The sanctuary was quiet, but Elira's mind roared with everything she had seen, felt, and lost in the illusion. She sat wrapped in a soft wool cloak, the Weeping Blade resting across her lap, Caelen beside her with his hand still gently entwined with hers.
Outside, Aerthalin stirred — alive, healing. Inside her, another world lingered, one that only she remembered.
"I thought it was real," she said at last, her voice low. "Every moment. Every choice. I thought I had lived an entire life without you."
Caelen's eyes were soft, solemn. "In a way, you did."
She looked at him sharply. "You believe that?"
He nodded. "Magic like that... it doesn't create from nothing. It draws from who you are. What you fear. What you love."
Elira lowered her gaze. "Then I created a world that mourned you. That built gardens over your grave. That whispered your name in prayer. I never stopped walking — never stopped carrying your memory."
"And even when it wasn't real for the world," he said, "it was real to your heart. That means something."
She swallowed hard. "But it wasn't truth. And now, I don't know what's real anymore. I remember laying flowers on your grave. I remember the child with no pain. I remember the wind carrying your voice."
Her breath hitched.
"I remember burying you."
Caelen shifted closer, one hand reaching out to gently cup her cheek. "Elira," he whispered. "You didn't bury me. You never lost me. I'm here."
Her throat burned with unshed tears. "Then why does it hurt like I did?"
"Because grief doesn't ask permission," he said. "Even the dream of loss can carve us open."
She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. The warmth of him, the steady rhythm of his breath, grounded her more than the stone beneath her feet ever could.
"I don't want to forget it," she whispered.
"You shouldn't," he said. "That world was yours. A gift. A warning, maybe. A message only you could carry."
She opened her eyes, gaze flickering to the Weeping Blade. "But no one else remembers it. All those people I spoke to… the child in the cradle, the garden in Kareth, the monument of names… they're all just shadows now. Like dreams slipping between fingers."
"They were never meant for the world," Caelen said gently. "They were meant for you."
Elira turned to him, confused.
He looked away, as if embarrassed. "I don't know how to explain it. While you were sleeping, the priestesses said… strange things. They said your soul was somewhere deep. Too deep to reach. But there was a warmth around you. Like something sacred was protecting you."
"Protecting me?" she asked.
Caelen hesitated. "It didn't feel like a curse. It felt like… love. Like something was making sure you saw what you needed to see."
She drew a slow breath, realization rippling through her like wind on still water.
You're never alone. Tell my story. That's enough.
Her eyes stung.
"Then maybe the dream wasn't made to break me," she whispered. "Maybe it was to remind me what matters."
Caelen met her gaze. "What did you remember?"
She looked down at her hands, pale fingers resting atop the hilt of the blade. "That even when kindness is forgotten, it can bloom again. That even when I think I've lost everything, love finds a way to stay. And that even if the world doesn't know what I lived through…"
She looked up, steady now. "I do. And that's enough."
He smiled, and the weight in her chest softened, just a little.
"You've changed," he said quietly. "Even in a week… you're stronger."
"I had to be," she said, with a sad laugh. "I was all alone."
"No," Caelen said, his voice almost a murmur. "You were never alone. Not even there."
She stared at him.
He glanced at the runes on the blade. "The Weeping Blade glowed the entire time you slept. The priestesses said it was mourning — or waiting. I don't know. But I think… a part of me was with you in that dream. Somehow."
Elira didn't answer.
She simply leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, her face pressed against the space where his heartbeat thrummed.
For a long moment, they stayed there, the silence holding them like a shelter.
The dream had been long. The grief had been real.
But the reunion… the reunion was truth.
And for Elira, that truth would be her beginning.