Chapter 10 —The Shard of Dreams
1500 Words
The mountains of the Vale rose higher than memory.
As dawn bled through veils of mist, Eirena and Kael climbed the narrow path carved into the cliffs. Frost clung to their boots. The air was thin, edged with the metallic taste of old magic. Behind them, the Vale of Thorns shimmered faintly like a sea of ghosts, the white blossoms closing under morning light.
They had been climbing for hours when Kael stopped and leaned against a rock, catching his breath.
“You ever consider,” he said, panting slightly, “that maybe we weren’t built for this much uphill suffering?”
Eirena smiled faintly. “You weren’t built for silence, apparently.”
“Silence gets boring,” he replied. “Talking helps keep me from noticing how cold I am.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You could always use magic.”
He snorted. “I burned out half my reserves fighting your mother’s spectral minions last night.”
“Fair point.”
They climbed in silence for a while longer, though the tension between them was almost a living thing. Eirena’s thoughts were distant, circling the Queen’s words in the Vale:
Find the second shard, daughter… every thorn must return to its crown.
A soft hum vibrated beneath her ribs, faint but growing stronger the higher they climbed. The shard was near. She could feel it calling like a pulse echoing from inside the mountain.
Kael noticed her pause. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
She nodded. “It’s awake.”
He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Then so will everything guarding it.”
By midmorning, they reached a plateau. The world opened beneath them endless clouds rolling like ocean tides, peaks piercing through like islands of stone. The wind howled with voices that weren’t entirely wind; faint whispers drifted through the air, speaking names long forgotten.
At the plateau’s center stood an arch of crystal and bone, its edges rimed with frost. Beyond it shimmered a faint veil of light, like water suspended in air.
“The Shard of Dreams lies beyond,” Eirena said quietly.
Kael squinted. “That’s… a doorway?”
“A threshold,” she corrected. “Between the waking world and the realm of memory. The shard exists in both.”
He frowned. “So, we step through and what, dream ourselves to death?”
“Not if we hold on to who we are,” she said. “The Shard tests those who approach. It feeds on illusion.”
He smirked. “Great. Sounds relaxing.”
Eirena extended her hand. “Stay close. If we’re separated, you may not find your way back.”
He hesitated only a moment before taking her hand. The tether between them pulsed, light coiling up their arms in response. Together, they stepped through the veil.
The world dissolved.
Sound folded in on itself. Color stretched thin, melting into white. Eirena gasped as gravity vanished then found herself standing in a vast field of starlight.
The ground shimmered like glass, reflecting a sky filled with constellations she didn’t recognize. Each star pulsed softly, tethered by threads of light that wove into shapes faces, places, moments. Dreams, suspended mid-breath.
Kael turned slowly beside her. “Where are we?”
“The space between dreaming and remembrance,” she said. “Everything the shard protects is made of memory.”
He took a cautious step forward. The glass rippled beneath his foot like water, showing flashes of his past: soldiers laughing beside a fire, a blood-soaked field, the face of a man he’d killed. He froze.
Eirena placed a hand on his arm. “It’s all right. They can’t hurt you.”
“Doesn’t make it easier to see.”
“Truth rarely is,” she murmured.
They walked deeper into the field. The stars above began to move, spiraling slowly into new constellations. Each time Eirena’s foot touched the ground, fragments of her own past flickered beneath her: the Queen’s hand in her hair, the cold gleam of the Court, the first time she’d felt the thorns bloom beneath her skin.
Then, a voice broke the silence soft and ancient, echoing across the field.
“Who seeks the Shard of Dreams?”
Kael drew his sword instinctively, scanning the light. “Show yourself.”
The stars shifted, gathering into a single, blinding shape. When the light faded, a being stood before them a creature woven of glass and silver mist. It was enormous, both beautiful and terrifying, its wings spanning the sky, its eyes pools of endless night.
Eirena bowed her head. “Dreamkeeper.”
The creature’s voice was music and thunder combined. “Daughter of the Starlit Crown. You bear her mark and her defiance. Why do you disturb the sleep of the first shard?”
Eirena straightened. “To claim what she cannot wield alone.”
The Dreamkeeper tilted its head. “Claim?”
“She used the shards to bind creation,” Eirena said. “I will use them to unbind it.”
A silence stretched. The creature’s wings rippled like curtains of light. “And your companion? He bears no crown, no starlight.”
Kael met the creature’s gaze, unflinching. “I bear a promise. To see this through.”
“And you would share her burden?”
“I already do.”
The Dreamkeeper regarded them both for a long moment. Then it lowered its head, and the stars dimmed.
“Then face what you fear most. If you survive, the Shard is yours.”
Before Eirena could speak, the world shattered.
She stood in the Starlit Court.
The air was thick with perfume and light. The Queen sat on her throne of frost, a faint smile playing on her lips. Eirena felt the familiar weight of her crown on her head, the bite of thorns in her skin.
“Do you see?” the Queen said softly. “This is what you were meant to be. My heir. My blade. All the pain, all the rebellion it was always leading you here.”
Eirena tried to speak, but no words came. Her throat burned. The bond with Kael gone. The world narrowed to her mother’s gaze.
The Queen rose, descending the steps. “You could have ruled beside me. You still can.”
She reached out a hand. “Take the Crown, daughter. End this.”
Eirena hesitated. Somewhere deep inside, she heard Kael’s voice echo faintly: “Don’t forget who you are.”
Her fingers brushed the Queen’s, and agony surged through her veins. Light exploded behind her eyes. The world twisted her reflection fracturing into countless shards, each showing a different version of her: servant, ruler, corpse, goddess.
Then, through the cracks, she saw Kael kneeling in darkness, chained, calling her name.
Her resolve hardened. “No.”
She tore her hand away. The illusion shattered like glass. The throne room dissolved into starlight.
Kael, meanwhile, stood in a different nightmare.
He was back on the battlefield. Smoke choked the air. Bodies lay strewn across scorched earth. He knelt beside one a boy barely older than sixteen, eyes open, lifeless.
“Captain?” the boy’s voice whispered, though his lips didn’t move. “You said we’d win.”
Kael froze. The faces of his old unit surrounded him, their gazes hollow.
“You left us,” one said.
“You ran,” said another.
“You survived.”
He gritted his teeth. “You’re not real.”
“Does that make the guilt unreal?” the boy asked.
The bond flared suddenly a surge of warmth through his chest. He heard Eirena’s voice, faint but insistent.
“You’re more than your failures.”
He closed his eyes. “I know.”
When he opened them again, the battlefield was gone. The sky cleared, the air shimmering with light. He stood beside Eirena once more.
The Dreamkeeper hovered above them, its vast form pulsing with soft radiance.
“You faced yourselves,” it said. “Few survive such truth.”
Eirena breathed hard. “Then… the Shard?”
The creature lowered its head. From the center of its chest, a crystal of pale light emerged smooth, heart-shaped, and alive with swirling galaxies inside.
“The Shard of Dreams,” the Dreamkeeper said. “One of three hearts of creation. It remembers all that ever was and all that may yet be.”
Eirena stepped forward. “May I?”
“If you take it, you accept its burden.”
“I already carry one,” she said softly. “What’s another?”
The Dreamkeeper studied her, then extended the shard. As her fingers brushed it, light surged through her body. For a heartbeat, she saw everything every dream ever dreamed, every death, every rebirth. It was too much. Kael caught her as she staggered.
“Easy,” he murmured.
She clutched the shard to her chest. “It’s… beautiful.”
The Dreamkeeper’s gaze softened.
- Writer
