Heat came first.
Not fire.
Not lightning.
Something softer.Warmer.It wrapped around me slowly — not like the constant darkness that followed— but like breath against skin.
I stood in darkness that wasn't quite darkness. The air shimmered faintly, lit by a glow that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Mist curled around my boots, pale and silver, reflecting fractured pieces of memory that drifted past like broken glass.I knew this place.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
The space between waking and thought.
The space where control slipped.
And she stood at the centre of it.
Lyra.
Her back was to me at first, white iridescent hair catching the low light like spun moonlight. The ends stirred in a wind I couldn't feel. She wore no armor, no weapons — just soft fabric that moved with her like water, like she belonged to this space more than I did.
I should have turned away.
I didn't.
I stepped closer.
She sensed me before I spoke — always did — her shoulders shifting slightly as she turned to face me.
Violet eyes met mine.
Clear.
Unafraid.
Too close.
"You're staring," she murmured softly.
Her voice did not echo in this place.
It settled into my bones.
"You're standing in my way," I replied automatically, though my voice sounded lower… rougher than intended.
A small smile tugged at her mouth."Funny," she said. "I was about to say the same thing."
I stopped a step away from her.
Close enough to feel heat.
Close enough to notice the way her breath slowed — not from fear.
From awareness.
Dream logic bent space around us.
Suddenly the mist wasn't around our feet anymore — it swirled higher, framing her like a living veil.
Her hair brushed my arm as she shifted, the contact light but electric in a way lightning never was.
Yet I'm a way my body somehow remembered.
My fingers twitched.
I didn't move them.
"You followed me," she said quietly.
"You always run away," I countered.
Her eyes flickered — not denial.Recognition."Maybe," she admitted.
Silence stretched — thick, charged.
I should have stepped back.I should have reminded myself this was weakness.
Illusion.
A manipulation of memory.
Instead, my hand lifted.
Slowly.
Deliberately
.I touched her jaw.
Warm.
Real enough that the dream didn't matter.
She inhaled softly but didn't pull away.
Her hand rose too — smaller, lighter — brushing the scar at my throat like she had on the mountainside.The same place.
The same hesitation.
But this time there was no mask between us.
No confusion in her eyes.
No war behind mine.
"Your mind never did stop thinking but you never really say what it's thinking," she murmured.
"only I know my true wants and needs. No need to discuss them."
"No?" she whispered softly. "well thats a shame."
Her thumb traced the scar.
I felt it everywhere.
Heat flared low in my chest — not lightning.Something deeper.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
Her lips parted slightly."Because you called me."
I didn't remember doing that.
But the thread between us pulsed faintly — confirming it anyway.
My hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck before I consciously chose to move it.
She shivered.
Not from cold.
The reaction tightened something predatory in me — something dark, possessive, — but it tangled unexpectedly with something protective too.
Conflicting instincts.
Dangerous instincts.
Her hands braced lightly against my chest — not pushing away.
Holding.
Grounding.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
"I'm not."
"You are."
Her forehead tipped forward until it rested against mine. The contact shattered what little distance remained. Her breath brushed my mouth. My grip tightened instinctively at her waist, pulling her flush against me without asking permission — without giving her time to object.
She didn't.
Her eyes searched mine — not afraid.
Searching.
Hoping.
Reckless.
"You're still in there," she whispered.
The words scraped something raw inside me. I silenced it the only way my body seemed to know how.
I kissed her.
Not gentle.
Not restrained.
The dream swallowed us whole as our mouths collided — heat exploding outward like lightning finally striking ground.
Her hands fisted in my collar, pulling me closer as if distance itself offended her.
I tasted breath.
Defiance.
Relief.
Her body pressed into mine without hesitation, heat searing through armor that didn't exist in this space.
My hand slid up her spine, fingers threading into her hair, tilting her head deeper into the kiss — consuming, claiming, losing control in a way I never allowed while awake. She gasped softly into my mouth.
The sound hit me like a surge of power.
My wings flared behind me instinctively — shadow and lightning curling through the dreamscape as the mist ignited around us in violet and red.
Her hands slid from my shoulders, tracing the lines of my chest before pressing flat, feeling the frantic rhythm beneath.
My own hand drifted from her hair, down the elegant curve of her back, my palm molding to the dip of her waist before curving over her hip.
I felt her shudder, a silent invitation that unraveled the last of my restraint.
My fingers traced the soft weight of her breast, my thumb brushing over the peak, and she arched into me with a soft, broken sound that was part surrender, part demand.
The space between us vanished. Her thigh slid against mine, a deliberate, slow friction that sent a jolt straight through me.
Her hand followed the path of fire, lower, her touch bold and certain as she cupped me through the fabric of this dream.
The pressure was exquisite, a torment that promised everything. A groan was torn from my throat, raw and helpless.
My control shattered.
I was right there, balanced on a razor's edge of oblivion, ready to fall completely.
Her lips were still parted when she spoke. "You remember this," she whispered.
I didn't answer.
Because I did.
And that was the problem.
The dream fractured suddenly — mist splitting like shattered glass as corruption surged violently through the space.
Mortimer's presence tore through the illusion like a blade.
Wake up, Lightning Prince.
The warmth vanished instantly.
Her body dissolved into silver vapor in my arms.
My eyes snapped open.I woke with lightning crackling across my skin.Stone beneath me.
Cold air in my lungs.
Reality.
I sat upright sharply, breath controlled but deeper than necessary, wings half-manifested before I forced them to retract.Silence surrounded me — the outskirts of the Earth Kingdom still dark beneath pre-dawn sky.
The dream lingered anyway.
Her warmth.
Her voice.
Her mouth.
Annoying.
I dragged a hand down my face slowly, irritation simmering beneath my skin.
"Adrenaline," I muttered to myself.
Residual instinct.
Nothing more.
Mortimer's presence coiled closer now that I was conscious again.
You dream of her.
His voice held amusement sharpened with disdain.
I ignored him.
You crave her.
"I do not crave anything," I said flatly.
Your body betrays you.
I stood, shadows sliding off me as I moved toward the cliff edge overlooking the valley where the Forever Twin Falls thundered in the distance.
Mist rose from the cool stone ground like ghostly pillars, glowing faintly beneath the first hints of sunrise.
"She is a distraction," I said.
She is becoming your weakness, Mortimer corrected.
Lightning flickered at my fingertips.
"She is prey."
Mortimer hummed, unconvinced — but allowed the lie to stand.
Yet your control of darkness falters when she is near.
I said nothing.
Because that part was true.
And I did not understand why.
By the time the sun began to rise, I stood at the edge of the Falls themselves.
Forever Twin Falls were sacred for a reason.
Two colossal waterfalls plunged from opposing cliffs, crashing into a shared basin below before splitting again into separate rivers — one flowing east, one west.
Unity.
Division.
Balance.
Symbolism layered into geography.
Mist soaked the air, clinging to armour, skin, wings when I let them manifest again behind me.
Lightning crawled lazily across my shoulders as I waited at the narrow stone platform that jutted between the twin cascades.
Neutral ground.
No armies.
No banners.
Just sky, stone, and inevitability.
The thread in my chest pulsed faintly.
She was coming.
I didn't question how I knew.
I simply did.
Mortimer stirred again.
End this quickly.
"Perhaps," I murmured.
Or claim her.
My jaw tightened.
Claim.
The word echoed too closely to the dream.
I flexed my wings once, then folded them behind me as footsteps approached from the misted path.
Light.
Measured.
Unafraid.
I didn't turn immediately.
I let her come close enough that I could feel the warmth of her presence before I spoke.
"You kept me waiting," I said calmly.
And only then did I look at her.