That night's dream was different.
Rhys found himself in the palace gardens as Elara. But this wasn't a memory—it felt more like a conversation.
Valerian sat on a stone bench beneath a willow tree, painting. Not the controlled prince from the journals, but young and relaxed, paint streaked on his hands.
"You're here," he said without looking up. "I wondered when you'd come."
"This isn't real," Rhys said. Elara's voice, but his words.
"It's as real as anything else in our cursed existence." Valerian set down his brush, finally meeting Rhys's eyes. "We're in the space between sleep and memory. Where your soul and mine can actually talk."
"I don't want to talk to you."
"Then why did you come?" Valerian gestured to the bench. "Sit. Please."
Against his better judgment, Rhys sat.
"I'm sorry," Valerian said quietly. "For everything. For not trusting her. For the violence. For cursing you to this endless cycle. I was young, stupid, and so convinced I knew what love meant that I destroyed the only real love I'd ever had."
"Apologies don't bring back the people you've killed."
"No. They don't." Valerian looked at his hands. "Six lovers across six lives. All innocent. All dead because I couldn't let you go."
"Then let me go now."
"I can't. The curse won't allow it. Not until..." He trailed off.
"Until what?"
Valerian hesitated. "Until you choose me. Willingly. Without fear or coercion. The curse was born from forced possession—it can only be broken by willing surrender."
Rhys stood abruptly. "So I either choose the ghost who's ruined my life, or I'm cursed forever?"
"Or you find another way to break it in twenty-six days." Valerian's voice was sad. "I'm not asking you to love me, Rhys. I know that's impossible after everything. I'm just... explaining the terms."
"There has to be another way."
"If there is, I hope you find it." Valerian picked up his brush again. "Because even I'm tired of being the villain in our story."
Rhys woke to morning light and a realization:
He had three options.
One: Find a magical solution to break the curse in twenty-six days.
Two: Choose Pryce willingly and hope it freed them both.
Three: Refuse everything and doom them both to repeat the cycle eternally.
None of them felt like freedom.
But as he dressed and headed to the library for another day of research, Rhys made a decision:
He'd search for option one with everything he had.
But he'd also... learn about Pryce. The real person under the curse. Not to forgive him. Not to choose him.
But to understand if there was any way to reach the human still buried beneath the monster.
If that made him sympathetic to his captor, well.
Maybe some curses were more complicated than villain and victim.
Maybe some required seeing the broken person beneath the horror and asking: can broken people be healed?
Or are some things too shattered to ever be whole again?
Rhys didn't know.
But he had twenty-six days to find out.