Chapter 17 #2
The words felt strange on my tongue, unfamiliar yet oddly instinctive, as if I were remembering them rather than speaking them for the first time. The air shifted, and a faint tremor passed through the room, stirring loose pages across the table and setting the candle flames flickering.
The symbols on the page seemed to shift as I spoke, fragments aligning and meaning slotting into place just beyond my grasp. For a fleeting moment, it felt as though the spell was not being cast, but restored. I faltered.
“Don’t stop,” Evander urged.
I forced myself to continue. With every enchanted word, the faint glow outlining the symbols deepened.
A low hum filled the space, vibrating through the floor beneath my feet.
The air grew heavy, charged, as though something long dormant had stirred in recognition.
For a fleeting moment, I thought it might actually work.
And though I had no tangible connection to this surreal dreamscape, I found myself holding my breath in anticipation, desperately hoping it would.
Light suddenly flared brightly, and a sharp pulse of magic burst outward.
Every loose scrap of parchment in the room lifted into the air at once, spiraling around us before falling back to the ground in a chaotic cascade.
Evander and I simultaneously caught our breath, and I realized that at some point we had clasped hands as we worked together.
The force vanished as quickly as it had come.
The scattered pages settled, but neither of us moved to gather them, nor spoke in the heavy silence that followed.
The failed spell lingered in the air, humming faintly beneath the quiet…
as though the magic hadn’t fully decided whether it had ended or merely paused.
Evander exhaled slowly, dropping my hand without seeming to realize he’d held it. His shoulders drooped, and I felt a rush of sympathy, wondering how many times he had tried to cast a spell only for it to end in failure.
After a moment, he finally stirred, reaching past me to steady one of the fallen books.
His arm brushed mine and he stilled, pausing to look at me.
In the depths of his grey eyes I saw the anguish of his disappointment, the doubt that came from constant failure…
and something more. Deep inside glowed a spark of warmth, as though an ember waited to be fanned into flame.
I found myself wondering what that would look like, an Evander who was confident, kind, and awake.
Would our moments of connection have a chance to grow into something more?
This is a dream, I reminded myself. Which meant I didn’t have to guard myself so carefully. Dangerous logic, but one I found myself yearning to embrace.
In an effort to resist the temptation to look at him, I turned my attention to the scattered mess around us. “Was your goal to awaken the library?”
“No, the kingdom.” Evander exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “At least it was closer than the last attempt.”
“That was closer?”
“Considerably. Normally nothing occurs, but the magic actually activated this time. Though I’m not sure it did anything…” He stilled abruptly, his shoulders tensing. “Listen. Can you hear that?”
His gaze shifted towards the open window, where the brambles parted just enough to reveal the world beyond. I held myself still, straining to listen. At first, there was nothing except the quiet rhythm of our breathing and the faint rush of my heartbeat filling the silence.
Then somewhere in the distance, a soft, clear sound echoed through the stillness—a bird’s call. The sound didn’t fade or dissolve into the stillness, but lingered, bright and distinct, as though it belonged to something real that refused to be forgotten.
Evander inhaled sharply. “Did you—” But he was already moving, crossing the room with a sudden urgency and pushing recklessly past the curtain of brambles. I hurried after him, my pulse quickening with an anticipation I couldn’t yet name.
Together, we looked out. The landscape had changed—not in form, but in presence.
The hills still rolled into the distance and the forests still stretched beneath the gathering twilight, but they no longer felt suspended in stillness.
The trees stirred, their leaves shifting in soft, deliberate motion.
A breeze caressed the land, visible now in the subtle ripple of branches and grass, as though the world itself had finally drawn breath.
The sun had set and darkness was encroaching, yet it felt like the dawn of a new day.
Another birdsong sounded, closer this time, followed by another. The silence that had once blanketed everything fractured, giving way to something gentler and unmistakably alive.
I leaned forward slightly, my gaze searching the grounds below. “It worked,” I whispered, though the words felt uncertain even as I spoke them.
Evander didn’t immediately answer, his gaze fixed on the horizon before shifting back into the room; he seemed to listen intently for something beyond the room we were in.
“In part,” he said at last. “But the life returning to the world has not reached all its inhabitants; my subjects appear to still be sleeping.”
A strange unease curled in my chest. My attention drifted, caught on something I couldn’t quite explain.
The sound of the birds lingered in the air, the steady motion of the swaying trees, the faint layering of the scent of earth and budding flowers carried through the open window.
It all felt too present and complete, not like the fractured remnants within the castle or anything I’d ever experienced in the waking world.
The thought surfaced slowly, unbidden. I frowned slightly, the realization forming piece by piece.
In contrast to this vibrancy, it had always been quiet there, almost empty…
as though something had been stripped away so gradually I had never thought to question it.
I’d been unwilling to consider any evidence in the past, unable to believe that my reality might be reversed.
Yet I could no longer ignore the mounting clues.
Here, the world didn’t blur at the edges or dim when I focused too closely.
Every sound, every movement, every stir of the wind settled into place with quiet certainty, as if it had always belonged there.
I drew in a slow breath, a soft recognition I couldn’t name tightening my chest as an unsettling thought began to take root.
If this was only a dream…then why did it feel more alive than anything I had ever known?
“Why is everything so much more vivid in this world?” I didn’t expect an answer to the quiet question; this man had only ever existed within this dream and had nothing to compare it to.
But Evander’s lips lifted in a half smile. “I’ve told you before this isn’t a dream.”
I didn’t respond, still wrestling with my uncertainty, and he turned away, returning to the table and closing the book with a soft thud that seemed to resonate in the stillness. I felt the unwelcome loss of his presence beside me the moment he stepped away.
I joined him at the table, once more taking in the scattered notes and half-burned candles. “You’ve been doing this for a long time,” I said.
He nodded, his expression drawn with weariness. “There are better spells than the one we just tried, I just haven’t been able to reach them yet.”
His gaze flicked towards a darkened archway on the far side of the room, half-hidden behind collapsed shelving and creeping vines. I followed the line of his attention. “You don’t sound discouraged,” I said.
“I don’t have the luxury of being discouraged.” There was no bitterness in his tone, only determination, one of many traits I was beginning to admire in him. The realization stirred something in my chest, unfamiliar and unwelcome in equal measure. Before I could examine it too closely, he turned.
“Come,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
This time, I followed without hesitation. He led me through the archway and into another corridor—this one less ruined, though still touched by neglect. The air shifted as we walked, growing cooler and quieter, as though the space itself held its breath. Until at last, we stepped out into the open.
My breath caught with wonder. The night stretched endlessly above us, deeper than any sky I had ever seen—as we’d conversed night had fully fallen, and now the expanse was ink-dark and scattered with stars that burned brighter than they had any right to, as though this world had forgotten how to dim them.
Moonlight spilled across the stone balcony, bathing everything in silver, softening the ruin into something almost beautiful.
For a moment, I forgot to breathe. “It’s beautiful,” I murmured.
“It wasn’t always like this,” Evander said, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Before the curse, this place was…alive.”
I moved closer to the edge of the balcony, resting my hands lightly against the cool stone. Evander joined me a moment later, close enough our shoulders brushed. Rather than move away, I leaned in closer, seeking his presence.
I followed his gaze, taking in the vast expanse above us.
The stars shimmered with impossible clarity, like a painting just completed, its fresh paint still glistening.
Silence settled between us, but it wasn’t empty.
The night breathed around us—the faint whisper of wind, the distant echo of something unseen, alive in a way that felt beautiful and almost real.
“I don’t understand this world,” I admitted, my voice soft so as not to shatter the reverence around us. “Or how I fit into it. Part of me is still convinced this is a dream; the other part doesn’t know what to think.”
“You’re not meant to fully understand yet,” he said.
“Then what am I meant to do?”
His gaze shifted to me, steady and searching in a way that made it difficult to look away. “Just stay. You don’t have to keep running anymore.”