The dream did not take shape all at once.
It bloomed in layers—petals of memory, shadow, and illusion unfolding around him like a flower trying to recall the sun.
Vlad stepped through the broken mirror and into the mist-thick world of her unconscious. He didn’t rush. He didn’t need to. Here, she was adrift, her soul frayed and vulnerable in the quiet aftermath of violence and grief. Her defenses would be dulled. Not broken. Not yet. But softened.
The dreamspace formed around her like breath in winter—fragile, temporary, aching to be filled.
She stood on a shoreline that didn’t exist. Black sand stretched beneath her feet, cold and damp. The sea was silent. The waves never reached the shore. They hovered, stilled mid-motion, as if uncertain whether to come closer or recede. The sky over
