Chapter 42 - The Trapped Dream, the Guided Heart

The sky above Saphira had that soft light found only in certain childhood memories too perfect to be real, too calm to be alive the grass was an absolute green, the flowers a pink that never faded, and the butterflies hung suspended in the air, as if frozen in a moment of grace too well rehearsed. Saphira had barely taken two steps into this setting when she knew something was wrong. It wasn't a dream; it was a construct, a staging, a mirror too neatly presented she whispered in a breath: "It's not a dream; it's a cage."

But already, the ground beneath her changed what looked like earth became a shimmering surface the mirror expanded, engulfing the scenery, and the sky faded behind her, giving way to an endless vault, an infinite chamber whose every wall was polished, ready to reflect her slightest fears. Then came the voice not a scream, not a threat just a familiar and glacial presence, like a shadow whispering from a past she had never truly been able to contain.

—"You want to understand? then look at what I saw, what I was, what you let me become."

The voice did not burst; it glided, unctuous and patient, like the venom of a serpent with all the time in the world the mirror was no longer just beneath her feet; it was everywhere and in these surfaces, memories formed, but not hers, not really faces, voices, blurry, rewritten scenes a parallel reality, twisted, hungry. Kael looked at her, but did not see her. Diva laughed, but never stopped to offer her a hand. Destiny, a silhouette of shadow, burned letters she had never sent. Rose forged weapons for everyone but her and in the center, a little girl. alone. sitting on a desolate throne, legs dangling, gaze lost.

—"You were a toy," the voice whispered. "An object of comfort a doll placed in a world too vast for your silence. You were made to calm, never to exist."

The words struck with terrible accuracy, not because they were true, but because they could have been because they wrapped around her old doubts like brambles. Saphira fell to her knees her breathing grew heavy, her forehead beaded with sweat, her hands trembled, clasped against her chest she could no longer distinguish what was a lie and what, perhaps, had always been there within her a voice, weaker this time, rose from her throat.

—"Did I matter? or did I only serve to make others forget their pain?"

The setting surrounded her a loop, a spiral, an illusion built with the very bricks of her silence suddenly, a crack not in the dream, but in its very structure a rift, a cry and a golden, pure hand burst through the glass sky like a pierced star.

—"You do not lie to my daughter."

The words resonated with such authority that even the dream flinched the mirrors trembled. The lying memories imploded the walls of the trap suddenly cracked and in the burning mist of the illusion, a figure stepped forward Hera her presence commanded silence her dress was made of woven light, condensed dawn, contained glory in every step she had not come to save Saphira; she had come to restore what the lie had tried to steal her truth. With one gesture, she melted one of the reflections; with one look, she made another disappear she reached Saphira in three steps, knelt, and placed her hand on her cheek.

—"You are not alone you never were you were silent, yes, but in your silence, there was a strength that not all of us knew how to understand."

Saphira trembled tears flowed, but they did not burn; they were the ones she had held back for too long.

 —"I got lost," she murmured. Hera held her close.

 —"Then I've come to help you find yourself."

At the center of the dream, the air vibrated. Nekridhal appeared, no longer just a voice, but a form. Immense, shifting, made of living shadows, of rejected thoughts he had no eyes, but he saw he had no mouth, but he spat truth with the venom of doubt.

—"You are two, but I am infinite i am every stifled cry, every abandonment, every silent tremor."

Hera rose her eyes shone like suns ready to burn the invisible. 

—"So what? we will be infinite together." She turned to Saphira. "Rise, my daughter rise like a queen who needs no throne to exist rise like a light that takes root even in shadow."

Saphira rose, not as a goddess, but as a human, and yet the dream trembled even more. Nekridhal recoiled he didn't understand he had trapped the weak the lonely the abandoned. But this light she was not alone she had been seen and loved, and that, no shadow could devour the dream imploded, but before the abyss could absorb them, Morpheus caught them a cocoon of stardust, a soothing breath the sleep of the soul, offered by the only god who knew when to stop fighting Saphira fell asleep in Hera's arms and this time… she dreamed of a morning that didn't hurt.

End of Chapter 42 — The Trapped Dream, the Guided Heart