(Velka POV)
My dreams were not my own. Not anymore.
Sleep should have been a refuge, a comforting void to silence the chaos that had erupted since Elyzara had stumbled into my carefully ordered existence. Yet tonight, my sleep felt more like drowning slipping deeper beneath waters made of memories that belonged neither to this life nor any life I knew.
Flames crackled around me, hot and suffocating. Smoke burned my throat with each shallow breath. Embers drifted lazily through the night air like tiny dying stars, swirling around us as though we stood at the heart of a storm. My muscles ached from hours of fighting; exhaustion seeped deep into my bones, but adrenaline kept me upright, sharp, alive.
