Chapter LVII
"The Dust Where Dreams Once Lived"
Celeste's POV
I kept running.
My legs ached, my lungs screamed, and the air felt dry like the words that had once meant something and now meant nothing. Every breath I took tasted of sand and sorrow. The desert stretched endlessly before me — a golden ocean without tides, without mercy.
But then… something changed.
A sudden gust of wind rose from the ground, swirling the sand into the air like a warning. The dunes shifted unnaturally. I slowed down, shielding my face from the storm. And then—without any warning—I collided with something hard and invisible.
I stumbled backward and fell.
The world around me quieted. The sand settled.
And then I looked down.
My breath caught.
It was her.
Cael.
Her body lay still on the sand — half-buried beneath golden grains that now looked like ashes. Her silver-blue hair, once glowing with life, now lay dull and tangled around her pale face. Her lips were parted ever so slightly, as if she had one last word to say… but death had stolen it before it could escape.
I froze.
My heart stopped.
Not because she was gone — but because of what surrounded her.
Queens. Kings. Princesses. And even the Mother Fairy.
They stood in a wide circle around her fallen body — their expressions serene, some smiling, others whispering prayers, as if celebrating the end of something evil… or the beginning of something new. Their robes fluttered gently in the wind, and they looked almost… relieved.
But I wasn't.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't even cry.
The love that had broken me, the betrayal that had burned me — it was all lying there in silence. Cold. Still. Final.
For a moment, I thought maybe this was a victory. Maybe the darkness inside Cael had finally ended. Maybe the curse had been broken. Maybe the world could begin again.
But then… a strange stillness settled over me. A deep, heavy silence that didn't feel like peace.
I looked around again — more closely this time.
The ground beneath Cael was cracked and dry. The sky above… pale and lifeless. The trees in the distance stood still like ghosts, their leaves gone, their roots exposed. There was no magic humming through the air. No light flickering in the sky.
And then it hit me.
This wasn't the fairy land I once knew.
This was a place that had died.
With her.
The land hadn't survived her death — it had only pretended to. The celebration around me was an illusion. A final echo of what used to be. A trick of memory. Maybe of guilt.
Because even though she had hurt me… Cael had been their daughter. Their queen. Their creation.
And now, she was gone.
And with her… so was everything else.
I dropped to my knees beside her. I couldn't help it. My fingers trembled as I reached out and touched her cold hand — the same hand that once led me into fields of color and whispered dreams into my heart. The same hand that had once held mine and made me believe in impossible things.
Her skin was cold.
But my heart still burned.
I looked around at the silent crowd — the kings, the queens, the princesses — and finally whispered into the wind:
> "You didn't save her… none of us did."
And maybe… we were never meant to.
The wind howled softly, carrying my words away.
I bowed my head, not in grief, not in forgiveness, but in understanding.
Cael had always belonged to the shadows.
And now… she had taken the last light with her.
"The Dream That Felt Like Truth"
Celeste's POV
Just then, before I could even breathe another word — Cael's body began to fade.
A soft breeze rose from the ground, delicate and haunting, like a farewell song only the wind could hum. The grains of sand that had surrounded her lifted gently into the air, swirling around her lifeless form. And then… piece by piece, like the petals of a long-wilted flower, her body began to dissolve into the air.
No light. No sound. No magic spells or divine intervention.
Just… disappearance.
And in a blink — she was gone.
The emptiness that followed swallowed everything.
A sudden darkness fell around me — not night, not shadow… but something deeper, heavier. A void. An endless abyss that wrapped itself around my skin, my soul, my breath. It wasn't the kind of darkness you could see through, or wait to pass. It was the kind of darkness you feel — thick like grief, silent like guilt, eternal like loss.
I was drowning in it.
Suffocating.
I tried to move, to speak, to even cry, but nothing made a sound. It felt like I had been thrown into the center of a forgotten memory… and the world had turned its back on me.
And then — as suddenly as it began — I felt the ground beneath me shift.
Crack.
A sound like the earth itself breaking open.
The ground trembled, and before I could react, I was falling… falling into nothingness. I let out a gasp, flailing for something, anything to hold onto — but there was nothing but blackness, pulling me deeper.
And then…
I jerked awake.
Gasping. Heart pounding.
Sweat clung to my skin like second breath. My hair was damp, sticking to my face. My chest heaved as if I'd been running for miles — running from ghosts that refused to let me go.
I sat up, clutching the edge of the bed, trying to ground myself.
But nothing about the room felt real.
Because what I had just seen — what I had felt — wasn't just a dream.
It was too real.
The sensation of Cael's cold hand… the sound of her voice… the wind that carried her away… the darkness that devoured me — it all lingered. Not like a memory. But like a scar.
I pressed my palm against my heart.
Still racing.
Still aching.
> "Why did it feel so real…?"
Was it a vision?
Was it a warning?
Or… was it a memory from some other life, some other version of me that still wandered through that cursed land?
I looked around.
The room was silent.
The night outside, still.
But something inside me had changed.
Because now I wasn't sure what was dream and what was truth.
What was real… and what was the lie.
And most terrifying of all —
I didn't know if I was awake… or still trapped inside her magic.
To be continued....