49. Wren #2
I give up trying to tell him it isn’t real, because I want this, too. Fates, I want this. For one terrible, traitorous moment, I can see it—feel it—what it would be like to step forward, to take that place beside him, to let this be enough.
To let this be everything.
My chest aches so sharply it almost steals my breath.
But it isn’t real.
It isn’t real, and somewhere beyond this dream, a little girl with dark hair and too much magic is waiting for her family to come back.
Somewhere beyond this, the world is still turning.
Somewhere beyond this… there might be a future.
Maybe not this one, but something that’s worth fighting for.
“Cass,” I say, my voice breaking as I step toward him. “Cass, look at me.”
He doesn’t. He’s smiling at the baby in his arms. Our baby.
“No,” I say again, louder now. “Cassiel.”
The air shifts, cold and rotting. The sound comes back—scraping, dragging, closer now, so much closer.
The spectres spill into the hall.
They tear through the edges of the scene, warping it as they come. The golden light flickers. The walls ripple. The perfect, impossible peace begins to fracture under their weight.
Hands reach.
Voices scream.
“Cassiel!” I shout.
Evander moves.
He throws out a hand, and the floor between us and the oncoming horrors splits, stone heaving upward into jagged barriers. A table overturns, stretching impossibly long, blocking their path. Tapestries rip free and twist into binding cords that lash around grasping limbs.
It slows them.
But it doesn’t stop them.
“They’ll break through!” Evander shouts. He looks at me, frantic now. “Wren! You have to break her out of it!”
Cassiel doesn’t move.
He doesn’t even seem to hear.
“Wren!” Evander snaps.
I look at him, then at Cassiel—at the life he’s choosing, at the dream that’s swallowing him whole.
I think of Runara, waiting for us, and something in me hardens.
I cannot remake the universe to give Cassiel his brother back, but I can bring Runara’s back to her.
I will bring them back.
I turn, striding toward Alessandra.
She watches me approach, serene as ever, one hand resting lightly on the baby’s back.
“Alessandra,” I say, and there’s no softness left in my voice now. No patience. No careful kindness. “Your husband is dead.”
The words hit like a stone thrown through glass.
The air cracks. Behind me, something roars.
Alessandra’s smile falters. “My husband is here. Can you not see him?”
“Your husband lies in the castle vault,” I continue, relentless. “next to your eldest son.”
“No,” she says, voice trembling, “you’re lying.”
“I saw my people murder your husband, and I did nothing,” I tell her, because nothing shakes away joy like rage. “I saw your son stabbed through the gut. He is standing here only because you are keeping him trapped in a dream that is falling apart around us.”
Evander flinches. I don’t stop.
“But your other son is alive,” I say, sharper now, stepping closer. “He’s real. And he needs you.”
Cassiel’s head lifts slightly, just a fraction.
“She needs you,” I press on. “Runara—your daughter. She’s nine years old. She’s alone, and she is waiting for her mother to wake up.”
The dream shudders. The baby in Alessandra’s arms flickers for a second.
“And your country needs you,” I finish, voice like steel. “I know you think you are protecting Evander, but you aren’t. You are abandoning your other children.”
“No,” Alessandra says, shaking her head, clutching the baby tighter. “No, my children are here. They’re all here. I can see them—”
“They’re not,” I snap.
The spectres crash against Evander’s barriers.
Stone fractures. Light splinters.
I am out of time, out of patience, out of anything but the truth.
“Look at them!” I shout. “Look at what’s coming for you! This dream is breaking, and when it does, it will take all of us with it!”
“No—”
“Yes!” My voice rises, raw and furious and desperate. “You don’t get to hide here while they suffer out there! You don’t get to pretend none of it happened!”
The creatures surge forward, tearing through the last of Evander’s constructs. He stumbles back.
“Wren—!” he warns.
I turn back to Alessandra, and I make a choice.
“Fine,” I say, cold and final. “If you won’t wake up—”
The spectres can’t destroy the dream if I do it first.
I falter, just for a moment, remembering my magic refusing to obey before, but it will this time. I’ll make it. I’ll burn the whole dream away and show her where we really are.
I have to.
Flame blooms at my fingertip and I let it loose.
It tears through the dream. The hall ignites in an instant. Gold melts to ash. Silk blackens and curls. The perfect, painted world unravels under the heat, dissolving into nothing.
Alessandra screams.
Cassiel shouts my name.
Runara vanishes. The old king and queen exploded into dust. Leonitus sinks away from Alessandra with a final, desperate look at her.
The older version of me fractures, breaking apart like glass. She takes the children with her, even when Cassiel reaches out to grab them.
Everything burns.
Everything ends.
No spectres or courtiers, no walls, no hall, no dream. Just darkness.
No. Not darkness.
A vast, endless plane of stars and crystalline nebulas. We stand in a sea of ink, purple, red, gold. The four of us and nothing else.
Alessandra looks up, weeping. Her arms clutch the empty air where baby Runara was.
“Where… where are we?” she asks.
“The sea of stars,” Evander responds, looking around him. “The place between life and death.”
It doesn’t feel like death to me. It feels alive. The air rumbles, hot and full, all fire and thunder. This isn’t darkness. It feels like home.
Cassiel approaches his mother, crouching down beside her. The glossy quality of his gaze has faded now. The dream has lost its spell.
“What happened, Mother?” he asks her softly. “What happened after Nubaia’s attack?”
Alessandra continues to weep, but the swirling nebulas arrange themselves into shapes. Alessandra falls at the hands of my grandmother, but a golden ball of light drifts from her body onto the starry plane where Evander hovers. She reforms, chasing Evander in the gloom.
“Mother—” he starts, as she clutches onto him.
“You’re all right,” she tells him, golden tears spilling down her face. “I have you. You’re safe—”
People are calling her name. Healers arrive, staunching her wounds, bringing her back from the brink. Cassiel is there, holding her hand. I hadn’t thought about him being there after I fell, but of course he was.
“Mother,” he whispers. “Mother, please…”
“You need to go back,” Evander says in his memory, as she clutches onto him. “You have to go back.”
But Alessandra doesn’t hear him. “I’ll keep you safe,” she repeats. “I’ll keep us all safe. All of us, Evander. I promise.”
As she speaks, walls from around her, constructing the castle dreamscape. Evander starts to shrink in her arms, reforming into the shape of a child. Alessandra smiles at him. Evander looks horrified.
The vision ends. The plane goes still once more.
Alessandra continues to weep. Evander approaches her now, still and quiet.
“I can’t let you go,” she whispers. “I can’t.”
Evander swallows. “You can’t keep me here, either,” he tells her. “Wren’s right. Cassiel and Runara need you more. Please, Mother, go back with them.”
“I—”
“Mama!” another voice calls through the dark, everywhere at once. “Wren! Cassiel! Can you hear me?”
“Ru,” whispers Alessandra. “She sounds—”
“Scared,” Cassiel states. “She sounds scared, Mama. We’ve left her there all alone.”
Alessandra stares at Evander. “But you’re alone too.”
Evander crouches beside her, taking her hand. “Maybe not,” he says softly. “I’ll be all right, Mama. Whatever happens next, I’ll be all right. Ru won’t.”
“I’d rather like you back too,” Cassiel adds. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Tears stain her cheeks. The dream continues to unravel, the colours crisping away, like paper in flame.
Evander unlatches from his mother’s grip. He moves backwards, not giving her another chance to reach out. Cassiel takes her outstretched hand and latches onto mine. His nails dig into my palm.
We all stare at Evander as the stars begin to fade, but it’s my gaze that he holds, me that he nods at.
Me, who finally starts to understand why my victims haunt me.
And what I have to do next.