Caelan's POV
Caelan's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
He stood in the throne room, gripping the armrests of his chair, staring at the violet ribbon in his lap. The trembling had started the moment he'd picked it up this morning, and it hadn't stopped.
Physical reactions. His body responding to something without his mind's permission.
He couldn't remember the last time that happened.
"Your Highness?" Thorne's voice cut through his thoughts. "She's here."
Caelan's heart slammed against his ribs—actually slammed, like it was trying to break free. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the rapid, erratic rhythm beneath his palm.
What was happening to him?
Seven years. Seven years of nothing. No racing pulse, no sweating palms, no nervous energy. His body had been as dead as his emotions.
Until this ribbon appeared.
The throne room doors opened, and guards dragged in a thin woman in servant's rags. Her dark hair hung in tangles around her face, and bruises marked her arms. She fought against the guards' grip, her bare feet sliding on the polished floor.
"Let me go!" she shouted. "I didn't do anything!"
Caelan studied her with the cold analytical part of his brain that still worked. She looked nothing like the woman in his dreams. That woman had been radiant, confident, whole. This woman was broken and furious and—
Their eyes met.
Violet. Her eyes were violet.
The exact shade of the ribbon. The exact shade he'd been seeing in his dreams for seven years, even though he'd never consciously registered the color until now.
His heart stopped. Actually stopped for a full second before lurching back into motion, faster than before.
"Elira Ashenwild," Caelan said, his voice coming out rougher than intended. "Convicted traitor. Sentenced to lifetime servitude."
The woman—Elira—lifted her chin, defiance burning in those impossible violet eyes. "Falsely convicted. But you didn't care about the truth, did you, Your Highness?"
Murmurs rippled through the assembled court. No one spoke to the hollow prince like that. Not if they wanted to keep breathing.
Caelan should have felt anger. Or at least irritation. Instead, his treacherous heart just kept pounding, and his hands kept shaking, and everything felt wrong and alive and terrifying.
"You lost something," he said, pulling the ribbon from his pocket. "This belongs to you."
Elira's eyes went wide. Her whole body went rigid. "How did you—that's impossible. I had it yesterday. It was in my room. How do you have my mother's ribbon?"
"Your mother's?" Caelan stood, descending the throne steps. The court watched in silence as he approached the convicted traitor. "Tell me about your dreams."
"What?" Elira tried to step back, but the guards held her firm. "My dreams are none of your business."
"Everything in this kingdom is my business." Caelan stopped directly in front of her, so close he could see the flecks of silver in her violet eyes. So close he could feel heat radiating from her skin—actual warmth, actual life. "Answer the question. What do you dream about?"
Elira's jaw clenched. Fear flickered across her face, quickly replaced by hatred. "I dream about freedom. About the day you signed the order that destroyed my life. About justice finally catching up with you."
Truth and lies mixed together. Caelan could tell she was hiding something, but he couldn't feel his way to what. Logic said she was lying. But his racing heart said something else entirely.
"Have you ever dreamed of me?" he pressed.
The question hung in the air. Elira's face went pale, then flushed red. Her eyes darted away.
That was answer enough.
"Impossible," someone said from the crowd. Caelan turned to see Isolde Ashenwild—Elira's stepsister—stepping forward. Beautiful and perfectly dressed, Isolde looked like everything Elira should have been. "Your Highness, this is clearly a trick."
"A trick?" Caelan's voice was ice.
"She's a convicted traitor who's been searching for a way to escape her sentence." Isolde's smile was sympathetic, concerned. "Now suddenly she's connected to your dreams? She's probably using dark magic to manipulate you. To make you think she's important."
More murmurs of agreement. It made sense. Perfect sense.
Except for Caelan's heart, which was still racing. Except for his hands, which were still shaking. Except for the ribbon that shouldn't exist outside dreams but did.
"I'm not manipulating anyone!" Elira shouted. "I don't even know what you're talking about! I've never used magic in my life!"
Caelan held up the ribbon. "This appeared on my pillow this morning. After I dreamed of untying it from someone's hair. After seven years of dreaming about a woman I've never met in the waking world."
He stepped closer to Elira, ignoring Isolde's protests. "The curse's deadline is dawn tomorrow. I have one day to find my dream heart and break the curse, or I die. And this ribbon—your ribbon—is the first real clue I've had in seven years."
Elira's eyes searched his face. "You're cursed? The rumors are true?"
"Very true." Caelan's voice dropped lower. "For seven years, I've felt nothing while awake. No emotion at all. But in dreams, I feel everything. And in every single dream, there's a woman with violet eyes. A woman who makes me feel human again."
He held up the ribbon between them. "This morning, for the first time since the curse began, my heart raced when I touched this. My hands shook. My body reacted. That only happens when I'm near my dream heart."
Elira shook her head slowly. "No. No, this is impossible. I can't be—you're the man who destroyed my life. You're the reason I've spent three years in hell. You can't be—"
She stopped, eyes going wider. Something clicked behind those violet eyes.
"What?" Caelan demanded. "What did you just realize?"
"The dreams," Elira whispered. "Every night for three years, I've dreamed about... about someone who..."
She trailed off, but Caelan's mind filled in the blanks. Three years. His dreams of her had started seven years ago when the curse began. But had hers started three years ago?
The same time she was convicted. The same time her life was destroyed.
This wasn't coincidence. This was design.
"The Dream Weaver," Caelan breathed. "Kalista cursed us both."
"Your Highness, this is absurd—" Isolde started.
"Silence." Caelan didn't even look at her. His entire focus was on Elira, on her violet eyes, on the rapid rise and fall of her chest that matched his own quickening breath. "Tell me the truth. Do you dream of a prince?"
Elira's lips trembled. "I dream of someone kind. Someone gentle. Someone who..." Her voice broke. "Someone who's nothing like you."
The words should have stung. They didn't—he still couldn't feel emotional pain. But his heart lurched anyway, and that physical reaction told him everything he needed to know.
She was real. She was his dream heart. And she hated him.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
"Take her to the dungeons," Caelan ordered.
"What?" Elira struggled against the guards. "No! I haven't done anything! I'm not—"
"You're either lying to manipulate me, or you're telling the truth and you're the key to breaking my curse," Caelan said coldly. "Either way, you're too valuable to let go. I'll verify your story, investigate your claims, and decide what to do with you. Until then, you stay locked up."
"You can't do this!" Elira screamed as the guards dragged her toward the door. "Not again! You already took everything from me once! You can't—"
The doors slammed shut, cutting off her voice.
The throne room erupted in whispers. Isolde moved closer, her hand touching Caelan's arm in a gesture that was supposed to be comforting.
"You made the right choice, Your Highness," she said softly. "A traitor can't be trusted, even if she is connected to your curse."
Caelan pulled away from her touch. He stared at the violet ribbon in his hand, at the silver embroidery catching the light.
His heart was still racing. His hands were still shaking.
And he had less than twenty-four hours to figure out if the woman he'd just thrown in the dungeon was his salvation or his doom.
The clock was ticking.
And somewhere below the palace, locked in chains, was the only person in the world who could save him—the same person whose life he'd already destroyed once.
Thorne approached quietly. "Your Highness, what are your orders?"
Caelan closed his fist around the ribbon. "Investigate her original conviction. Pull every record, every witness statement, every piece of evidence. I want to know if Elira Ashenwild was actually guilty."
"And if she wasn't?" Thorne asked carefully.
Then he'd condemned an innocent woman to three years of torture. Then his dream heart had every reason to let him die tomorrow.
"Find out the truth," Caelan said flatly. "Whatever it costs. I need to know who she really is before dawn."
Because if she was innocent, and if she was his dream heart, then his salvation depended on convincing his victim to forgive the unforgivable.
And he had exactly one day to do it.