Sleep offered Caelen no refuge that night.
His dreams were a torrent of voices—dead souls wailing, their pain a relentless chorus of loss. He saw strangers' faces, felt their final breaths, their unvoiced regrets and the sorrow that clung to their final moments like frost to dying leaves. The curse was expanding, no longer confined to the living. It now reached beyond, to the remnants of those long gone, drawing their agony into his bones.
He jolted awake, gasping for air, drenched in sweat. The tent's thin canvas walls seemed to press in from all sides, heavy with silence. For a long moment, he just breathed—shallow, ragged—trying to ground himself in the present.
Elira stirred beside him, blinking through the haze of sleep. "Another vision?" she asked, her voice rough.
"Worse," Caelen rasped, his throat raw and dry. "I'm feeling the dead now. Their pain… it's endless. It's like they're crying through me."
She sat up, alert now, eyes wide in the low firelight. "The curse is deepening. It's changing you. The closer we get to the temple, the stronger it grows."
Caelen nodded, pressing his palm to his chest where the scar pulsed like a second heartbeat. "I don't know how much more I can take, Elira. It's not just pain anymore. It's memory. Echoes. Despair that doesn't fade."
Without hesitation, she reached for his hand, fingers wrapping around his with quiet strength. "You're not alone," she said firmly. "You never have been. I'll carry what I can."
But even as her warmth reached him, Caelen felt the strain she bore. Her pain pulsed within his curse like a storm behind a closed door. He didn't want to burden her further. "I'll manage," he lied.
Elira's gaze narrowed, as if she could see through the words he didn't say. But she didn't push. Instead, she shifted closer, resting her head lightly against his shoulder.
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it held weight, unspoken fears, and quiet courage. Her presence was a fragile shield against the darkness clawing at the edges of his soul.
And for that moment, that breath of peace between nightmares, Caelen clung to it.
Sleep came eventually. Uneasy. Fragile.
But when it did, he was not alone in the dark.