Page 66 of Cursed Dreams (Shadow and Dreams #1)

Rodric stood a little way off, his hand resting on the hilt of the sword strapped across his back. He hadn’t spoken since she had stepped into the temple, his gaze was watchful, protective. Thalia, turned to him confused “What do I do now?” she asked

A deafening roar cracked through the temple ruins, so loud it rattled the very bones of the earth. A roar her instincts told her was no animal, but a beast, a dragon.

“Thalia!” Nyla shouted, leaping in front of her, hands raised instinctively in defence.

Thalia’s heart froze in her chest.

Vaelith stepped into the ruins, emerging from the shadows of the broken archway like death itself.

His cloak billowed behind him, his eyes shone molten gold, glowing with fury so bright they burned brighter than the sun.

The heat rolling off him was palpable, his rage so intense, the very stones seemed to tremble beneath their feet.

Rodric stepped in front of them, sword drawn, stance wide.

“Back, beast,” he growled, every inch the protector.

“You come any closer and I’ll strike.” Thalia’s heart pounded in fear for her father.

Vaelith didn’t even look at him at first. His eyes were on Thalia.

His fury, his desperation, his pain, all of it lasered into her with such force it almost knocked the breath from her lungs.

“Thalia,” he said, his voice deep, ragged, strained. “You have to listen to me.”

“No,” she snapped, stepping around Nyla, fury crackling through her chest like lightning.

“I’m done listening to you. I know what you are now.

I know what you did. The dragons, your kind, cursed the High Fae.

You erased them from history. You made sure no one would ever find them again.

You are monsters! You killed my friend “

Vaelith let out another roar, one so visceral the trees outside the ruins shuddered. He paced back and forth in front of the steps to the sarcophagus, his control slipping by the second. “You’re wrong,” he snarled. “You’ve been fed lies, twisted truths. You don’t know what happened.”

“I know enough,” she shouted, pointing at the sarcophagus. “I know exactly who’s in there. I know who I’ve been dreaming of. He’s the one who will destroy you! He will give me my vengeance!” The words tore from her a storm of fury and rage.

“Thalia,”, “if you open that, you will unleash something you cannot control.”

“Control!” she hissed. “Thats all you think about, controlling people! You’ve lied to me, used me tried to control me since the beginning.

He’s the one who set me free, who told me the truth!

You’re the one who cursed him, to a fate worse than death” “and why? All because he and his kind tried to stop you, from taking power that wasn’t yours in the first place”

Vaelith’s eyes flared, and his body tensed like a coiled predator. “I didn’t curse him!” he roared. “You think I wanted this? That any of us did? We tried to stop it, gods, we tried. But your prince, your precious Caelum, it was him and his that -”

Rodric surged forward with a snarl, sword raised high.

“Don’t!” Thalia cried.

But it was too late.

Rodric charged forward, his blade swinging with raw fury and fatherly protectiveness, only to be stopped mid-stride.

With a flash of deep black, shadows exploded from Vaelith’s outstretched palm, snaring Rodric mid-lunge and wrapping around him like coiling snakes.

He lifted him off the ground and slammed him down with a thud that reverberated through the cracked floor of the temple. The sword skittered out of his reach.

“No!” “Stop “Thalia screamed, rushing forward, her hand outstretched. “Don’t hurt him! Please, don’t kill him! He’s, my father!”

Vaelith turned his head toward her slowly, and the smile that spread across his face was cold, dark, and nothing like the male she’d come to know. His molten gold eyes shimmered, with a cruelness she had never known.

“No,” he said, voice low and deadly. “He’s not.”

The world tilted beneath Thalia’s feet. Her breath hitched, the air slicing through her lungs like ice. “You’re lying,” she choked, shaking her head violently. “You’re trying to confuse me, you’re lying!”

“I don’t lie, Thalia,” Vaelith said, his voice silk over razorblades. “You just never asked the right questions.”

“I know him,” she insisted, staggering back toward Rodric, eyes flicking between the man she had called father and the one pinning him down with magic. “He raised me. He, he was there every day, he—”

“He raised you, yes” Vaelith said flatly, his eyes boring into hers. “But you were not born to him.”

Thalia’s head swirled “Lies!” she roared.

After your magic assessment, I began researching your lineage. I needed to know what you are, who you are. Your magic felt so different, but so familiar. What I discovered…”

He stepped closer, shadows dragging like smoke behind him.

“You were orphaned. Found on the steps of the Temple of Esku when you were barely a few days old. The High Priestess Elara was the one who took you in, who realized what you are. She gave you to them,” he nodded toward Rodric, still held by the coiling shadows.

“A gift. A secret raised in plain sight.”

“No,” Thalia whispered, her voice fraying at the edges. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” he snapped, the fury returning.

“Your so-called father? He has known about the curse for years. He is one of them, Thalia. One of the rebellion. He’s been feeding you just enough misinformation to lead you along—stories at bedtime, little hints about the past. Guiding your curiosity.

Letting you grow up yearning for his version of the truth. ”

Vaelith’s lips twisted. “You were raised to seek him . And when the time was right, they made sure you found your way to the temple. They made sure you crossed paths with your precious prince.”

Thalia’s heart thundered, each beat too loud in her ears. “No. I chose this. I found him—I saw him in dreams—”

“Dreams,” Vaelith snarled, his lip curling. “You what he told you there was real? You think you’re the first?”

Thalia blinked, her entire world spinning.

“You’re not special in the way you think you are,” Vaelith continued, stalking forward, eyes blazing.

“He’s been dream walking with others for centuries.

He’s been reaching out, planting seeds, twisting minds.

Corrupting souls! That is why the rebellion began in the first place, because fools like your father fell under his spell. And now it’s happening again.”

Thalia felt the words strike deep, slicing into her like cold blades. “You’re lying,” she whispered, but her voice cracked. “Caelum wouldn’t—”

“He has ,” Vaelith snapped. “Did you ever ask him how he knew your name?”

Thalia froze.

The question struck her with a force she hadn’t been expecting.

“He saw a seer,” she said weakly, her throat dry. “She told him about me. That I would save him.”

Vaelith’s laughter was sharp and hollow. “A seer,” he repeated mockingly. “How convenient. Tell me, Thalia—” he turned his head, looking at the still-bound Rodric— “is your father a seer?”

Rodric didn’t speak.

Thalia looked to him, her chest tightening. “Dad?” she whispered. “Tell me he’s lying.”

Rodric’s eyes, so full of sorrow, met hers.

“Tell me he’s lying!” she cried again, her voice breaking.

The shadows shifted around Rodric’s body, Vaelith looked almost regretful as he withdrew them. Rodric collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily, but never looked away from Thalia.

Her heart shattered at the sight.

She stepped back as if burned, her mind spinning with too many truths, too many lies, she didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Her father wouldn’t lie to her, yet he wasn’t denying Vaelith’s words.

And Caelum, he never told her had been dream walking with others.

It was all too much. Everything she had ever believed in, everyone she had ever trusted.

Thalia’s chest heaved with uneven breaths, heart thundering behind her ribs. The air between them was thick with magic. She turned toward her father, Rodric, desperation written across her face.

“Tell me he’s lying,” she pleaded. “Tell me none of this is true.”

Rodric stepped toward her, slowly, hands lifted in a calming gesture. His face, lined with pain, shame, and so much love, crumpled as he looked at her.

“Thalia…” His voice broke, rough with emotion. “You are my daughter. You will always be my daughter. No matter what anyone says.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Your, your mother, Goldora and I we prayed for you,” he continued. “We knew what you were when the priestess brought you to us. But we didn’t care. We never once cared. You were ours the moment we held you.”

“You—” she choked. “You knew?”

Rodric nodded. “I knew. Not everything, not how your powers would manifest or what the future would ask of you. But I knew you were different. That the gods had placed something extraordinary in our care. And not a day has passed where I haven’t thanked them for it.”

Thalia shook, overcome, lips parted as sobs trembled in her throat. Her father took another step forward.

“I have always loved you,” he whispered, voice breaking. “And I am so proud of the beautiful female you’ve become. Nothing, nothing, can change that.”

Vaelith’s roar split the clearing like thunder. Shadows pulsed outward from his feet, his body glowing with barely restrained rage. “You dare to speak of love after the lies you’ve spun?”

Thalia stumbled back from the force of his voice.

“You’ve never told her the truth,” Vaelith growled, his golden eyes blazing. “She doesn’t even know what she is .”

“Then tell me!” Thalia screamed, whirling on him. “What am I?”

Vaelith’s chest heaved. “I never lied to you. Thalia, I’ve always told you the truth.”

“You haven’t told me anything!” she cried.

“Think back,” he said, voice like gravel, pleading. “Think back to the night at the tavern after the first night we ...”