Chapter 62 Dreams Not Her Own
Sleep had never claimed Lyrathia.
Not truly.
For three thousand years, rest had been a deliberate descent into stillness—her body inert, her mind sharpened into a perfect, dreamless blade. Cursed vampires did not dream. They did not wander the fragile landscapes of memory and fear. Dreams required vulnerability.
She had been spared that weakness.
Until now.
The first dream came like a knife through silk.
She was standing in the White Gate courtyard, moonlight painting the marble in silver and ash. The air smelled of iron and smoke. Bodies lay scattered—vampire and mortal alike—faces frozen in shock.
And at the center of it all—
Kael.
He knelt on one knee, blood soaking through his tunic, his silver-lit eyes already dimming. His sword lay broken at his side.
“No,” she whispered, her voice echoing unnaturally. “No, this is not real.”
He looked up at her, and smiled.
The expression was soft. Fond. Resigned.
“You were too late,” he said.
She crossed the distance in an instant, catching him as he collapsed. His blood—his blood—spilled over her hands, warm and impossibly red.
Her heart—her heart—screamed.
“Stay with me,” she demanded, clutching him tighter. “I forbid this.”
He laughed weakly. “Still issuing commands.”
“Kael,” she snarled, power flaring wildly around them. “I will tear the heavens apart—”
He reached up, fingers brushing her cheek.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why it hurts.”
His breath shuddered once.
Then he was gone.
She woke with a sound that tore from her chest—a broken gasp that echoed through her chamber.
Lyrathia bolted upright, claws digging into the obsidian mattress as she dragged in air she did not need.
Her chamber was intact. Silent. Dark.
Kael was alive.
She told herself this firmly.
Yet her hands trembled.
She pressed her palm to her chest, where something now beat—irregular, furious, terrified.
Impossible.
She rose from the bed and paced the room, trying to still the echo of terror vibrating through her veins. The dream clung to her senses with horrifying clarity—the smell of blood, the weight of his body, the sound of his final breath.
Dreams were not visions.
Dreams were not prophecy.
They were lies spun by a resting mind.
And yet—
She closed her eyes.
Sleep claimed her again before she could resist.
The second dream was worse.
This time, she was in the crypts.
Stone coffins lay shattered, ancient bones scattered like discarded offerings. The air pulsed with old magic, thick enough to choke on.
Kael was chained to a pillar of blackened bone, his arms stretched above him, silver blood tracing glowing patterns across the floor.
“No,” she whispered again, dread crawling up her spine.
He lifted his head slowly. His eyes met hers—and there was no fear in them.
Only sorrow.
“They were right,” he said softly. “About the prophecy.”
She ran toward him—but the ground cracked open beneath her feet. Shadows rose, coiling around her legs, dragging her back.
“Don’t touch him,” a voice boomed from the darkness. “Your love is the blade that kills him.”
“I do not love him!” she screamed.
Kael smiled sadly. “You do.”
The chains tightened.
Silver light erupted from his veins as the magic tore him apart from the inside. He cried out once—a sound of pure agony—and then—
She woke again, screaming.
This time, the scream did not fade.
Guards burst into her chamber, weapons drawn, eyes wide with alarm.
“My queen—”
“Leave,” she snarled, power flaring violently.
They fled at once.
Lyrathia stood alone in the aftermath, shaking.
Two dreams.
Identical endings.
Kael dead.
She had faced armies without fear. Gods without hesitation. Death itself with indifference.
But this—
This was terror.
She did not sleep again.
Instead, she summoned the oracle.
The air split open with a sound like cracking bone.
From the rift stepped the Oracle of Bones, her hollow eyes glowing faintly, her form draped in rattling fragments of ivory and ash.
“You dream,” the oracle rasped.
“I do,” Lyrathia said tightly. “Explain it.”
The oracle tilted her head. “Cursed queens do not dream. Awakened hearts do.”
The words slammed into her.
“Are they visions?” Lyrathia demanded. “Warnings? Lies?”
The oracle’s jaw creaked in what might have been a smile. “They are echoes.”
“Of what?”
“Of paths not yet chosen.”
Lyrathia’s nails dug into her palms. “Every dream ends with his death.”
“Yes,” the oracle agreed. “Because every path carries a price.”
“Then show me another ending,” Lyrathia said fiercely.
The oracle stepped closer, the air frosting around her. “There is another.”
Hope flared—dangerous, bright.
“What is it?”
The oracle’s voice dropped to a whisper that scraped against Lyrathia’s bones.
“You die instead.”
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Lyrathia’s breath came slow, controlled, though something inside her fractured further.
“Then the dreams are prophecy,” she said.
“They are possibility,” the oracle corrected. “Born of bond.”
Lyrathia’s gaze hardened. “Then I will break them.”
The oracle laughed—a dry, hollow sound. “That is the most dangerous dream of all.”
The rift closed.
Lyrathia stood alone, staring at the empty space where the oracle had been.
Her hands were still shaking.
Kael’s face haunted her mind—not as he was, but as he had been in the dreams. Dying. Smiling at her as if forgiveness mattered more than survival.
She turned toward the door.
Without hesitation, she strode from her chamber and down the darkened corridors toward the wing where Kael slept.
She stopped outside his door, fist raised.
For a long moment, she did nothing.
Then she lowered her hand.
If she woke him now—if she let him see the fear carved into her—it would become real.
She pressed her forehead briefly to the cool stone, drawing in strength.
“I will not let you die,” she whispered into the darkness.
The castle answered with a low, distant groan.
Deep beneath the crypts, something ancient stirred—responding not to fear, not to magic—
But to love being born in a heart that had been forbidden to feel.