Raydon Cooley

SHADOWS OF DREAMS CHAPTER ONE Elara woke with a start, her breath ragged, the echo of a scream still lingering in her mind. The room around her was dark, the only light coming from the faint shimmer of the dream-catcher hanging above her bed, its crystalline threads pulsing softly like a heartbeat. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady herself, the remnants of the dream clinging to her like a second skin. It hadn’t been her dream—she knew that much. The icy cavern, the shadowed figure with a voice like shattered glass, the whispered words she couldn’t quite grasp—it was someone else’s nightmare, one she’d stumbled into uninvited. At nineteen, Elara had spent half her life weaving through the dreams of others, a skill she’d honed in the shadowed alleys of Nocturne, the city where dreams were currency and secrets were stolen while people slept. Standing five-foot-four, with cropped silver hair that glowed faintly in the moonlight and emerald eyes that seemed to see beyond the...