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His expression softened. Her sun-kissed face seemed to glow from within, and her blonde, wavy hair shimmered in the light. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“I’m Tristan,” he said, keeping his voice soft so as not to interrupt her concentration. He decided not to reveal his royal status just yet. There was something endearing by how fascinated she seemed with something so simple like sand, but he was not yet entirely sure she could be trusted. “What’s it like living here?”
The mood changed in an instant. Her calm composure evaporated and her knitted brows deepened as she glared at him. She threw away the grains of sand with a fierce gesture, slapping her hand on her cloak. “Do you even comprehend what this world is?”
He frowned, unable to fathom what caused her sudden change in mood. He gestured to the illusion of his family down the beach.
“A world of dreams, apparently—”
“Absolutely not!” She rose to her feet with a menacing glare. The sky suddenly shifted to an eerie charcoal gray and strong gusts of wind sent a chill down his spine. She took an angry step toward him, and he moved back. She did it again and again until he stepped into the water. “This is a world of never-ending nightmares.”
The raging waters rose to his thighs as the sky above them grew blacker than a starless night. The winds whipped around them like an unforgiving tempest.
“No matter how much misery you think you have faced out there,” she bellowed over the unrelenting gusts of wind. “It won’t even compare to the torment that waits for you here. Now, go! And never come back!"
With a roar of thunder and a blaze of lightning, a bolt of electricity shot from the heavens and struck directly into the water. Tristan’s body trembled as thousands of volts of energy coursed through him.
He shot open his eyes to find himself lying on his bed, gasping for air. His heart raced in his chest, the buzz of electricity still lingering.
His heart raced like the pounding hooves of a hundred wild stallions, and he placed a hand over his chest, exhilarated.
After the initial shock wore off, a smile crept onto his lips. The guardian was quite the force of nature, and it was thrilling to say the least.
Despite her warnings, and out of everything she had said, the only thing that kept looping in his mind was her name.
“Aurora,” he whispered, loving the sound of it as it filled his room.
Then he sank back into his bed, a flood of tingles rushing over his body, and whispered, “Until we meet again.”
AURORA
Aurora stood by the water’s edge, her eyes fixed on where Tristan had been standing.
“Tristan,” she whispered, savoring the sound of his name as if it might preserve the warmth he had brought with him. But the sand clinging to her hand had grown cold, like tiny shards of ice, and she brushed it off against her cloak.
The sky above her was still black, and the icy wind whipped around her.
Aurora shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly around her. She then gazed down the moonlit beach to find that Tristan’s illusion of his family had vanished. Her heart squeezed ever so slightly as she recalled the joyful laughter of him and his cousin as children.
She couldn’t recall the last time she had heard such carefree, joyful sounds. More often than not, her days were filled with the terrible screams of others or the eerie sounds of scorpions creeping through the darkness.
The reality of her world chilled her to the bone, and Tristan’s peaceful illusion now seemed like the cruelest of dreams. Aurora had seen many dark illusions in her time, but Tristan’s illusion was by far the most cruel. It made her long for who she once was but could never be again. Worst of all, it reminded her of what it felt like to hope.
Aurora knew better than to believe that her fate would ever change. Time had run out for her, and the lunar eclipse in the sky was a constant reminder of that fact. Unlike the real world, where an eclipse was a rare and wondrous event, in the Dreamworld it was a regular occurrence, resetting every day like a clock. To those who were lost in that realm, it offered a chance for escape. But to Aurora, it was a constant, unrelenting reminder that her case was hopeless.
Still, she found herself shoving her hands inside the warm pockets of her cloak, wishing Tristian’s warmth could stay with her longer.
If he never returned, the odds of her ever seeing the sun again were near impossible. Her mind was too dark to brighten the elements in that realm. That was a gift reserved for the rare few, like Tristan.
As much as she wanted to hit him upside the head for keeping his guard down in such a treacherous world, she couldn’t deny there was something special about him.
All the more reason he should stay away. The Dreamworld wasn’t a realm for the naive or trusting.
Despite her warnings, Aurora couldn’t shake the feeling that he would return. She saw it in his eyes—the grief, the longing. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to reunite with his parents—however briefly—but grief was a treacherous emotion. One that could lead even the strongest of minds astray. Aurora knew that all too well, having been trapped in that world for far too long. The illusions preyed on emotions, using one’s vulnerabilities to lure them in like a moth to a flame.
Keeping the mind sharp and focused was vital in that realm. The slightest instability of emotion could shift the elements and make them attack. Grief blinded logic and sense, making it the Dreamworld’s deadliest trap.
Although that was her home, she could never trust it. Perhaps that was why the sun never shone at her will, and the world remained dark and cold around her. She had always thought that was just how it was, but she now realized it reflected the distrust within her. The hopelessness. The emptiness.
