Chapter 68 The Shadow Weaver's Gift

Chapter 68 The Shadow Weaver's Gift
You learn to control it. Ondine stood. "Dream-Walking is like any other magic. It can be trained. Refined. You can learn to enter the Dream Realm deliberately instead of accidentally. To navigate without getting pulled into every nightmare you pass. To protect your own mind while reading others."

Thessaly wanted to laugh. The sound came out harsh and broken. "Of course. Of course my curse is actually the most dangerous gift imaginable. Why would it be anything else?"

Davorin moved to her side, and the bond hummed with his concern. "This doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything." Thessaly looked up at him. "I'm not just the powerless princess anymore. I'm something people killed for. Something that scares a woman who's seen centuries of magic."

"I'm not scared of you," Ondine said. "I'm scared for you. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Yes." Ondine's expression was serious. "If word gets out about what you can do, every kingdom in the realm will want you. Some to use you. Some to kill you before you become a threat. And some just to study you like you're a fascinating specimen instead of a person."

The weight of that settled over Thessaly's shoulders. She'd spent nineteen years being nobody. Invisible. Forgettable. And now she was rare. Dangerous. The kind of power people wrote histories about.

"Who else knows?" Davorin asked.

"Just us. And it needs to stay that way." Ondine looked between them. "Thessaly, you cannot tell anyone else about this. Not Varian. Not your brother if he somehow survives the coming battle. No one."

"What about the Unity Ceremony?" Thessaly's mind was racing. "If I'm a Dream-Walker, does that change the ritual?"

Ondine went very still. "How did you know the ritual involves dreams?"

"I didn't. I'm guessing."

"You're guessing correctly." Ondine's voice was careful now. "The Unity Ceremony requires both participants to enter a shared dream space. To merge their consciousnesses completely. For most people, that's incredibly difficult. Dangerous. It's why the ceremony fails so often."

"But for me?"

"For you it should be easier. Natural, even." Ondine paused. "But it also means the risks are different. If you lose control in the shared space, you could trap both of you there. Or worse, you could accidentally reshape Davorin's mind without meaning to. Dream-Walkers in the old texts talked about that. How easy it was to blur the line between reading someone's thoughts and changing them."

Thessaly's stomach churned. "I would never do that to him."

"Not on purpose. But in a dream, intentions get slippery. What you want and what you do aren't always the same thing." Ondine stood. "We need to start training immediately. Before the ceremony. Before you slip into the Dream Realm again and get lost."

"How long will it take?"

"To master Dream-Walking? Years. Decades, maybe." Ondine's expression was grim. "To learn enough to survive? We have about a week if we're lucky."

Davorin's jaw tightened. "Malachi's army will be here before that."

"Then we work faster." Ondine moved toward the door. "Get some sleep if you can. Real sleep. Tomorrow we start training, and it won't be pleasant."

She left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Thessaly sat in the silence, trying to process everything. Dream-Walker. Extinct. Dangerous enough that people burned the last one alive.

"You're shaking," Davorin said quietly.

She was. Her whole body trembled like she was freezing, even though the room was warm.

"I don't want this." The words came out small. "I don't want to be powerful or rare or dangerous. I just want to be normal."

"Normal is overrated."

"You don't get to say that. You're a king with shadow magic and a death curse. You've never been normal."

"Exactly. So I know what I'm talking about." He sat beside her on the bed. "Being different is terrifying. But it's also what makes you matter."

"I mattered before this."

"You did. To me." His voice was soft. "But now you matter to yourself too. That's worth something."

Thessaly wanted to believe him. Wanted to think that this power was a gift instead of another burden. But all she could see was the fear in Ondine's eyes and the history of a woman burned alive for being too dangerous.

"What if I can't control it?" she whispered. "What if I hurt someone?"

"Then we'll deal with it together." Davorin took her hand. "You're not alone in this."

The bond hummed between them, and Thessaly felt his certainty. His absolute refusal to let her face this alone.

"Tomorrow," she said. "We start training tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he agreed.

But as Thessaly tried to sleep, she could still feel it. The pulse of the Dream Realm, calling to her. Waiting for her to come back.

And the terrifying part was knowing that next time, she would have to answer.