light. “Hold on, Marand, hold on, I’ve got you, just hold on—” her voice broke on every word, tears blurring her vision.

Blood. Too much blood.

“Stay with me,” Cellen sobbed, cradling her body against his chest, his fingers shaking as he pressed them to the wound his own light flaring beneath them, desperate to keep her here. “You’re gonna be fine, okay? You’re, it’s just a scratch—”

“THALIA HELP ME FIX IT" his guttural roar had her shaking “Please, you have to fix it!” he pleaded quieter this time.

“I’m trying!” Thalia sobbed, her magic slipping, pulsing, wild with no control.

Nyla dropped down beside them, hands pressed to Marand’s side, tears streaming down her face. “She’s not responding, gods, she’s not breathing—”

“She’s gone” the words were faint.

“NO!” Cellen rocked her gently, over and over, as if the movement might bring her back. “You promised me a dance, remember? You promised me a life, please. Don’t leave me”

Thalia stared at the deep crimson spreading across Marand’s chest where she had been struck. Her stomach twisted, heat rising in her throat. Her heart dropped like a stone into an endless pit.

“Vaelith,” she whispered

Cellen’s head snapped up, eyes rimmed with red, face twisted in grief. “He killed her,” he shrieked. “He killed her.”

Thalia shook her head, even as guilt and terror swirled inside her. “I don’t know, Cellen, I—”

“She was trying to tell you," He whispered, voice broken. “Trying to warn you.”

Marand’s body lay limp in his arms, her head nestled into the curve of his shoulder, as if she were sleeping. But her chest didn’t rise. Her lips didn’t move.

Cellen’s scream was feral. Her heart shattered.

The sounds of battle faded into a dull, distant roar.

Thalia’s world had narrowed to the broken male on the ground and the girl who had just moments ago been laughing over breakfast with them.

A strangled noise tore from Cellen’s throat. Gently, he laid Marand down. His trembling hands slid from hers as he stood, and his face distorted with rage and grief. Rage. Grief. Despair. Raw, explosive magic began to crackle around him, a golden light that lit his skin from within.

“You killed her,” he snarled, eyes locked on Vaelith. “You bastard! You killed her!”

Before anyone could stop him, he launched himself forward with a roar, firing a blast of pure magic.

Vaelith turned, blocking the attack, stumbling slightly beneath the force. His eyes went to Marand’s body, Shock and pain danced across his face.

“I did not do that,” he shouted, hands up, warding off another blast. “You have to believe me—I didn’t kill her!”

Cellen screamed and hurled another surge of power. Vaelith countered it, gritting his teeth.

Nyla was sprinting now, trying to reach Cellen. “Cellen, stop—please! He’ll kill you!”

“She’s dead!” Cellen shouted. “She was—she was—” “SHE WAS MY MATE”

His voice broke, and another surge of violet light slammed into Vaelith’s shield, sending a shockwave of heat and pressure through the courtyard. Dust and loose stones flared into the air.

“Thalia,” Vaelith called, voice ragged. “You know me. You’ve seen me. I didn’t do this. I didn’t—”

Thalia had already stepped forward. Her body burned with grief, with fury. Power gathered in her hands like wildfire, rising from her like a storm. It hurt. It hurt to feel this much.

“You think I’d believe anything you say now?” she spat, voice shaking. “She’s dead, Vaelith!”

She hurled her magic at him; brilliant white light erupted around the full temple. Vaelith threw up a shield, and this time he staggered hard, driven back a step as the light burst across his defences.

“I didn’t kill the girl!” he shouted again, eyes locking with hers. “Thalia, please—”

Another blast shot from her hands, this time with a cry of pure heartbreak behind it.

Mate. Marand and Cellen were mates. Her heart broke repeatedly for the loss of her friend and the loss of their love.

With each stab of the pain coursing through her she attacked blasting more white-hot burning searing light at Vaelith. She was raw power and fury.

Vaelith’s eyes widened as his knees hit the ground his shield cracking under the force of her continued blasts.

She stared into his eyes silver flashing into molten gold and ready to make her final strike and end this once and for all.

With a curse, Vaelith pulled his shadows around him and vanished, the space where he had stood crackling with the last of his magic.

Thalia stood shaking with unrestrained power.

The silence around her was thick, broken only by the faint crackle of fading magic still pulsing through the air.

Her breath came in ragged bursts, her fingers curled at her sides, glowing faintly.

She could feel the still ness of the eyes watching her, appraising her, there was a palpable fear in the air.

She looked back at Marand’s body on the stones. Lifeless. Still.

Nyla tentatively stepped forward, her eyes wide with shock.

She watched as one of the priestesses, covered Marand’s body with a pale linen cloth. Numbness setting deep in her limbs. Nothing felt real. Not the heavy smell of smoke, not the taste of ash in Thalia’s mouth. Not the dull, hollow ache in her chest that threatened to crack her in two.

“We will send her home,” one of the elder priestesses murmured gently, breaking the silence. “To Vertrose. We will prepare her body with the honours owed to her and see that she is laid to rest with dignity.”

Thalia couldn’t speak. The words caught in her throat, tangled and bitter. She could only nod.

“You cannot stay here,” the priestess added, firmer this time. “He will return.” “And he may bring others”

Others?

The word rang in her ears like a drum!

“There are more dragons?” the shock in Nyla’s voice echoing her own feelings.

“It would be naive and foolish to assume, that Lor...” she stopped herself, “That Vaelith is the only surviving dragon.” “You must go as soon as you can, I fear another war may be coming now, but without the High Fae, and despite your incredible power “she gave Thalia a pointed look “We will not stand a chance”

Her voice sounded far away. Thalia looked at Cellen, who still knelt beside Marand’s body, unmoving. His shoulders were hunched, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Broken. He looked broken. Nyla didn’t speak; her arms crossed tightly over her chest as if holding herself together.

Thalia nodded to the priestess, “We will leave immediately”

They gathered their satchels and mounted their horses in silence, each movement heavy, mechanical.

One of the younger priestesses handed Thalia a waterskin and a pack of food without a word, eyes shining with fear.

Thalia thanked her with a nod, but her voice was lost somewhere deep inside the knot of grief swelling in her chest.

They rode out slowly, the hooves of their horses muffled by the dust of the road.

Thalia couldn’t stop looking at Cellen. She had asked if he had wanted to stay behind, but he had refused.

He hadn’t spoken since. He rode with his head bowed, one hand on the reins, the other gripping the strap of his pack so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

His eyes were locked on some invisible point ahead of him, and Thalia wondered if he, too, was seeing the moment Marand’s body crumpled.

She remembered finding them curled together last night, tangled in blankets, his arm slung protectively around her waist. She’d smiled then.

Now it just made her chest ache. Marand had stayed because of her.

She was dead because of her. She didn’t need to hear the words aloud to know they were true.

If Thalia hadn’t confessed her secret, if they hadn’t gone searching for the temple, if she hadn’t asked them to follow her on this path.

.. Marand would still be alive. She would’ve been safe in vertrose, studying to be a healer, giggling in the library, joking over breakfast. Not lying cold in a temple far off in the fae lands.

Her beautiful infectious light snuffed out forever.

She clenched the reins tighter, blinking hard against the tears. The world blurred around her. She felt like she was wading through a nightmare she couldn’t wake from.

Beside her, Nyla rode in silence, her jaw set, her expression unreadable. But the set of her shoulders told Thalia everything, she was barely holding herself together too.

They didn’t speak. There was nothing left to say.

Marand’s laughter had been silenced. Her warmth stolen from the world. And Thalia, who had always thought she would give anything to save Caelum, now understood the true cost of that choice.