Caelan's POV
The woman with violet eyes was laughing, and Caelan felt like he could fly.
They stood in a garden made of starlight, her hand warm in his. She said something that made his chest ache with joy—he couldn't remember the words, only the feeling. Pure happiness flooding through him like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
"Don't leave," he whispered, pulling her closer. "Please, not yet."
She touched his face, her violet eyes soft with something that looked like love. "You know I can't stay. Not here. Not like this."
"Then I'll find you," Caelan promised. His heart was pounding—actually pounding, actually feeling—and he never wanted it to stop. "I'll search everywhere. I'll—"
Her lips met his, cutting off his words. The kiss tasted like hope and goodbye all at once.
Then she faded like smoke, and the dream shattered.
Caelan's eyes snapped open.
The feeling drained out of him instantly, like someone had pulled a plug in his chest. The joy vanished. The warmth disappeared. The desperate love he'd felt one second ago became... nothing. Just empty space where emotions used to live.
He stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, breathing slowly, trying to hold onto even a scrap of what he'd just felt. But it was gone. It was always gone the moment he woke up.
Welcome back to hell.
Caelan sat up, his body moving with mechanical precision. His room was cold and dark, curtains drawn tight against the morning sun. He didn't need light. He didn't need anything except to get through another day of existing without actually being alive.
Except today wasn't just another day.
Today was his last day.
The thought should have terrified him. It should have made his heart race or his hands shake or something—anything. But he felt nothing. Just the cold certainty that tomorrow at dawn, the curse would complete its work. Seven years of being hollow would end, and so would he.
Unless he found her. The woman from his dreams. His only chance at survival.
Caelan stood and walked to the mirror. A stranger stared back at him—dark hair, sharp features, eyes that looked like chips of ice. Handsome, people said, though beauty meant nothing when you couldn't feel anything about it. He looked like a corpse dressed in expensive clothes. A prince-shaped shell with nothing inside.
This is what the curse had made him. This is what he deserved for refusing to marry Lady Seraphine seven years ago, for thinking he could wait for love instead of duty.
The Dream Weaver Kalista had made sure he understood his mistake.
You want to wait for true love? she'd hissed that night, her magic wrapping around his chest like chains. Then you'll spend your life unable to feel anything in the waking world. Only in dreams will you remember what it means to be human. And when seven years pass, you'll have one day—one single day—to find the heart that dreams of you. Break the curse, or die at dawn.
Tomorrow was dawn.
Caelan pressed his palm against his chest, searching for even the faintest flutter of panic. Nothing. His heart beat steadily, mechanically, like a clock counting down to its final tick.
A knock at the door made him turn.
"Your Highness?" Thorne's voice came through the wood. "The morning council is waiting."
The morning council. Where lords and ladies would argue about taxes and trade routes while secretly wondering when their hollow prince would finally die and leave the throne to someone who could actually care about the kingdom.
"I'll be there," Caelan called back, his voice flat as winter ice.
He dressed himself—servants had learned not to enter his room unless summoned—and was about to leave when something caught his eye.
Something on his pillow that shouldn't be there.
Caelan froze.
A violet ribbon lay against the white silk, its ancient fabric embroidered with silver thread in the pattern of crescent moons.
His breath stopped.
He knew that ribbon. He'd seen it in his dream just minutes ago, tied in the woman's dark hair. He'd untied it himself, letting her curls spill free while she laughed against his mouth.
But dreams didn't leave things behind. Dreams weren't real.
Were they?
Caelan's hand trembled as he reached for the ribbon—actually trembled, a physical reaction he hadn't felt in seven years. The fabric was soft and cool against his fingers. Solid. Real. Impossible.
His mind raced with cold logic even as something that might have been hope tried to stir in his chest. If the ribbon was real, that meant she was real. The woman from his dreams actually existed somewhere in his kingdom.
And he had less than twenty-four hours to find her.
Caelan gripped the ribbon tight and strode to the door, yanking it open. Thorne stood in the hallway, his expression shifting from neutral to concerned when he saw his prince's face.
"Gather every guard," Caelan ordered, his voice sharp as broken glass. "Lock down the palace. No one enters or leaves. I want every woman in the kingdom searched, questioned, investigated."
"Your Highness?" Thorne's hand moved to his sword instinctively. "What's happened?"
Caelan held up the ribbon, the silver threads catching the light. "Find me everyone who owns a violet ribbon. Everyone who has dreams. Everyone who knows anything about dream magic. And find them now."
"But the council—"
"The council can wait. This can't." Caelan's dead eyes fixed on his captain. "She's real, Thorne. After seven years, she's finally real. And if I don't find her before dawn tomorrow, I'm dead."
Thorne paled, understanding flooding his face. He'd been there the night of the curse. He knew what tomorrow meant.
"I'll mobilize everyone immediately," Thorne said, already turning to run.
Caelan stood alone in the hallway, clutching the ribbon like a lifeline. Somewhere in his kingdom, she existed. The woman who appeared in his dreams. The only person who made him feel human.
She was real.
And she was about to discover that the prince she'd been dreaming about was a monster.
The thought should have bothered him. It didn't. He couldn't feel regret or shame or fear.
All he could do was hunt.