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 waking world, she was an enigma even to herself. Her ability to infiltrate dreams wasn’t just a talent—it was a survival mechanism in a city where the Dream Guild ruled with an iron grip, and those who defied them often vanished into the night.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her bare feet brushing the cold stone floor of her tiny attic room. The air smelled faintly of damp earth and lavender, a scent that reminded her of the forest clearing where pine and wildflowers lingering in her memory. She crossed to the small window, pushing it open to let the night air in, the distant hum of Nocturne’s neon lights a stark contrast to the quiet of her sanctuary. The city sprawled below, a labyrinth of spires and shadows, its skyline fractured by the glowing threads of dream-catcher networks that linked every sleeper to the Guild’s watchful eyes.
Elara’s fingers traced the scar on her wrist, a jagged crescent from a job gone wrong two years ago. She’d been caught in a dream-thief’s trap, a memory loop designed to keep intruders lost in an endless cycle of fear. She’d barely escaped, waking with the scar as a permanent reminder of how close she’d come to losing herself. Since then, she’d worked alone, taking smaller jobs—stealing trivial secrets, fragments of desires—but tonight’s dream had been different. It had pulled her in, unbidden, its pull too strong to resist.
A soft knock at her door jolted her from her thoughts. She froze, her hand instinctively reaching for the dagger tucked beneath her pillow. “Who’s there?” she called, her voice low, her emerald eyes narrowing as she scanned the room for an escape route.
“It’s Kael,” came the reply, the voice muffled but familiar, carrying a quiet intensity that sent a shiver down her spine. “We need to talk.”
Elara hesitated, then crossed to the door, cracking it open just enough to see him. Kael stood in the dim hallway, his tall frame cloaked in a dark coat, his storm-gray eyes meeting hers with an urgency she couldn’t ignore. At twenty-two, he was a ghost in Nocturne’s underworld—a dream-thief with a reputation for taking on the Guild’s most dangerous targets and surviving to tell the tale. His dark hair was tousled, a faint scar cutting across his left cheek, a mark of his own battles in the dreamscape.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Elara said, her tone sharp but her grip on the door softening. She’d crossed paths with Kael before, their encounters always charged with a mix of rivalry and unspoken trust. He’d saved her once, pulling her out of a collapsing dream, but she’d never asked why, and he’d never offered an explanation.
“I wouldn’t be if it weren’t important,” Kael replied, his voice steady but laced with something darker—fear, maybe, or desperation. “The dream you were in tonight—it wasn’t random. It belonged to a Guild enforcer, and they know you were there.”
Elara’s blood ran cold, her fingers tightening on the doorframe. The Guild didn’t take kindly to unauthorized dream-weaving, and enforcers were their deadliest hunters, trained to track intruders through the dreamscape and eliminate them in the waking world. “How do you know that?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Kael stepped closer, his gray eyes searching hers. “Because I was there too,” he said, his words heavy with implication. “And I heard what the enforcer was hiding—a secret about you, Elara. About your past.”
Her heart pounded, memories she’d long buried clawing their way to the surface—flashes of a woman’s voice, a lullaby she couldn’t place, a warmth she’d never known in Nocturne. “What kind of secret?” she demanded, her voice trembling despite her effort to stay composed.
Kael’s expression darkened, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “The kind that could get us both killed if the Guild finds out I told you. But you deserve to know—your mother didn’t abandon you. She was a dream-weaver, like you, and the Guild took her because of what she knew.”
Elara’s world tilted, the weight of his words crashing over her like a tidal wave. She’d grown up believing her mother had left her, a story the orphanage in Nocturne had fed her since she was a child. But if Kael was telling the truth, everything she’d known about herself was a lie. “Why should I trust you?” she asked, her voice raw, her emerald eyes blazing with a mix of fear and defiance.
Kael held her gaze, unflinching. “Because I’ve seen what the Guild does to people who get too close to the truth,” he said. “And I’m not about to let that happen to you.”
The air between them crackled with tension, the weight of his words hanging heavy in the small attic room. Elara’s mind raced, torn between the instinct to run and the burning need to know more. The dream-catcher above her bed pulsed brighter, its light casting long shadows across the walls, as if the dreamscape itself was listening, waiting for her next move.
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