The nightmare began with glass.
But this time there was no sunlight. The sky above the iron framework was black, starless, pressing downward like a lid closing over a coffin.
The tea table remained in the center.
Three cups.
Only one filled. Hers.
Caelan Dreyce sat across from her. His eyes were wrong.
"You reacted," he said.
His voice echoed strangely, like it was speaking through water.
Aeris tried to stand Her body didn't move.
She looked down. Her shadow was not beneath her. It stood behind Caelan instead.
Tall Detached Watching her.
"You don't understand Crimson yet," Caelan continued softly.
The glass ceiling above them cracked. Thin fractures spreading in intricate patterns.
"You think you came back alone."
The whisper began — but not from the present. From the dream itself.
Layered voices. Older. Deeper.
The glass shattered. It didn't fall downward; instead, it fell inward, like the sky collapsing into the room. Shards froze midair, suspended in the gloom.
Every shard reflected something different: in one, her execution; in another, the academy corridor covered in blood; in yet another, Caelan kneeling with a shadow rising behind him—her shadow, or something wearing its shape.
"You were never meant to stabilize," Caelan's said, though his lips were no longer moving. The detached shadow tilted its head toward her and smiled.
Aeris woke choking on air. She was standing—not in her bedroom, but in the east corridor of the Vale estate. Barefoot. The windows were open, a cold wind sweeping inside.
Her heart pounded violently. Her hands were bleeding from thin cuts across her palms. Small. Sharp. Precise. She looked down. Tiny fragments of glass scattered across the corridor floor; the decorative windowpane at the far end had shattered.
Footsteps rushed toward her.
Lucien's voice called out: "Aeris!"
He stopped short when he saw her—blood on her hands, glass on the floor.
The wind howled through the broken frame.
She stared at the shards, each one catching the moonlight.
For a fraction of a second, she saw Caelan's reflection in one.Then it was only glass again.
"I heard something break," Lucien said, his voice measured and careful.
His eyes scanned her, searching for an injury amid the wreckage of the corridor.
"I'm fine," Aeris replied, though her voice sounded distant, as if it were echoing from the bottom of a well.
Behind her, the moonlight cast her shadow long against the stone floor. It was dark and sharp, but it didn't touch her. There was a gap—a small, deliberate space between her heels and the silhouette on the ground.
Lucien noticed.
Aeris saw the realization hit him in the sudden, sharp tightening of his jaw.
_______________________________________
Back in her room, Aeris washed the blood from her palms, watching the pink-tinged water swirl down the drain. The cuts were shallow, but their precision was unnerving—they were too symmetrical, too deliberate, as if something invisible had guided her hands across the jagged glass.
She pressed her fingers to the cool porcelain edge of the sink until her pulse finally began to slow. The lingering whispers of the nightmare faded into the quiet of the room, yet one thought remained dangerously clear: this hadn't been a random night terror.
It had been a warning—or perhaps a challenge.
And Caelan Dreyce was at the center of it
________________________________________
Crimson Academy
Afternoon sunlight slanted across the wide stone steps of Crimson Academy, casting long shadows beneath the tall Gothic spires that pierced the sky. The massive iron gates stood open, welcoming a steady stream of carriages that lined the long, winding path leading to the entrance courtyard.
Groups of students in formal attire gathered in tight, exclusive clusters—heirs of the realm's most powerful families, future political instruments cleverly disguised as scholars.
As Aeris stepped out beside Lucien, she took a steadying breath. Despite the nightmare, the academy felt exactly as she remembered.
Her heartbeat rose automatically.
The whisper stirred. Recognition.
[End of the chapter 7]