The dream was no longer fleeting.
Lyra stood barefoot on soil that wasn't hers, surrounded by trees that whispered in a tongue older than any spell. The air was heavy with the scent of nightshade and firewood. This time, she didn't run. Her breath trembled in her throat, but she stayed.
He was there. Raven.
He didn't speak, didn't move at first. Just watched her with those eyes—gray like an overcast sky before the rain. She wondered if he was always this tall, or if the dream had decided to make her smaller. The wind didn't howl between them this time. It paused… listening.
"What are you?" Lyra asked, voice barely a breath.
"I don't know anymore," Raven said. "But I think we're the same kind of wrong."
His voice echoed—not like a memory, but like it belonged to her somehow. The way lightning belonged to storms.
Their fingers didn't touch, but the space between their hands sparked. Just a little. Just enough to feel it.
But then, the forest bled.
The trees curled inward, leaves turning black and brittle. Lyra's bare feet were suddenly wet—dark red seeping into the soil. The sky twisted like a wound, and the ground cracked.
Lyra gasped and reached for him, but the dream collapsed.
She woke up screaming.
---
The candlelight flickered violently in her chambers. Her hands shook as she wiped sweat from her temple. The spellbook on her desk, one that should have sealed dreams like that, was scorched on the edges.
Again.
A quiet knock tapped on her door.
"Lyra?" came Mirea's voice. "Another one?"
Lyra didn't answer. She couldn't. Her throat was raw from a scream that didn't belong to her alone. Her magic had flared in her sleep—again. Books were scattered, parchment torn. The runes on her mirror pulsed erratically, reacting to her unstable aura.
She whispered a lie and called it peace
---
In the vampire realm, Raven stood in a field that hadn't been ash yesterday.
He'd been drawn here—again—not by logic, not by duty, but by the echo of her scream. He hadn't told his brother, hadn't told anyone. He could still hear it. Could feel it in his fangs, like blood he hadn't drunk.
He bent and picked up a single white flower—the kind that didn't grow in his world. It burned to the touch. Witch magic.
She was crossing into him somehow. Not physically, but her dreams weren't staying in her world anymore. They were bleeding through.
Just like the sky.
---
That evening, Lyra sat before the elders. They'd summoned her not with punishment, but with worry.
"You're cracking," the eldest one said. "Your power is untethered."
"I'm fine," Lyra replied, staring at the floor.
"Dream magic is sacred," another elder warned. "It was forbidden for a reason. If something is pulling at you from the other side, we must seal it—permanently."
Panic fluttered in her chest.
"No," she said too quickly. "It's nothing. I can handle it."
They studied her. Unconvinced.
But she left the chambers with a forced bow and clenched fists. The moment she stepped into the corridor, her knees nearly buckled.
It was more than dreams now.
She could feel Raven when she closed her eyes. Could smell his world on the wind. Could hear him in the silence between heartbeats.
And tonight, she knew—
He'd feel her too.