Page 68 of Cursed Dreams (Shadow and Dreams #1)

Epilogue

Vaelith

H e was on his knees.

Smoke curled from his skin. Every nerve in his body screamed. His shadows trembled uselessly at his sides, unable to form. The blinding white fire that had broken the curse had also broken him.

He could still taste the agony, could still feel the moment the binding shattered across the realms, the sacred seal severed, unravelling centuries of his people’s protection.

His fingers clenched the broken stone beneath him.

He had failed.

It had been his one purpose, his burden, his vow: to protect the curse that kept the world safe from what lay beneath. And now...Fuck he had failed.

He lifted his gaze through the haze of magic still humming through the temple ruins.

There she was. Lit from within. Still glowing faintly with celestial light.

Her chest heaving, her body shaking, but she stood.

Or rather, she was held . In the arms of the one who had brought this ruin. The one they had fought to keep sealed.

Caelum. The Prince of Death.

Vaelith stared at the two of them, at the way Thalia looked up into the prince’s eyes, open and vulnerable, as if Caelum were salvation instead of damnation. Red mist distorted his vision.

He had known her magic was different when he first assessed her, had felt it echo against his own, curious and wild. But this… this was not that magic. This was twisted. Distorted. She burned like starlight now. No longer just the young healer from the temple. No longer his little healer.

He could feel it from here. The ripple of imbalance in her aura. The way her magic shivered wrong.

Used. They had manipulated her magic somehow. Manipulated her mind.

He wanted to grab her. Wanted to rip her away from Caelum’s hands, to hold her and shield her from what was to come.

But his limbs ached. His strength had been drained by the explosion.

The shadows that once bent to his will now flickered weakly, coiling like dying embers.

He was too weak to fight Caelum. Too late to stop what had already begun. And yet, he lingered.

His heart ached. For her. For the female who had once glared at him in a library hallway, whose laughter had cracked his stern edges, whose mouth he had kissed like a starving male in a dream of light and shadow.

She hadn’t known what she was doing. Not truly.

But it didn’t matter now.

Vaelith pushed himself to his feet slowly, wings unfurling behind him. The ache in his chest threatened to pull him down again, but he locked his knees, clenched his fists, and burned this moment into his soul.

He looked at her one last time.

“What have you done, my little healer?” he whispered.

Then, with a roar of wind and fire, he launched into the sky, wings slicing through the clouds, flying hard and fast toward the Dragon Lands.

He had to warn them.

The curse was broken.

And war was coming

To be continued