Night had cloaked the castle in gentle silence, the fires in the halls dimmed to flickering embers. A soft breeze danced through the open windows, carrying the scent of distant lilacs and starlit moss.
Rose tossed beneath the silk sheets, her brow damp with sweat. Her breaths came fast, shallow. Though the room was cool, she burned beneath the covers.
And then the dream began.
She stood in a forest not her own. The trees reached too high, their branches twisting like grasping fingers. The sky above wasn’t sky—it was a canvas of blinking eyes. Endless, blinking, waiting. The ground pulsed beneath her feet like a heartbeat.
And there in the middle of the clearing was Pib.
But not her Pib.
This one stood taller—almost childlike, though still wrapped in that same impossibly soft fur. Its
