Nyssara
"Dead... Dead... Dead.
Why are you alive?
Abomination... Evil..."
The words kept echoing. It seemed distorted, familiar, and cold. They crawled through my mind like a curse, louder with every heartbeat until I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat. My hands trembled as I pushed myself up, and for a moment, I could've sworn there was blood on them.
Red. Wet. Dripping between my fingers.
I blinked and it was gone. Just the moonlight spilling through the curtains.
This dream again. When would it stop?
It's been haunting me for as long as I can remember. No, since the night I discovered my gift. The night the voices first began.
I can still recall how it felt, the jolt that tore through my body, the terror that ripped through the silence, and how my scream startled everyone in the house.
"It's just a nightmare, you're probably overwhelmed,"
Dad had told me. Again and again.
Until I forced myself to believe him.
But it never left. The nightmare lingers, waiting in the shadows of my mind patient, cruel, and hungry. It always returns when I let my guard down.
I swung my legs off the bed, breathing heavily. Sleep wouldn't come back, it never did after nights like this. So I did what I always do. I ran.
Outside, the world was still and silver under the moonlight. The breeze brushed against my face as I sprinted around the yard, the wind pulling my hair back, the grass whispering beneath my feet. Running made me feel lighter, like maybe I could outrun the voices, the memories, the weight of what I didn't understand.
For a moment, I almost believed I could be free.
That my thoughts didn't have to shackle me.
That they had no grip, unless I gave them one.
When I finally stopped, my lungs burned and my heart steadied. The eastern sky was beginning to pale. I went back inside, washed up, and grabbed my phone.
2:18 a.m.
Still early, too early.
There was no point in trying to sleep again, so I decided to go to the rooftop the one place that never judged me for my restlessness.
I moved quietly through the hallway, careful not to wake anyone. With a house full of wolves and exceedingly good hearing, silence was impossible but the rugs on the staircase helped. Every step muffled, every sound swallowed.
When I reached the top, the night greeted me again, cold and endless. The rooftops of our estate stretched below like sleeping beasts, their silver outlines glowing beneath the moon. I thought of dancing, swirling with the wind, of letting the it lift me for once, but something stopped me.
That familiar presence kept me from doing anything.
A faint smirk tugged at my lips.
"Cassian," I said softly. "I know you're there."
For a few seconds, there was only silence, and then, from the far side of the rooftop, he stepped out of the shadows.
Cassian Aurellian. My cousin.
My comfort zone. A constant in my life.
He was dressed in black, as usual, simple shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair tousled by the wind. The moonlight brushed across his face, catching the faint scar at his jawline, the one he never talks about. His expression was calm — too calm, but his eyes… those always told the truth.
"You shouldn't be awake," he murmured with a slightly deep voice, quiet, carrying that soft edge of authority that never needed to be raised. "Nightmares again?"
I nodded, swallowing hard. "The same one. It's getting louder."
He sighed and walked closer, his movements smooth, unhurried. The kind that made silence feel heavier.
"Still hearing them call you evil?" he asked.
I looked away. "They sound so real sometimes."
"Dreams are liars, Nyx."
"Maybe," I said, meeting his gaze. "But sometimes lies know too much truth."
He studied me for a while, eyes sharp but soft, like he wanted to fix something he couldn't touch.
"Come here," he said finally.
I stepped closer, and he draped his jacket over my shoulders. It smelled faintly of smoke and rain.
"You don't have to face it alone, you know," he said.
"I know," I whispered. "But somehow I always do."
Cassian didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked out at the horizon the world still dark, the air shifting between night and dawn. His voice, when it came, was low.
"You've changed," he said. "Since he showed up."
My heart skipped. "He?"
"You know who I mean." His tone sharpened slightly. "Rhyven."
I hesitated. "…What about him?"
Something flickered in his eyes, something I'd never seen before. Not anger, I wasn't sure what exactly, it was something deeper, almost possessive. Like the idea of someone else reaching me unsettled him.
"You're different around him," he said finally. "It's… dangerous."
I blinked. "If you live long enough, you'd see everything, who would have thought I would ever hear you say someone was dangerous?"
He smirked faintly, that familiar calm amused look, masking storms beneath. "It's different when it's you."
For a long while, we stood in silence. The city below us slept, unaware of the threads of prophecy and curse weaving tighter with every breath.
Cassian turned to me again, eyes unreadable.
"Be careful, Nyssara," he murmured. "Some things aren't meant to be awakened. Not in him. And not in you."
I looked back at him, feeling that same ache, the one I always feel around him. He's always been my safe place… and yet, in that moment, I couldn't tell if I was the one he wanted to protect, or the one he feared.
The wind carried his scent, dark, clean, with a faint hint of smoke.
And when he looked at me one last time before walking away, I realized something..
He wasn't afraid of my nightmares.
He was afraid of what I'd become when they stopped being dreams.