#eoster

He did not resist, simply stepping back like a victor stepping off the field, slow and certain of the battle’s outcome. One gloved finger wiped the corner of his mouth, smearing away the ghost of her kiss. Then came a smile, sharp, predatory. So unlike her true husband.

The molten gold in his eyes flared as his shape unraveled, Morpheus’s severe face melting into another beauty entirely.

“Oh, my sweet sister-in-law,” Desire purred, their gaze roaming from her parted lips to the quiver in her hands. “So very eager. So very desperate. You wanted him to say the words, and I gave them to you. You wanted him to take you, and I obliged.” They tilt their head as if savoring the taste of the moment. “Even with your precious little bond, you couldn’t tell the difference. ”

Her vision tightened at the edges. “Stop.” Her voice felt thin in her own mouth. She kept turning with them, unwilling to give them her back. As she would be open to another stab.

They ignored her, their words sliding like silk dipped in venom. “Or maybe you didn’t want to tell.” Their gaze slid to Dream, still standing stone-straight. “She saw you with Thessaly. You broke her again. And she’s been starving so long… oh, she wanted to be chosen so badly, she’d take anyone who wore your face.”

Their fingers brushed her temple as they tucked back a stray curl, a gesture that made her stomach twist. “To plead fidelity, of course.”

The heat of shame mixed with the cold sweat of the panic still gripping her. Every heartbeat seemed to scrape against her ribs.

“TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!” The shout ripped out jagged and too loud, making her own skull ache. She struck at them, but they recoiled before her hand could connect. Love trip, having to hold the stone railing for not collapsing on the floor.

Desire words lodged deep, precisely where her fears already festered. Her lips parted, but no defense came. She turned to her real husband to defend herself. Even though… what use would it be?

She was too tired, too raw. Panic had left her hollow, and Desire’s voice filled the emptiness. Every syllable sounded true, because hadn’t Morpheus already once chosen suspicion over her pleas? Hadn’t he believed the worst of her when she begged him otherwise? The last time, she had proof of her innocence, her letters, Desire’s letters passing as Dream, and still he had judged her guilty.

What chance did she have now, with nothing but her own word and the taste of Desire’s kiss still warm on her lips?

Her breath stuttered. The words spun, collided, fell apart before they could form. She could not think past the roaring in her head. She could not untangle the mess of what had happened from the sight of him watching it. She could feel the pulse in her palms, her hearing dimming as though she were underwater.

Every thought she reached collapsed into another, becoming an endless cruel cycle of shame into anger, anger into panic, panic into shame again., and turning to dust before she could even grasp it.

What could she say? That she hadn’t known? That she’d ignored the bond? That she’d mistaken the feeling for something else? They were excuses, all of them, and she wouldn’t believe it herself if it was him in her place.

“I—”

Desire’s eyes gleamed. “And oh, the way you kissed me…” The smile was slow, deliberate. “You leaned in, you wanted it. You would have let me keep going.” The pause stretched until her skin prickled and her vision swam. “Wouldn’t you, Dove? I was already untying your corset. What else would you let me untie?”

Heat flooded her cheeks, nausea tightening her gut. “Morpheus, please—it isn’t true, I—” Her voice was fast, too fast, the syllables tumbling over each other like they were trying to escape.

Desire’s laugh was soft and merciless. “And you, big brother… I gave you your perfect half, a pretty princess that would die for your sins. And all these years, never once have you kissed her like that. Not with heat. Not with hunger. It took me to make her feel wanted.” Their head tilted in mock sympathy. “Tell me, did you like watching me put my mouth where you rarely bother to? Want to see more? I could teach you how to make her sing for you.”

“Enough,” Morpheus said, his voice low, dangerous. But he did not move closer.

They leaned closer, their voice a mock caress. “Why, brother, you should be grateful. I’ve done you a kindness. I’ve proven how easily she can be misled, stray from you, how childish her heart remains. One kiss was all it took, wasn’t it? One kiss and she melted. One sweet word and she was pleading. You know this, don’t you? You knew it once before. You can’t trust her, can you? You doubted her then, why should you not doubt her now?”

Her knees felt unsteady, her breath shallow. The garden seemed smaller, the air heavier, Desire’s filthy words clinging to her like smoke.

She couldn’t tell how close they got to her again, but she could feel their breath whispering in her ear, soft as silk and twice as cutting “You will never convince him. You will never be enough.”

Love closed her eyes, fighting her own tears. She wanted to scream, to strike, to deny, but her body betrayed her, she felt tired. The crushing certainty that her voice would mean nothing. That Morpheus would see only what Desire wanted him to see.

“Morpheus, I didn’t know,” she heard herself say, but the sound felt distant, not entirely hers, as it was a reflex that she didn’t even know it was worth it. “I swear it. I was a fool, I please-” Her throat constricted.

She almost whispered, looking down at the ground, tears running freely over her cheeks “Don’t punish me for this. I didn’t- I didn’t know it wasn’t you, please, please-”

Desire’s laughter rang bright and cruel. “She begs so prettily. You should make her do it more often.”

The air changed before he spoke.

A scent rolled in, damp earth, cold stone, the metallic edge of rain not yet fallen.

Somewhere beyond the dead garden, thunder murmured, distant but growing. Lightning flashed once, silent, just enough to limn Morpheus’s face in silver for a heartbeat before shadow claimed it again.

Love’s pulse stuttered. That silence, that terrible stillness, she had felt it before. Sometimes it meant his judgment was already set. Sometimes it meant the sentence was still being weighed.

She could not tell which one this was.

His eyes found hers, black and fathomless, and the weight in them pressed against her as if the Dreaming itself leaned in.

“You have overstepped again… more than I can bear to forgive,” he said, his voice quiet but absolute.

Love’s breath caught. Her knees threatened to buckle. Her mind spun. ‘ He believes I’ve failed him. He believes I’ve betrayed him’

“You trespass upon what is mine,” he said at last, voice low enough to make the air vibrate in her chest. The red-tinged Dreaming shuddered in answer, a ripple through the sky like the pull before a storm breaks. “You twist what is bound to me. You lay hands upon her.”

Desire’s smile was feline, victorious. “And she let me. Oh, she welcomed me.” They stepped closer, close enough that the first growl of thunder seemed to echo their voice. “You can’t even tell, can you? Whether she kissed me because she thought I was you… or because she wished it was me all along.”

The lightning this time split the clouds above, bright and sudden. The scent of rain sharpened.

Dream took one slow step forward, and the light dimmed around them as if the sky itself recoiled. Then, in a blink, his hand was at Desire’s throat, lifting them from the ground with the ease of pulling a petal from its stem.

Desire’s high heeled boots scraped against nothing, the red earth falling away beneath them. They gave a choked laugh despite the crushing grip. “Careful, brother… wouldn’t want to spill a little family blood, would we?”

“Morpheus!” Love’s voice broke out of her before she could stop it. Her own desperation startled her though even she didn’t know if it was plea or warning. If spilling family blood would fix their problems, she would have done it long ago.

For a long, taut heartbeat that stretched like an eternity, Dream did not release, his hand tightening around Desire’s throat. His gaze locked to his sibling, black as a moonless night meeting the gold gleam of a sibling’s delight in cruelty, and the air between them trembled with the nearness of the coming storm.

Rain threaded the wind, the storm called into being by his rage. The Dreaming seemed ready to tear itself apart with him. Then, with deliberate slowness, he let them drop to the red earth.

“I will warn you once,” Morpheus said, his voice ringing with the weight of eternity. “Lay claim to what is mine again, and you will find yourself nameless. I will scour you from every mortal thought, every secret hunger. You will wander forgotten, starved, in the silence between desires.”

For the briefest heartbeat, Desire’s smile faltered. Then it slanted back into place, thinner, sharper, laced with venom. “Such a possessive husband,” they purred, though their voice was not quite steady. “This temper will cost you both, in time.”

“Begone,” Dream commanded. His words rippled through the Dreaming, final and inexorable. “You are barred from this realm until I decree otherwise.”

Desire’s gaze slid toward Love, slow and lingering, a promise curdled with threat. Then, with a shimmer of gold and the faintest echo of laughter “I will miss you, my dear siblings”, before they vanished.

The echo of Desire’s laughter lingered, a sharp edge slicing through the quiet room. Love’s chest heaved, eyes fixed where Desire had vanished, while Dream’s jaw tightened, every muscle rigid with restraint.

The words left unspoken pressed between them like thunderclouds, heavy and inevitable. Rain began to patter against the windows, soft at first, then louder, a mirror to the storm building inside them.

“You… you always do this,” Love breathed, voice trembling between accusation and plea. “You let them—”

“I let nothing,” Dream cut in, voice low but taut.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the sharp angles of their faces, and for a heartbeat, all the anger, hurt, and desire hung raw between them. Love’s hands trembled, drawn despite herself, pulled by the same invisible current that had always bound them.

“You can’t… you can’t keep doing this,” she whispered, almost to herself, the words fragile yet laced with fire. Her chest heaved, and for a moment, the hurt softened into quiet reckoning.

Her gaze sharpened, fury and resolve coiling together. Slowly, deliberately, she spoke again, her voice colder now, more measured, like the strike of a blade. “That was a mistake.”

His brow furrowed. “Are you angry?”

Love’s eyes burned, fury alight in their green depths. “Do you ever think past the moment? Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? They will retaliate.”

“They provoked—”

“They always provoke!” she cut in, her voice rising, sharp as a blade. “And you took the bait like a fool. You’ve just made certain they’ll come for you, for us, in ways we won’t see coming.”

His voice deepened, low and raw. “They deceived you. Violated your will and twisted your emotions, knowing what you have been through. And forced me to watch it. They wanted me to watch, to help them twist the knife, to deliver the final blow. I couldn’t—”

“Why? Why couldn’t you? Why does it matter to you? I don’t matter to you.” She turned sharply, fingers clutching at her hair, as if holding herself together.

“You do matter. You—”

“Yes, as your possession. I matter to you as a doll you don’t want to share.”

A chill drop of rain fell into her palm, startling her. Then another, landing on her cheek. She ignored it, too consumed to notice how the sky was darkening.

“You think I acted to protect my pride?”

“Yes!” The word burst from her too quickly. Then softer, trembling: “No. I—” She turned away again, her voice breaking. “Go back inside, Dream. Go back to Thessaly, or Alianora, or Titania. Or another one—I don’t… I am tired. So tired of this. I just—”

“I was coming to you.” His tone was almost pleading. “I dismissed Thessaly. I—you were in pain. I came to see you, to—”

“Don’t. Do not say it. Do not say it when you look at me like this. Do not say it as if you believe me.”

“But I do.”

“Stop! Stop it! Please.”

“Eoster.”

Her hands flew up, shaking. Then, with a cry, she struck him. Her palms slammed against his chest, hard, once, twice, again. The sound echoed with the first clap of thunder overhead.

“You ruined me!” she shouted, pounding him as the rain fell harder. “You and Desire and my sisters! But you! You me into pieces and left me to pretend I was whole!” Her fists struck chest, and arms, her voice ragged with years of hurt.

Morpheus did not stop her. He did not defend himself, did not even raise a hand. He stood still beneath the violence of her grief, as immovable as stone, as though he believed he deserved every blow.

The storm answered her, lightning splitting the sky, the rain started to pour violently around them. Her hand striked upon him. Her hands ached, her arms trembled, but still she struck, each one weaker, her voice breaking. ‘ See me, feel this, carry it as I have carried it’.

At last, her strength gave way. Her fists slid from his chest, falling limp at her sides, as if she no longer knew whether she wanted to strike or cling. With a sob, she sagged forward, forehead pressed against his soaked shirt, her body shaking with exhaustion. The rain poured over them both, drenching them to the bone, her tears indistinguishable from the relentless storm.

Morpheus remained still a moment longer, honoring her fury in silence. Only when her trembling grew too great, when she threatened to collapse entirely, did he move. Slowly, hesitantly, his hands lifted, not to restrain, not to command, but to steady her. One hand hovered, then settled at her back, the other at her shoulder, light as if she were made of glass.

“I am broken,” she whispered into his chest. “You know this, you caused this. And why would you want a broken heart?”

His voice was low, steady, unshaken. “Because it is yours.” He stopped for a second feeling her subtle tremble “And broken or whole, it is the only heart I want. I have no illusions of perfection only the truth of what you are, and what we might be.”

She shook her head weakly denying it, as she couldn’t not believe his words, but did not pull away. His arms held her, not to cage, but to keep her standing.

“I will spend every day I have mending it. Not to earn your forgiveness, but because I should have done so from the start.”

“Even when you say this, my heart aches.” She whispered against his chest, a raw confession dragged from exhaustion.

“Then let me try to soothe it.”

“You will break me again,” she whispered, voice raw. “And when you do, what is going to be left of me?”

“I will tear down every tower in the Dreaming before I fail you again.” His words rumbled like thunder, quiet but immovable.

“How can I believe you?”

“I have been cruel, cold, distant. But have I ever lied to you?”

Her eyes searched his, frantic, desperate. The rain poured harder, plastering her hair to her face, dismantling her hair, his cloak heavy with water, both of them trembling under its weight. Years of mistrust shimmered between them, carried on every raindrop.

Slowly, as though lifting something impossibly heavy, she raised her face to his, her hands pressed against him, tentative at first, a question more than a demand.

She opened her mouth searching for the right words to wound him, to keep him away or to keep him closer, she didn’t know for certainty, but they dissolved as his mouth claimed hers.

It was tentative at first, fragile as the first drop of rain. A breath caught, a soft tremor, a kiss that was more question than answer. For a heartbeat, it was homecoming: delicate, tender, two lost souls finding their way back through the darkness. And when she faltered, he lifted his hands at last cradling her face as if she were the last light he might ever hold.

But the storm would not allow stillness.

Their lips found each other again, soft at first, tasting of rain and tears.The rain came harder, drumming against their skin like needles, soaking them until water ran in rivulets down their faces, mingling with salt tears. The wind rose and whipped her hair across his cheek, tangling against his lips as he kissed her deeper, harder. Thunder rolled above them like a heartbeat too vast to be contained.

The kiss grew urgent, trembling with the ferocity of all they had been denied. Her hands, shaking, slid from the folds of his cloak to the back of his neck to fingers tangling in his soaked hair, pulling him closer; His hands moved from her cheeks to her back, then lower, memorizing her, until his hands reach the sides of her tights, lifting her, he anchored her to him, against the stone wall, as though the storm itself sought to steal her away.

She gasped against his mouth; he answered with a hunger edged by grief and centuries of longing. The storm howled, the air electric around them, but within that chaos they were a single point of unyielding gravity.

His lips traced her jaw, down her neck, lingering at the curve of her collarbone, brushing over the hollow of her throat. Each caress sent shivers through her pulling a soft cry from her lips. Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging him closer, he was impossibly close to her, and her breath caught as she felt him, hard and urgent, pressing against her thigh, and instinctively, she arched, pressing herself into him.

“Dream-” she whispered, wanting to feel this friction, he move against her, and her thighs tightening instinctively around him.

His hands lingered on the sides of her thighs, steadying her, grounding them both in the moment. His lips moved lower, leaving the soft column of her throat for the swell of her breast above the clinging white silk. One hand cupped her, thumb rolling her nipple through the soaked fabric until it hardened beneath his touch. Her chest rose, quivering, tilting toward him, needing more. His lips followed to the other breast kissing soft at first, then pressing a reverent bite over the peak.

A soft moan escaped her lips, shuddering, and he soothed the ache with his tongue, sucking until her spine bowed beneath the contrast of his warm breath against the cold rain. She pulled at his hair, demanding, and he answered with equal intensity, squeezing her soft flesh until she moaned again, head thrown back, her whole body reaching for him.

His hand descended, tracing feather-like touches, down her ribs, lingering at the hollow of her stomach before stopping at her hip bone, fingers drawing small circles there while the other pressed firmly against her thigh, holding her close.

His gaze met hers. She never saw him like this, lips swollen and red, breath uneven, hair wild and dripping, all for her. It made a heat pool between her legs, and her tights clench instinctively.

His eyes searched hers, reverent, asking without words. She answered with a tilt of her body, a smile tugging at her lips, the slight parting of her thighs for him, an inaudible permission.

Carefully, he lifted the hem of her rain-drenched dress, the wet fabric sliding upward to reveal the curve of her hip. His hand found the damp silk beneath, pushing it aside with aching patience, teasing her gently, as she arched in response. “Dream-” she whimpered and it was the most beautiful sound he ever heard.

The first brush of his fingers against her made him groan low in his throat, the sound vibrating against her skin. She was already slick, already open, as though her body had been waiting only for him. His touch was reverent at first, brushing along her folds as though memorizing her shape, until she trembled, thighs tightening around him, whispering his name like a broken plea.

At last, he pressed one finger into her, impossibly slow and deep. She gasped, clutching at his shoulders, muscles drawn taut, and he stilled for a heartbeat to savor the way she pulsed around him. Then, when she shifted, urging him wordlessly, he began to move, curling his slender finger inside her, stroking her walls until her body writhed against his hand.

“You’re divine like this,” he whispered, rough velvet against her ear. Reverent, awed, but filthy “My Love, my perfect Love, writhing, so hungry for me.”

His pace quickened, finger plunging deeper, curling into that place that made her spine bow and her thighs clamp around him, her walls squeezing impossibly tight at his fingers, like it never wanted to let him go. Her silence shattered into gasps and strangled cries as she gasped “More” and rode his hand, greedy for every drag of his finger.

He obeyed like his only duty in the universe was to bring pleasure to his queen. A second finger slid inside, stretching her, filling her. She clenched around him, wet heat fluttering tight, pulling him deeper. He curled both fingers, slow and deliberate, until she cried out, hips rocking forward, demanding more of the pleasure he had long denied her. He gave it to her, unhurried but relentless, savoring every gasp, every shudder like a starving man tasting a feast. When she moaned, he pressed harder; when she writhed, he gave her more, another finger sliding in, stretching her further, claiming her with exquisite care.

She unraveled before him, eyes half-lidded, lips parted, body straining toward every movement of his hand.

Through their bond he felt everything, every flutter, every gasp, every desperate throb of need, and it wrecked him, intoxicated him, as if he were touching not just her body, but the core of her very being, and it was only his to worship.

Her need drove him harder. His ease his fingers only to push it against her tightness again, dragging against every place that made her cry out, his thumb working on her clit, pressing it, circling it, making her release inevitable. He had never cared for it before, but now, now he craved it, worshipped it, needed it more than breath.

“Let me hear you,” he urged, his voice reverent, ruined. “Let me have you.”

She bucked against his hand, grinding down, chasing the peak he kept dragging just beyond her reach. His pace was merciless in its patience, pulling her tight, then easing, then plunging again, the rhythm of torment and gift. Her thighs quivered, her body trembling on the edge, but he refused to let her fall until she gave him everything.

“You let me starve,” she sobbed, trembling, her body grasping at him with every thrust.

His mouth pressed against her throat, his teeth grazing her skin, as his tongue soothe his mark, his voice a litany of devotion and filth. “Then starve no longer. I’ll feed you, fill you. Ride my fingers, my dream. Take everything, I will give everything.”

She arched into him, broken cries spilling into his shoulder as she rode his fingers, her body greedy, insatiable, her hips moving against him, his free hand digging at her hips to hold her in place. He held her through it, relentless, whispering like prayer against her skin:

“I should have worshiped you like this every night. Show me, my dream.”

The coil inside her snapped, violent, incandescent. Her cry tore through the rain-drenched night, her body clamping around him, convulsing, convulsing again, pouring into his hand. He drank it in, his eyes closing as though her pleasure was the only thing in existence, the crown jewel of his eternity.

He slowly withdrew his fingers, and she cried out softly over the hollow, glistening where he had touched her. He kept her pressed against him, steadying her quivering body, and lifted his hand to his mouth, tasting her. If the sound of her voice, caught between pleasure and breath, was one of the most exquisite things he had ever heard; her taste, he thought, would be the last feast he would ever need.

She blushed, unable to look away from the way he sucked his fingers with her release, and instinctively her tights clenched, he gave her an almost smile. “You taste… divine,” he murmured, reverent and awed, looking at his digits glistening with her desire. She coiled a smile, voice trembling, “Then let me taste it.”

She captured his mouth in a hungry kiss, tasting her own pleasure still wet on his lips and tongue. Her hands grasping him by his collar, ease on his heavy coat, pushing it off from his shoulders, letting it fall to the rain-dark earth. He guided her down onto it, cradling her as though even the ground were not worthy of her.

She sat up on her knees before him, breath ragged, her fingers unbutton his shirt, Dream helped her, tugging the fabric loose until she slid it from his shoulders, her hands finally grazing his sculpture torso. She could never touch him before, never seen him like this, her eyes kept memorizing every centimeter of his body, like she wanted to remember forever. He eased her soaked dress upward, over her head, then helped her shed her underclothes piece by piece.

He could have make it vanish with a look, but there was something sacred in baring her with his own hands. Her corset, already loosened, slipped free at her urging. Her silk underwear, dark with rain and her own desire, was pushed down her thighs and discarded. At last, she was bare before him, bare for him.

The sight nearly unmanned him. Before, he only pushed her nightgowns to her chest, they never looked at each other, now of all her was there.

Before he could say anything, she moved. She leaned forward, unsure, Love was never one to initiate, it was not was she was taught. She was taught to be guided, to wait for her husband to show her what to do, to only touch if he demands, to be silent if he so wishes. All that seemed impossible and silly, when him was warm under her touch. She couldn’t help but press wet kisses to his throat, to the hollow at the base of it, his pulse point, lowering to his chest, tasting the rain and the shivers she drew from him, her hands traced his arms, his ribs, down his stomach. Lower. His hands found her waist, gazing her actions, how he had done nothing to earn her lips, her tongue, and she still bless him with it.

Her lips followed, dragging down his torso, her breath hot against his skin. Her soft wet kisses, lingering at the hollow of his hips, her hands worked at his trousers, tugging, eager, intent. She sank lower, eyes glinting, looking over at him through her fluttering lashes, her swollen red lips parting in promise.

But his hand stopped her, stroking her cheek, brushing a stray wet curl from it, a single finger under her chin tilting her face up. His gaze caught hers, dark and burning, a weight that made her tremble.

“My queen” he said, voice low, velvet-thick, utterly filthy and worshipful “ For every cry you swallowed, every touch I never gave. I want to feast on you.” His mouth ghosted over her jaw, his voice a growl against her skin. “I want to eat you until you can’t remember what loneliness felt like.”

Her lips parted at his words, her breath catching as heat surged low in her belly. The crude reverence in his tone, like prayer, like hunger undid her. She squeezed her tights, her already sensible core from her first orgasm clenching in anticipation. She found his lips quickly again, her eyes never leaving his. Slowly she reclined on the dark folds of his coat, she spread her knees apart in invitation.

Dream’s cock twitched painfully against his trousers at the sight, his body begging for hers. The air cooled her slickness, flushed and swollen, glistening for him, dripping for him, her body screaming its need. Her hand called for him instinctively, urging him closer to settle between her thighs, the bond between them burning hotter than the rain.

He braced above her, still half-dressed, pants undone, his weight pressing deliciously into her as he kissed her again. Their mouths crashed together, tongues slick with shared taste, his hand anchoring her hip while the other braced the ground beside her. She arched to him, moaning when his hardness pressed against her folds through his pants, desperate for friction.

Her hand slipped down between them, palming the rigid line of his cock through the loosened fabric.

“Love—” he warned, a ragged growl, his control fraying. He was fixed in her pleasure, but the way her hand stroked him over the fabric… Gods, he was going to come like a schoolboy in his pants.

She blinked up at him, lashes lowered in wicked innocence, her voice breathless, a smile tugging her lips “I just want to feel… what I do to you.” hips rolling against him. Her words were breathless, daring, fingers tracing his length with sinful insistence.

He snarled, his breath hitched, his jaw clenched, his voice lowering into something dangerous and devoted, rocking against her hand, the bond between them vibrating with need. “You will know, my Love. I will show you exactly how hard you make me. But first-” Before she could protest, he dragged himself lower, his mouth tracing reverent fire across the soft skin, feather-light kisses. Wet, lingering suckles on her breasts just enough to turn her nipples hard again, followed to her stomach, down to the sensitive curve of her inner thighs.

His hands urged her thighs wider, thumbs pressing into the softness before dragging her legs up, draping them over his shoulders, locking her open. He kissed her knee, her inner thigh, giving her a sharp nip that made her gasp, moving with infuriating patience, until she’s writhing beneath him, hips lifting, offering herself with no shame.

And when he dared look up at her, their gaze met. His eyes burning with possession and awe as he saw her already touching herself, palms cupping her breasts, fingers teasing her nipples, her body arched, a wanton vision putting on a private show just for him. The sight nearly destroyed him. If he had dreams of his own, her sight would be the one he would keep sleeping to see again, every single day from eternity.

They shared nothing but glancing, when he lowered his head between her thighs, the scrape of his lips so close she nearly wept, until they finally brush her swollen folds, his tongue tasting her with deliberate, devastating care.

Her cry fractured into the rain-soaked night.

His tongue moved in languid sweeps, circling, tasting, savoring her as though she were honey poured only for him. The reverence was there, in the way he groaned into her, low and hoarse, as though the act itself undid him.

His hands were holding firm at her hip, the other sliding beneath her, pressing her down so she could not escape the press of his tongue. When her thighs tried to close, overwhelmed, he only groaned in satisfaction, prying them wider for him, as though nothing else in the Dreaming could possibly matter but the taste of her.

He devoured her as though the act was prayer, his tongue flicking sharp, then slow, then swirling until her breath broke into muffled cries against the sleeve of his discarded coat. He chuckled darkly into her, breath hot, words reverent and filthy all at once, against her core “Do not hide from me, my dream. I want the Dreaming to echo with your pleasure. Let me hear your sweet cries” Love raised her hips for even the second he decided to talk and not use his tongue, her hands clawed through his hair, pulling it hard, until her knuckles went white, she begged, shameless in her need “Dream, please-”

And still he edged her, refusing to give the final mercy, until her voice cracked with it, until her toes curled hard enough to cramp, until her entire body was trembling on the precipice.

Each time her breath grew ragged, he slowed, easing her back from the edge, forcing her to endure, to burn, to ache with the hunger he wanted to ignite in her. His tongue pressed deep, only to retreat, keeping her in that suspended, unbearable place.

"Patience, beloved," He growled, pulling her hips harder against his face, his fingers clawing into her waist to hold her still. Her hips fought against his grip, but he only held her harder, pulling her tighter, burying himself deeper, his tongue unrelenting now coaxing every single response from her, the sounds of her arousal filling the room.”You are made for this, to tremble only in want, to cry only in bliss” He gasped against her, his words wet against her skin.

And then he added his finger to her clit again, and pushed her over with his mouth. Her voice broke, raw and wild, his name spilling from her lips, the entire Solstice, if it wasn’t from the music of the ball, would know she was been eaten out in a dead garden.

Her body snapped, her thighs clamping desperately around his head, but he only drove her further, carrying her through wave after wave, licking her through the flood of her release, sucking, praising her even as she screamed, loud and glorious, swallowing her down with a groan as though as she were the sweetest thing he had ever known. Her release shook through her like a storm.

When he pulled back, expecting her to be undone, Love startled him. Yes, her body trembled, thighs slick, breath caught in sharp, uneven waves, but instead of yielding to spent softness, she pulled him to her mouth, dragging his mouth down into another kiss, fevered and wet, tasting her release on his lips. Desire did not dull her; it made her more alive, more ravenous, as though the high had only sharpened her need.

Morpheus hovered above her, and she devoured the sight of him: his hair disheveled from her hands, unruly black curls falling across his temple; his lips parted in uneven breaths, his chest rising sharply as though the air itself had turned thin, the unbearable pressure of desire sharpened by restraint.

He looked like every secret dream whispered into the night, unraveled, stripped bare, and entirely hers.

He tried to suppress the ache, to temper his greed. He should worship her, continue to tend to her, but stars, every unspoken thought betrayed him. If she could drench his tongue, tighten around his fingers, then how much sweeter would it be to feel her stretch around him, to sink into her heat, to be taken by her body as surely as her soul had claimed him? His cock strained against restraint, painfully hard, aching to be buried inside her.

“The bond betrays you, my Dream,” she whispered against his mouth, denying him another kiss. Her nails teased down his chest, slow and deliberate, until they skimmed the sharp line of his hipbones. “I feel your hunger. You ache to bury yourself in me, to spill your seed deep inside, to keep me filled and trembling with you until dawn.” Her laugh was husky, nearly broken with her own pleasure. Her lips barely grazed his skin as she murmured, “You long for me to take you over and over, until there is nothing left of either of us but the bond that binds.”

His breath caught; his hips jerked forward at her words, shamefully eager, sinful thoughts laid bare by her delicious tongue. She hissed in delight at his loss of composure, her body clenching at the bond’s echo of his hunger, like it was her own desire.

Her hand slid lower, into the open edge of his pants, delicate fingers curling eagerly around him. Long and hard, he pulsed in her hand, and his jaw tightened as he groaned into her hair. She pumped him slowly, steady strokes, dragging her thumb over the bead of moisture gathering at his tip. She smeared it deliberately, making it messy, coating her palm until he was wet and slick for her. The sound of his ragged breath, the way his hips twitched helplessly into her fist, it made her smirk, triumphant, clenching around nothing in anticipation. She may have never touched him before, but it felt natural, like she knew exactly how and where to touch him.

Adjusting her hips just enough to be closer, she guided him lower, fist tightening around him as she brought him to her entrance. His tip pressed against her folds, both of them gasping at the contact. He looked down at her, his perfect, poised queen, his own Spring, handling him with a confidence and eagerness foreign to him. ‘ Is this how she becomes when cherished? Is this what blooms in her?’ He couldn’t help but wonder. Gods, he would never leave her.

His cock was slick with both their arousals, gliding against her as she teased, coating herself, rubbing him along her swollen heat. She arched her hips into the pressure, but denied him entry, teasing, coaxing him with wicked patience.

“Love…” he rasped, voice breaking.

She smiled against his throat, nipping lightly. “Feel how I crave you?...” Her other hand slid between her thighs, circling her clit in lazy, deliberate spirals, moans spilling freely, husky and breathless “Claim me as yours, as you should have centuries ago.” She commanded, her curls clung damp to her flushed skin, thighs parted, her breath coming in little whimpers as she toyed with herself, right before his eyes.

Her lips brushed his throat, tongue laving where she bit as she stroked him against her folds, pressing his slick crown at her entrance, green eyes gleaming with desire.

When at last he sank into her, she gasped, sharp, wet, reverent, her body locking around him, clutching him like it had waited centuries. Her walls fluttered, tightening, claiming every inch of him as her own. Her fingers never left her clit, circling as she moaned in awe, and he held her hips down, reverent, trembling at the unbearable sweetness of her taking him in, letting her feel every connection, every ridge, every curve.

Her cry broke into a sobbing moan, her body arching to take him deeper, her nails raking his back as she clung to him.

Morpheus groaned, forehead pressed to hers, the bond blazing like starlight through both of them. He tried to still, to savor, but her body milked him, greedy, drawing him deeper, until his control shattered with a guttural sound.

He moved, slow thrusts first, deliberate. Her gasps broke between them, her free hand clutching his hair, her knuckles white, while her fingers circled her clit, coaxing herself higher with every roll of his hips. Their mouths found each other again, sloppy, moaning into each other, the bond thick with shared ecstasy until he nearly drowned in it.

“You are milking me, my queen,” he rasped against her lips, undone, reverent. “Drawing me deeper, as if you would never let me leave.”

Her answering laugh was ruined and breathless. “I will not. I want you hard, soft, spilling and still inside me, filling me, warming me. All of you. Mine.”

His groan broke against her mouth, his hands cupping her breasts, squeezing her flesh as though to anchor himself. She arched, circling harder over her clit, clinging to him, clenching around him with greedy devotion. He looked down, overwhelmed, to where they joined, her body glistening, tight, devouring him with each thrust, and the sight alone nearly undid him.

Love felt the twitch of him inside her, his body straining, fighting for control, but she would not let him relent. Not now. Not when her own pleasure trembled on the edge of breaking her apart. Her thighs locked around his hips, dragging him deeper each thrust pulling ragged cries from her throat. Her nails carved crescents into his back as he drove her higher, her thumb never leaving her clit even as his rhythm dissolved into frantic, uneven strokes. She cried his name, loud and breaking, each one a demand and a plea, not ‘Husband’ not ‘Dream’, but ‘Morpheus’ , raw and desperate, until he thought he might shatter from hearing it.

He answered not with words but by bending lower, taking her hand from her clit, with reverence, he pressed a kiss into her knuckles, then guided it to rest against his back pressing a kiss into her knuckles, as though in reverence, before guiding it to rest at his back. Her protest was swallowed in a ragged gasp as his own fingers replaced hers, sliding down, circling the slick bud of her pleasure with relentless intent.

The shock tore through her. Her cry cracked in the air, her voice breaking into hoarse, shuddering pleas. His touch was infinitely better than her own, his fingers touching her heat as he wanted her to break under his touch. “Don’t stop, don’t, please, pleas-” Each syllable crumbled into sobs as her body clenched around him, tight, wet, unyielding. He drove into her, burying himself to the hilt, grinding her down against his hand, determined to see her undone.

The world outside ceased to exist, no Dreaming, no Solstice, no dawn, no time itself. There was only the wet slap of skin, the wet slide, the heady heat, the helpless sounds spilling free. His mouth found her neck, her jaw, her lips. She clung to him like an anchor, and he held her as though she were the only thing keeping him alive, their bodies crashing together in a frenzy that was no longer love nor lust but both, indistinguishable and consuming.

Her climax ripped through her like fire, convulsing, again and again, over and over, as if her body could not stop. She sobbed his name raw, breaking, her voice splintering into cries he would never forget. Her pleas poured out shameless, molten, desperate “Fill me, please, fill me” She half-begged, half-demand making his last restraint snap.

With a guttural groan, he gave himself over, “Yes… take it, my love. I’d fill you until you’re split open on eternity itself” Slamming into her, harder, faster, each thrust reckless, sloppy, yet somehow perfectly attuned to the rhythm of her cries and the lock of her warmth around him, as though trying to bury himself inside her forever.

His release hit like a storm, spilling inside her with a shudder that rattled his bones, her body convulsing around him, milking every last drop as he kept his hand upon her, circling, coaxing her through wave upon wave until she broke entirely, sobbing, trembling, her voice cracked and breathless against his mouth, and still she clutched him tighter, her relentless body dragging every drop from him. He collapsed into her, undone, and still she held him inside, clinging as if she would never let him go.

They stayed for a moment, completely spent in each others arms. Morpheus lingered inside her, feeling the gentle warmth of her body collapse into his. For a moment, he thought to ease himself, to give her space. The warmth of her body pressed against him was intoxicating, but he did not wish to overwhelm her further.

He wanted her to feel cherished, worshiped, safe, to ease those creeping doubts that had lingered in her mind, the fractures left by their past that thanks to the bond, he was having small glimpses of her point of view. He didn’t want her to feel like their flesh unions from before, not merely filled, used for his own release. His hand lingered lightly along her back, ready to cradle, to hold, to let her breathe. He started to shift, his arm loosening ever so slightly, meaning to let her recover, to let her slip into the soft emptiness of the afterglow.

But she would not let him go. Her hands pressed against him, curling over his arms and shoulders, gripping with quiet insistence. Her whispered plea, soft and ragged in that single, impossible way that demanded all of him “Don’t go… stay with me.”

It was not lust alone in that plea; it was a demand for presence, for the reassurance that he would not slip away, cold and distant, ever again. It was a claim for warmth, for permanence, for a tether that only he could provide. A plea that he be hers, fully, in all ways that mattered.

It was not lust alone in that plea; it was a demand for presence, for the reassurance that he would not slip away, cold and distant, ever again. It was a claim for warmth, that she had learned to only crave in dreams and never before dared to ask for. A tether that only he could provide.

Her words threaded through him, unraveling every recently awakened instinct to protect or restrain. He could have withdrawn, let her rest in the heat of his coat, alone in the quiet aftermath. But the intensity of her need undid him utterly. Every hesitation melted; he could not, would not, deny her.

With delicate care, he rolled them onto their sides, guiding her leg slightly over his own. Pressed chest to chest, she could feel him fully, even softened, the echo of his hardness still resting inside her. The bond hummed between them, alive with shared breath, heartbeats, and something older than time itself.

He cradled her with one arm around her back, her head nestled into the curve of his shoulder, curls brushing his cheek, spilling damp and soft across his chest. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling, memorizing, the warmth, the weight, the irrevocable closeness of her body. His free hand traced her curls, her shoulder, the subtle planes of her back, as though engraving every contour into eternity.

She shifted slightly, pressing further into him, insistent even in sleepiness, seeking the warmth she had begged for. And in response, he pressed closer, letting the heat of his body speak the words his lips had not yet dared. Her pulse, her breath, her gentle insistence wrapped around him, binding him as thoroughly as any vow. Reverent. Honored. Utterly hers.

Her warmth, her desire, her insistence made him shiver, made him feel everything all at once: reverent, honored, utterly hers. And every beat of her heart against his chest told him what words could not: that she would never let him go, and he would never wish to.

Love’s breath slowed against him, her lashes brushing the hollow of his throat, her body pliant in his arms. She drifted at last, her fingers slackening where they had clutched his hand to keep him within her. Morpheus did not move, unwilling to disturb the fragile peace that had settled over her face.

Then he saw it: a petal, lost from a bloom only just unfurled, spiraled down and grazed the curve of her shoulder, cool and silken against the warmth of her skin. Another settled briefly along the slope of her hip where she pressed to him, velvet against velvet, before a breath of wind carried it away. His eyes followed its flight.

The garden around them was no longer drowned and desolate. The sodden earth, once only mud and ruin, quickened beneath their embrace. Leaves jeweled with rain trembled overhead, scattering droplets that kissed their skin, their coolness only to be chased away by his warmth. Roses curled open, lilies lifted their pale faces, and tender green vines stretched upward with newborn longing.

The Queen’s garden was reborn, not by season but out of devotion, out of passion. Every flower seemed to lean toward her resting form, as though the very earth sought to cradle their soft embrace.

And in that hush before dawn, the horizon brushed with lilac as night withdrew, he bent his head. Against the crown of her hair, against the scent of her, he let fall the words he had guarded for longer than she might ever forgive. Words that stripped him bare, unraveling centuries of silence, distance, and pride.

It was the only truth in his heart, and the only one that deserved to be spoken. Whispered into her dream, carried against her breath, so that even if the universe itself forgot, she would still know.

“I love you”

Lucienne halted mid-step and arched an eyebrow. “Well, I seem to recall a certain someone who had quite the fondness for slamming doors himself.” The librarian had vivid memories of the cupids almost breaking her glasses and closing her nose and feet at the door.

Elijah sighed, rolling his eyes as he resumed walking. “That was an entirely different circumstance. You were attempting to spy on our ladyship and tattle to our lordship about it.” And in his mind this was a far greater crime than delicately closing doors at her face.

Lucienne adjusted her spectacles with a look of dignified affront. The suggestion that she had “spied” and “tattled” placed her, in his words, almost among those dreammaids who pressed their ears to keyholes in hope of overhearing a quarrel, a scandal, or most delightfully a romantic indiscretion to spread like jam across toast. She was, thank you very much, far above such conduct. “It was not spying,” she replied, her tone clipped. “It was due diligence. Someone had to report on our ladyship’s wellbeing, particularly since she was passing out drunk with alarming frequency.”

Elijah continued walking, hearing the inevitable conclusion to her argument even before it arrived, he could even mouth it, if it wasn’t childish to do so.

“To prepare Lord Morpheus,” she added.

He rolled his eyes once more, smirking. “Ah, yes. To nanny a man incapable of facing the consequences of his own failings toward his wife.”

Then he stopped, turning to face her. They stood in the corridor, hands clasped behind their backs, perfectly composed second-in-commands, indulging in their usual banter. He tapped a finger to his chin in mock contemplation. “You know, they ought to change your title. From ‘Lucienne the Librarian’ to ‘Nanny Lucienne.’”

Lucienne forced a smile. Years of Elijah’s sarcasm had long since worn away any sting, but she was rarely bested in repartee. “Well then, if we’re proposing title changes, yours should be Mother Goose Elijah, always honking and flapping at anyone who so much as glances askance at Lady Love.”

Now it was Elijah’s turn to straighten his dark blue coat, visibly affronted. The idea of anyone looking wrongly at Lady Love was, of course, beyond unacceptable. Anyone who frowned at such kindness and gentleness should be made a roommate to Queen Nada. In his humble opinion, of course.

“As I should,” he said firmly. “Mind yourself, Librarian.”

Lucienne, suppressing a smile, continued as though she hadn’t heard. “And I daresay more than half the staff in both the Dreaming and the Garden would agree with me, Cupid.” She imbued his title with the same arch inflection he’d used for hers.

Elijah met her gaze for a few thoughtful seconds, groping for a clever retort. He would forever blame the exhaustion brought on by the Solstice for coming up empty-handed.

With a dramatic sigh, he changed the subject, not wanting to indulge in his lost of words. “Shall we see whether any of our special guests have arrived?”

Lucienne allowed herself a small, private smile, satisfied to have won a verbal skirmish she usually lost. A feeling shortly enjoyed, since they had to return to social obligations. She adjusted her spectacles and matched his stride as they made their way toward the main ballroom a grand new addition to the palace, built specially for the Solstice and its illustrious guests.

As they walked, the two issued a steady stream of orders to the cupids, dreams, and nightmares still scrambling with final preparations.

“There you two are,” came a familiar rasp from above. Matthew swooped down and landed neatly on Lucienne’s shoulder. Elijah hoped he would bear useful news and not the usual avian nonsense.

“Queen Titania has arrived with King Auberon,” The raven announced. “And apparently some fae fellow, Plural, Pluric, Cluaric, honestly, weird name.”

“Cluracan,” Elijah corrected smoothly.

Lucienne and Matthew exchanged looks, then raised their eyebrows in unison, waiting for elaboration.

Elijah cleared his throat. “I am… acquainted with him. That is all.”

They both knew perfectly well that it was not all, but neither pressed. They merely shared another knowing glance. They would press, when all of the Solstice passed, when and if they survived.

“Anyway,” Matthew continued, “He was hitting on one of the young protégés and mentioned that the royal fae couple were, quote, ‘deliciously enamorated,’ which I suppose means we won’t be having any trouble from that quarter.”

Elijah gestured for him to go on.

“No sign of Thessaly yet, but Mervyn claims to have seen a few older witches from her former coven. She might be here already. Kilala’s still a no-show, and so is Alianora.”

“And the King?” Lucienne asked quietly. She hadn’t laid eyes on him in some time, not even before her abduction by the dreaded aunts.

“I was rather hoping you would know,” Matthew admitted.

They both sighed.

Exactly what they didn’t need: the King missing in action. For all they knew, he might have returned to Hell to wage war on the Lightbringer.

Oh, never mind. Elijah just spotted Morningstar downstairs talking to the Merkin.

“I’ll search the library and his quarters,” Lucienne offered.

“And change your attire,” Elijah added, glancing her over.

“Are you changing yours?” she asked archly.

“Of course. You’ll find yours in your usual place, atop the library table. I took the liberty of arranging it.”

Lucienne rolled her eyes. When did he not take liberties especially concerning her wardrobe? Did he think she was incapable of choosing her own attire? Nevermind the question. He did. She knew.

“Coordinated colors?” she asked warily.

“A very librarian light blue, in your honor,” he replied, placing a hand dramatically over his heart as if deeply moved by her fashion evolution.

Lucienne rolled her eyes again but smiled. She did pay attention to his infinite rumbles about fabric color and meaning. He returned the smile with one of his own.

“I’ll speak with the fae,” Elijah said. “They’re as adept at gossip as cupids. If anyone of note has arrived, they’ll know.”

“Ah yes, the fae,” Matthew said slyly, implying all manner of things.

Elijah reached for a feather, prompting the bird to squawk indignantly and flutter out of reach.

“You test your luck, bird.”

“Good luck to us all,” Lucienne interjected, bringing the conversation to a close as the trio dispersed in separate directions.

“We shall need it, Librarian,” Elijah murmured with a sigh, summoning a courteous smile as he prepared to face the Fae, an ordeal if ever there was one.

Why couldn’t faeries just die? Like mortals? No, like cupids, they lingered for thousands of years, meddling, gossiping, drinking. Annoying little mosquitos is what they are.

Contrary to what Lucienne and the bird might suspect, Elijah did not have entanglements with Cluracan.

Far too rakish for his taste.

But the Emissary had.

And Cluracan, curse his silver tongue, never let Elijah forget it.

Every. Single. Time.

May the Garden bless his heart. And patience.

—---------------------------- Dream did not return to his throne.

Instead, Lord Morpheus wandered, without destination or design, down a corridor he had traversed a thousand times. His fingers brushed the cool stone of the wall as he walked, idly tracing the carved cherubs that adorned it: silent, eternal witnesses to grandeur and stillness alike.

He had never truly noticed them before. But now, he lingered.

One bore Vanira’s smile, too large for its small face. Another captured the mischievous tilt of Solin’s brow. A third evoked Lethe’s tiny fingers, ever clinging to Love.

He had remained a few moments longer with the children. One of the twins had brandished a wooden sword, challenging a cousin atop a fallen log. Another child plucked dandelion stars from the grass, scattering wishes into the wind, innocent of the price such things exacted. Morpheus had not smiled, but his hands were clasped behind his back in uncharacteristic ease, and, for once, his shadow did not stretch so far behind him.

Alith, who had lost all fear of the King of Dreams, approached him with the bright-eyed audacity only children possessed. She posed a question, one of those singular inquiries that leave adults without answers.

“Uncle Dream, are you Aunt Love’s prince?”

He regarded her quietly, uncertain whether to smile.

She tilted her head, studying him like he was still a mystery (or a secret, she couldn’t tell the difference now, thanks to Cain and Abel) she couldn’t yet solve.

Valkar, unwilling to let his sister monopolize their elusive uncle, elbowed her sharply. “Of course he is. He’s married to Aunt Love. That’s what makes him her prince, and our uncle.”

Alith retaliated with a touch more force. “So? He could be married and still not be her prince. Maybe he’s the villain keeping her trapped here until her real prince comes to rescue her. Ever think of that, wormhead?”

She rolled her eyes and flung herself upon the soft grass in dramatic fashion. A single white feather, caught in her hair, fluttered free as she blew it toward the sky.

“I thought Uncle Dream was the villain,” she added plainly. “Because of what mother said.”

Morpheus could not find it in himself to object. He had, after all, been a terrible husband to Eoster. Her sisters, though perhaps meddlesome, were not wholly wrong in their assumptions, and in any court, celestial or hellish, rumour clung to broken marriages like moss to stone. Especially if it is a high-stakes marriage as that between Love and Dream.

“Is that so, little one?” he asked softly, the corner of his mouth tilting, just slightly.

She shrugged, considering. “But now I’m not sure.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. She lifted her chest slightly for a better look, then let herself fall back into the grass again, sprawling her dark straight strands of hair behind her. “I think you could be her prince… in disguise.”

Valkar groaned and crossed his arms. “Ignore her, uncle. A nightmare worm probably ate her brain.”

“No it didn’t!” Alith shrieked, springing up to deliver a well-aimed kick at her brother. Afraid her uncle might think a nightmare worm actually ate her brain. Valkar could be very convincing for a hundred years old boy. He dodged, grinning wickedly.

“A real worm ate your brain, Valkar! You don’t even know how to spell nightmare,” she added, sticking out her tongue.

“All right, no need to be mean about it,” he replied, lowering his gaze in feigned hurt. After a beat, a sly smile spread across his face as he looked toward Morpheus, pretending to also be a grown up assessing a child “Those worm-brains are temperamental, aren’t they, Uncle?”

Alith screamed in rage and gave chase, while Valkar shrieked with laughter, already sprinting ahead.

Morpheus watched them run. Each seemed to provoke the other into life. The type only the tender youthness of childhood could elicit.

As if summoned by the wild cries of the children, the army of nannies soon descended with practiced efficiency, scooping them up like errant birds. Each child squealed in protest, like demons caught by angels, or like piglets resisting the slaughter, save for sweet Lethe, who was lifted serenely into the arms of her nurse. She hugged the woman instinctively and waved goodbye to her uncle.

Only one thing remained behind: Alith’s question, lingering in the air like the faint scent of a memory too innocent to fade.

'Are you Aunt Love’s prince?'

Had she asked him an age ago, his answer would have been swift and cruel. No. Not only would he say that their aunt was undeserving of a prince, but he would never become such for her. But now, the question was not what he was, or even what he desired to be.

It was whether he could be.

Still turning the thought over in his mind, Lord Morpheus wandered further, until his steps carried him to one of the grand staircases of the palace, a place carved in splendour, all gilded panelling and solemn cherubs, immortalised in marble and dust.

He stood at the uppermost level, half veiled in darkness, where the polished balustrade curved like a serpent beneath his hand. The flickering glow of sconces threw tall shadows upon the engraved walls, warriors and saints in eternal combat.

Two of Love’s protégées, blissfully unaware of the King of Dreams watching from above, were engaged in a private theatre of flirtation and poetry, staged on the very tiles where generations of myths had walked. She fled; he caught her. She laughed and turned her face coyly away when he leaned close, her whole being a choreography of invitation and restraint.

With mock piety, he spoke:

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?”

And she, with deliberate softness, trailing her fingers down the length of his arm, answered:

“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

It struck Morpheus with quiet force—the verse, the illusion of something sacred made light and beautiful by youth. The performance was clearly meant for no audience.

And the memory.

It was there, on that silent upper landing, hidden between candlelight and carved angels, that Lucienne found him.

He had just returned. She could tell. The scent of open fields clung faintly to the hem of his coat, mingled with dust and wild grass and something sweeter… Jam?

Lucienne narrowed her eyes. He couldn’t possibly have, not with those children. The very same terrifyingly powerful, mildly feral nieces and nephews she had just watched try to scalp their nannies on the southern lawn while crying about being dragged to be boiled alive.

She shook her head. That was a riddle for another hour.

The librarian had imagined she might find her lord sulking. Not quite brooding, but close enough. Somewhere quiet, resisting the inevitable march of pageantry.

Lord Morpheus had never been fond of spectacle, and this year’s celebration was extravagantly overgrown, even according to Elijah, by Lady Love’s standards. Family. Friends. Enemies. All came from across the universe, to either see his triumphant return after a hundred years imprisoned, or watch his demise during his own wife ritual.

Lucienne was ready for broodiness, moodiness and perhaps even some hopelessness covered in “What good my presence will do, since she won’t forgive me?” to which she already crafted a good response of “Because she is your wife”, that would not take any answer besides ‘I will go’.

What she did not expect was to find him watching two teenage lovers in a slow, clumsy dance of courtship, twirling and teasing and whispering behind their hands, as though the world was theirs and the moon had been lit just for their story.

He spoke before he looked at her. He didn’t have to. He knew his librarian steps.

“Did you know it was Queen Eoster who inspired Romeo and Juliet?” The words were soft. Almost contemplative. The couple was too far and too enamorated to even hear them. He did not turn his gaze from the pair below, now kissing sweetly beneath a stone arc with cherubs being their witnesses.

Lucienne stood at his side, posture straight as ever, hands clasped neatly before her. But her mouth parted slightly, startled not by the question, but by the gentleness in his tone.

She didn’t answer right away. Not because she didn’t know, of course she knew. But because the memory of it pressed like a stone beneath her ribs.

Lucienne drew a breath.

“I remember far too well, my lord.” Morpheus turned his head slightly, she frowned her brows looking at him, while fixing her glasses “The crying. The questions. The heartbreak. I was not built for it, my lord.”

He said nothing. His silence was neither surprise nor denial. Only the weight of recognition. Her heavy with the memory she painfully carried

“She came to me that night as just a girl. No crown. No divinity. Just a young woman who did not yet know what it would cost her to love you.”

“I did not-”

“No you didn’t” Lucienne cut him without mercy. “And then, you commanded the Dreaming to forget. You sealed every door. You forbade the staff. You even tried to keep it from me.”

The memory rose in Lucienne, vivid as firelight.

The first hundred years of having a queen.

Lucienne had been in the library, cataloguing new dreams, surrounded by the smell of old vellum and winter wind. When she heard that voice. Small, hesitant, cracking “Lucienne?”

Lady Eoster stood in the doorway like something precious abandoned. Her eyes, usually bright and hopeful, glazed and shining, as though holding back a tide too large to name. She tried to smile, really tried. Her gown was wrinkled from sitting too long, her curls falling undone from what had once been an elegant arrangement.

Lucienne blinked, unsure, instinctively rising from her seat “My lady…?” She barely had the time to process before the young queen collapsed into her.

Arms clutching her shoulders, face pressed into the crook of her neck. The sobs came in silence first, shoulders trembling violently, breath shallow and frantic. Tears slipped soundlessly down her cheeks as Love covered her mouth as if ashamed of sobbing.

“A girl who had tried everything,” The librarian said at last, her voice low but unwavering, “To give you her heart.”

Her eyes, steady and exacting, did not flinch from their mark. She gazed upon her sovereign not as a servant, but as one who had known too long the weight of silent witness. Her words hung between them like an accusation too long delayed.

Morpheus did not stir. Not a breath betrayed him, save the tightening of his jaw and the minute lowering of his brow. He stood composed, stoic, impassive as always. But the silence between them was strung taut, trembling with all that had gone unsaid.

“She believed the play might reach you,” Lucienne continued, “where her voice could not.”

There was no pity in her tone, only a cool clarity. She tilted her head, ever so slightly, in an expression not of compassion, but of appraisal. A woman weighing the man she once revered and finding him grievously wanting.

“Do you know what broke her, my lord?” Her voice fell to a hush, like the breath of a candle before it dies. “It wasn’t your silence during the performance. It wasn’t the scolding afterward.” She paused, and even the memory seemed to pain her. “It was walking down that hall. Alone.”

Like the first fissure in fine porcelain, a crack appeared in the king’s expression. Barely perceptible, save to one who had studied him so long. His lashes cast dark shadows upon his pale cheek, as though he hoped such darkness might absolve him from his librarian’s truth.

“Your queen didn’t cry in front of you,” Lucienne continued, her voice gentler now, remembering the young queen, but not less firm. “She waited. Waited until she was certain you could no longer hear her. Because Lady Love feared that even her sorrow might offend you.”

The stillness around them seemed to lean in.

Lucienne’s hands, which had been composed and gloved in the dignity of years of service, now clenched slowly, like pages curling in fire. Her gaze did not waver, but her tone grew taut with memory. Yes, she wasn’t unkind, and yes she did hug and tried to ease her queen’s pain without defying or slightly defying the king’s orders. But that wasn’t enough. She knew it back then, and she knows it now. A sharp breath escaped her lips, tinged with regret.

“I should have spoken,” she said bitterly, but entirely directed inward. “I should have defied you. She was not some scheming enchantress, nor a pawn in Lady/Lord Desire’s game. She was-” The word caught in her throat before she pressed on, “a girl. A queen in title, yes, but still a girl. Frightfully in love, and desperate to be seen. She asked a hundred times what she had done wrong.”

Lucienne scoffed, a bitter sound unbecoming of her usual restraint “As if your coldness were a failing of hers. As if the absence of kindness were some punishment she had earned.”

“She had nowhere else to go, my lord. No one to turn to. Because the one who ought to have seen her, the one who was meant to protect her, dismissed her.”

Morpheus turned from her then. Whether to shield himself from further indictment, or to spare her the sight of his unraveling, even he could not have said. Her words burned with too much truth, and truth, when long ignored, always seared.

He could feel it now. Not merely remember it, but feel it, deep and terrible.

The way her hopes had risen with the play, eyes searching not the stage, but him, waiting for some flicker of affection, for the smallest sign that he had seen her heart. And then, the crushing fall. The silence. The scolding. The shame.

And finally, the corridor. Her soft footsteps, echoed against the marble, the echo hollowed by solitude. No one approached her. By his own decree.

In his bitterness, in his wounded pride, he had forbidden them: “No one is to indulge the queen’s theatrics.” He had said that.

His own words returned to him now, foul and echoing. A line drawn in pride. One that he knew would hurt. He wished it did. A proper punishment for the one who stole his choice.

To him, solitude had long been familiar. But to her, so full of music, of brightness, it had been agony. She had longed not for grandeur, but for company, laugh. For warmth. For someone to teach or to be taught. Someone to reach for her hand.

And he had given her none of it.

He saw Lucienne again, her own discomfort with tenderness still evident even in memory, as she awkwardly held the trembling girl. A girl she could not save, but could at least hold.

Lucienne, the custodian of dreams, had never intended to be anyone’s solace. In that moment, had become all Love had left.

Morpheus’s hand gripped the railing beside him. He bent into it, just slightly, as the weight of what he now knew, what he had done or failed to do, of all he had ignored, all he had cost her, had finally begun to collapse upon him. Enough to ache.

“I did not think-” he said, and his voice broke like dry parchment.

“No,” Lucienne replied, her words clipped and cold, final in their judgment. “You did not.”

He had not thought. Not of her. Not of the weight of his rejection. Not of the way it would strip her bare.

He had mistaken vulnerability for strategy. Mistaken heartbreak for manipulation.

She looked too young to yield the pain she was enduring, frailer. Much more than he remembered.

Lucienne had held her, not out of duty, but from a silent, aching knowledge that she was all the comfort left.

"Oh, my lady," she had whispered, rubbing slow, unsure circles on Love’s back. "It will become easier."

"I only wanted to make him believe," Eoster had wept. "I thought perhaps… perhaps he’d finally see me."

Lucienne had said nothing. Had only leaned her cheek to Love’s temple, rocking her gently, the way only those who’ve never had to rock anyone do: Stiff at first, then full of something older than instinct.

Morpheus could feel the way Eoster trembled like a bird in the crook of Lucienne’s arms.

She had wept until there was nothing left. And Lucienne had stayed. A quiet rebellion against his cruel command.

Now, standing beside him, Lucienne said nothing more. If he wanted to punish her, so be it.

“Lucienne,” he said, his voice stripped bare “Thank you.”

She blinked. “My lord?”

“For not obeying me.” he said quietly “For… staying with her. I”

“Ah. There you are, my king.”

It was Elijah, already impeccably dressed in a dusky rose satin coat, its surface lavishly embroidered with gold-threaded vines and delicate florals that shimmered like old enchantments. Matching breeches and a glimpse of brocade beneath his waistcoat completed the ensemble, along with a froth of lace at his throat. His brown curls were tied back with a pink satin ribbon that matched the buckled bows atop his satin shoes. He looked precisely like a courtier from the eighteenth century, and was already wondering, with quiet annoyance, why Lucienne and Dream were not attired with equal diligence.

His gaze swept once, slowly, from Morpheus’s dishevelled everyday robe, wholly unsuited for ceremony, with equally unsuited additions such as grass in the hem of his coat, something that Elijah hoped or fear looked like jam on his sleeve, and a flicker of sand in his shoulders, to his face.

And then, a flick toward Lucienne, just enough to register that yes, he noticed she had not changed either. There was, in the smallest glance exchanged, the polite fury of comrades uniting silently in crisis:

What were you two discussing that mattered more than the necessary duties at hand?

The Endless returned the look with a cold, quiet annoyance.

But he recognized that gaze too well. It was not amusement that danced there, but fatigue. The precise kind born from millennia of service to ancient powers and from the exasperated understanding that once again, it fell to him to shepherd one of his monarchs into doing what should have already been done.

Without a word, Morpheus lifted a hand. One flick, jam, grass and dust vanished. In its place came his ceremonial garments.

Elijah dipped his head, just enough to be respectful, and turned slightly toward Lucienne. “And you have not changed, either,” he observed, quiet and clipped, his brow arched.

Lucienne offered him a flat look heavy with irritation. He chose, most diplomatically, not to see it.

Instead, Elijah’s tone remained unfailingly courteous as he turned to Morpheus and extended an arm “It is time, my lord. I shall escort you while Lucienne prepares.” There was a touch more weight in his voice now, the faint stress of one balancing too many unseen threads.

Then, as if idly, the cupid added, “Shall we take the North Wing? There’s quite the commotion on the East side between the protéges. I imagine you would prefer to avoid it.”

His eyes flicked back to Lucienne for the briefest of seconds. Commotion. One of the past lovers was there.

Lucienne gave no answer but the briefest movement of her jaw, confirmation enough, turning away, already moving toward her own chamber.

Elijah did not look back. His duty, for now, was to keep the king distracted, far from wandering too close to the shadows of his own making. Until spring bloom again.

Downstairs, it was a frenzy.

Cupids fluttered, Dreams drifted, and entities from across the cosmos filled the room with movement and noise. Select cupids—those trustworthy and handpicked by Elijah (with heavy input from the Emissary) worked with desperate precision, guiding key guests to their designated places. In the Garden, this ritual had a rhythm everyone understood. But here, in the Dreaming, even though the rite was the same, the arrangement was unknown to many.

The trusted cupids followed Elijah’s meticulous plan—he had briefed Lucienne, Mervyn, and Matthew, though he remained unconvinced they fully grasped the weight of it all. None of them had witnessed the Changing of the Seasons before. They didn’t understand the intricate choreography required to make it flawless. They certainly didn’t understand why the room had to be blanketed in white untouched snow, pure as the first morning of Christmas. Elijah had tried to explain. Eventually, he gave up, only muttering in exasperation, “Because it’s not time yet.”

All the Endless were present now, except, of course, the Prodigal. A sadness clung to that absence, one Elijah didn’t fail to notice. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel relief (Well, not to much, because Desire had the audacity to show up). Not only would the Prodigal's presence invite the dangerous interest of Eoster’s sisters (and risk the jealousy of their husbands, which could trigger a war before the first toast), but his absence spared Elijah the task of managing yet another wild variable. And for once, the siblings, though not required to participate, were exactly where they were needed to be.

At the bottom of the grand stairs stood the queens of the seasonal court, radiant and commanding.

To the left, nearest the stairs, was Honesty, her hair swept into a sleek French twist, a sheer veil clipped at the back of her head and cascading softly down. Her off shoulder long gown sheer in layers, with subtle iridescent shimmer with long bell sleeves in airy aqua with baby blue undertones, she looked like the sea rushing under the sunrise.

Beside her stood Melancholy, statuesque in deep slate-grey velvet. Her gown was heavy and full, structured with hidden layers, the fitted bodice clung with quiet severity. Its square neckline framed by silver embroidery threaded deconstructed snowflakes drifting along the collar and cuffs before gathering densely at the hem, where the grey velvet lightened as if kissed by frost. Her long sleeves, like second skin, modest and commanding, and a sheer veil of grey netting softened her face like mist clinging to stone. Her dark blue hair was pulled into an intricate braided updo, crown-like and mournful with a tudor headpiece. She was beauty veiled in grief.

Pride, ever a contrast, blazed in crimson and copper. Her elongated mandarin collar bodice surpassed her waist. Her sheer gown was a canvas of embroidery, flames, leafs, vines, phoenixes, branching like fire across the columnar skirt, with copper sequins flickering like embers. Her matching floor-length cape flowed behind her. The copper-pinned curls adorned multiple large, smooth loops and rolls of hair curled in structured loops like a sculpture of victory.

Happiness, glowing at the far end, was summer incarnate. Her llong golden curls tumbled in soft waves, and her dress, a full, soft pleated skirt with a deep V-shape neckline revealed a contrasting pinkish-lavender underlayer, with intricate embroidery in darker golden and earthy tones resembling delicate vines and floral motifs, glowed with embroidery of golden vines and floral motifs, warm as a sunset. Her puffed sleeves flared like short wings fallen from her shoulders, delicate and bright.

Behind them stood their children and husbands, perfectly coordinated in color and form, flawed as they may be, Elijah noted with grudging approval, at least they dressed beautifully. But he did wonder how those ladies made their usual bare chested sweaty husbands dress in silk. Actually, the cupid realized, he did not need to wonder, he knew perfectly what they had done.

Across the staircase, on the right, Lord Morpheus had arrived. Elijah, after escorting him in, vanished quickly to prevent Lady Delirium from wandering again. The King of Dreams wore his signature black, but elevated, cloak midnight silk with barely-there swirls of mist; his waistcoat and high-collared shirt matched in shadowed tones. Discreet heels lifted his boots, and his dark hair fell loose to his shoulders.

At his side, unfortunately, stood Desire in a floor sweeping red coat with long sleeves, sharp shoulders and black heels. Dark makeup and striking lipstick completed the dramatic effect alongside the slicked white-blonde hair. Next was Despair, her usual grey gown blending into the snowy hall, so appropriately understated that Elijah nearly approved. And then Death: clad in black, her curls half-pinned, her tulle mid-calf high-necked dressed, with the necklace of her sigil. To Elijah’s distaste, her boots were far too plain. She looked less like the Lady of Death coming to the event of the century (perhaps the millenia) and more like a gothic teenager going out to see their friends at the cemetery.

There was Lord Destiny, who Elijah didn't like to think a lot, because otherwise it would appear in his little book. So he tried to focus only in good thoughts, and how his cloak looked very Destiny-like.

And then… Lady Delirium.

Who Elijah was almost wishing he had never met.

The cupid was nearly on his knees. “My lady, please, if you could just stay here for five minutes, just until Queen Eoster presents the spring…”

“But I was here,” she said dreamily.

“My lady, I just pulled you away from a circle of cupids.”

“No, I’d remember that. I was here. You weren’t.”

“Yes, I wasn’t. I was tending to Lord Morpheus.”

“See? You’re the one who got confused. That happened to me yesterday. And the day before. But not now. Now I’m here.”

She looked like she’d stepped off Sunset Strip in the ’80s, all pastel layers somewhere between nightgown and rave, with wildly nonconforming fishnets.

“Yes, my lady. I got confused,” Elijah said, exhausted. “Please. Five minutes.”

“Is this up to your liking now?” Lucienne asked, appearing beside him. Her robes, modeled after his, but in a soft light blue.

“Very appropriate. Thank you,” he said, scanning the top of the stairs and back to the guests.. He was growing anxious. ‘Was she taking longer than necessary?’

“If you’re looking for those two charming aunts,” Lucienne murmured, “they’re just behind Lord Morpheus.”

Elijah turned, there they were. Primness, already appraising everyone like a market vendor inspecting fruit. Temperance, lost in admiration of the winter décor. If they were here. Where was Lady Love?

“I will go look for her” Elijah said, already turning from Lucienne, and before the librarian had any time to protest, the trumpets sounded.

And the room fell utterly silent.

The protégés descended first, their gowns and coats white as dream-foam, kissed by tendrils of colour that curled up from the hems like the shy beginnings of spring. The silk flowed like petals caught in a soft breeze, the embroidery glimmering faintly as though sewn by moonlight. Crowns of snow-blossoms rested upon their heads, their steps so perfectly timed it seemed they were gliding, summoned not by music but by magic. Ladies to one side, lords to the other—grace and symmetry in motion. And when the last had taken their place—

She appeared.

Not walked. Not entered. Appeared.

As though dawn itself had been persuaded to take form.

A hush swept through the hall, deeper than silence.

She was breath after stillness, the first golden warmth upon frostbitten earth, her curls, pinned loosely with ivory blossoms, shimmered with a light that was not light. Her gown, oh, her gown, off-the-shoulder sleeves sheer and short, a fitted white silk bodice rounded softly at the neckline. The skirt, a cascade of soft layered tulle, reached mid-calf and floated with each step. She was the embodiment of purity, the essence of newness, of untouched wonder, of promises not yet broken.

But none saw the tremble in her fingers.

None heard the quiet battle of her breath.

Inside her, it was not quiet. Inside, it was a storm of doubt, of sadness she refused to name aloud. The kind that curls up in the hollows left by unmet longing. Eoster had grown used to arranging her pain like flowers, tidy, beautiful, and out of the way. She had taught herself to wear grace like armour. And even now she learned to settle for amicability when what her heart had wanted was something far less civil and far more consuming.

But she was Love. And Love endured. Love gave, even when it did not receive.

She tried, truly tried to fill her thoughts with the good, with reassurance. Her nieces and nephews, radiant in their gowns and vines, their laughter echoing like birdsong before a storm. Their dance, wild and irreverent, of their joy unburdened by consequence.

She clutched that joy like a talisman.

But it was not enough.

The noise in her head refused to still. The certainty of failure gnawed like rust beneath golden paint. Something would go wrong. She had felt it the moment she entered the room, the moment the eyes turned, the weight pressed down. This time, she would falter. This time, spring would not come.

And so she looked at no one. Afraid that they would see in her face how scared she was. How uncertainty breathes through her pores.

Not at her sisters, not at the Endless standing tall as carved myth, nor at Elijah in his embroidered frenzy, nor even at Matthew perched beside Lucienne’s composed frame.

Until she looked at him.

The bond snapped taut.

Her breath stilled, then eased. His gaze met hers as if it had been waiting there for hours, timeless and steady, the deep well of him offering not just strength, but belief. The yearning between them was like a flame trapped in glass, visible, aching, but restrained. She could not look away. She would not. If she was to take another step, it would be because he was watching. Because he was there.

And in that silent communion, Dream forgot the pageantry, the guests, the thousand eyes. He wished, no, ached, to be her prince, if only for one moment. To be the arms she could fall into, the shield that held winter back. And if she could not rouse the spring, he would dream it for her. Dream it so fiercely that the earth itself would believe it had awoken.

Not that he truly feared her failure. No. She had done the impossible before. Her love had withstood tempests. Her marriage had bent but not broken.

She was Love, and Love endures.

She counted the final steps in her mind.

Three.

Two.

One-

And the world shifted.

She tripped.

The air caught.

A collective intake of breath swept the room. Honesty reached forward, too late. The skirt tangled. The heel slipped. She was going to fall, before the court, before her sisters, before the world. Love knew what it meant, everyone knew what it meant. She failed. She tripped. Spring would not come.

And yet-

She did not fall.

He caught her.

Effortless. Instinctive. His hand reached, and hers found it, like two halves remembering their shape. Time thickened. Her breath was his breath. Their eyes locked, and in that infinite second she saw something in him, something she had not been able to find in herself.

Faith.

Unshaken. Unwavering. Profoundly hers.

He believed she would bring the spring.

Even if she could not believe it herself, he did. And that cursed her, because it mattered. More than it should, more than she could say. It quieted the voices in her head, soothed the trembling doubt in her heart.

They stood together, suspended in that private world. Some said they lingered too long. Others said it was never enough.

She stood once more, upright, though changed. The warmth of his touch clung to her hand as she slowly let it go. Her balance returned, but not her composure. Nor the ache.

She had not been born to be content. But she had learned it.

And it had never fit.

Turning at last to Honesty, she found in her sister’s eyes the fraying edge between alarm and belief.

Then Honesty stepped forward, her voice low and strong, the kind of voice that steadies hearts and roots storms

“Today, winter yields to spring. For there must be death, and there must be withering, if there is ever to be bloom. To be born anew, the universe must first sleep. To flower, it must first fade. And now the earth stirs from her slumber.”She dramatically turns to Eoster, how lower her eyes as receiving a blessing “My sister, heart of renewal, breath of warmth, guide us with grace. Bring forth fertility, prosperity, and the hush before the blossom. The season waits for no queen but bows for your blessing” Honesty bows deeply, walking without turning back to her place.

Eoster took a few steps forward, facing all of her sisters.

From the right, radiant in honey-gold silk, Happiness stepped into view. Her smile, as dazzling as the sun on midsummer water, carried centuries of mirth and memory. With solemn grace, she lifted the Scepter of Seasons—a slender, twisting branch of white birch, adorned with ribbons, golden bells, and crystal leaves. Her voice was light, and yet it rang like temple bells “To the warm breezes and the never-ending buzz of cicadas, to laughter beneath orchard boughs heavy with promise, I yield the sun, that it may rise anew.”

With a tender glance, she passed the scepter to Pride, robed in scarlet and bronze, her bearing noble as a warrior queen. Pride lifted her chin, the torch of passion alight in her eyes, and spoke in a voice carved from fire “To the ripening field, the fierce flush of bloom, to the defiant green that breaks the frost, I give the will to grow.”

The scepter passed then to Melancholy, dressed in charcoal silver, veiled and quiet as moonlight on stone. She received it like she was receiving a memory long buried. Her fingers lingered. Her voice came soft, grave, laced with echoes “To the thawed soil, where sorrow nourishes seeds,to the hush before birdsong, I give the ache that stirs new life.”

Then she turned.

Silent as snow falling in candlelight, Melancholy knelt. She bowed to the earth before Love, and with both hands, offered her the scepter. And as Love reached forward, her hand trembled just so.

She paused. Just one moment.

And looked back.

He was still there. Still watching her.

Their eyes met across the distance. No words passed. None were needed.

She turned back, sceptre now in her grasp, and stepped forward to the center of the great mosaic carved in marble. No one could see it, of course, it was covered in snow. Love stood alone in the center of the ball, where twelve ancient symbols, hidden beneath the frost lay dormant waiting to be stirred awake

Beneath her slippers, the sigils pulsed with dormant power. She did not need to look down. She could feel them: the echo of centuries, of rituals long sealed.

One step… two… her toes glided over the sigils like a whisper through silk. A dance began. Quiet, deliberate, echoing the grace of stories carved into temples. From symbol to symbol she moved, alone in the hush of the ballroom, guided by instinct, memory, and the Scepter that pulsed warm in her hand.

From above, high in the vaulted dome, a single drop of snow melted. It dripped from the stone arch, and fell, landing on Matthew’s feathered back. He gave a startled shiver, and then blinked at the tiny wet mark. “Ahn…Guys, I think it is happening”

Beside him, Lucienne’s gaze turned sharply to the stone columns wrapped in dormant vines. Her lips parted in awe as buds, tightly furled for months, now began to unfurl in urgent bloom, violet, crimson, gold. Color spilled up the marble like ink in water. She exhaled, softly, reverently.

Mervyn turned to complain, only for a small deer, dainty, shining, and out of place to snuffle at his head like it might nibble the brim of his cap. “Hey! I’m not salad!” he bellowed, stumbling back as a pair of squirrels scrambled past his boots and vanished under a rose-laden archway. He looked around, wide-eyed, then he froze, noticing the moss climbing the corner of the bar, daffodils sprouting from the edge of the carpet. “Oh great. I just waxed that floor…”

The music had begun long before anyone realized, flutes lilting like a breeze, strings echoing the thaw of ice, horns swelling like sap rising in ancient trees. The ballroom pulsed with light and joy. Snow fell upward now, becoming mist, then vanishing entirely. Flowers erupted in spontaneous clusters, daisies and crocuses, hyacinths and apple blossoms, vines curling over stone and satin. The scent of new green filled the air.

Guests turned, gasping softly, laughing in delight. Some had removed gloves to feel the warming air on their skin. Petals fell from above like confetti, thrown in celebration, caught in curls and crowns.

Already, some began to dance.

And still the changes swept across the Dreaming, bursting from sigil to sigil in gentle, invisible waves with each of Love’s steps. Flashes of fur darted through the crowd, rabbits, white and brown, leaping and tumbling in delighted abandon. Doves circled high above and swooped through the great crystal windows, perching briefly on outstretched arms and tiaras, cooing as if applauding the return of the season.

Colors bled into Love’s gown, subtle at first, the palest crocus, the blush of magnolia, then deeper, fuller, more radiant. Her smile bloomed with the colors. There was no equal sensation to awake a season, like awakening after a long restful night. She twirled once, just before the twelfth sigil, and laughter escaped her, genuine, girlish, powerful. It warmed hearts.

When she reached the final mark, a crescendo met her steps.

And the ballroom erupted.

Guests threw petals into the air as commemoration of the turning of the season. Real, conjured, symbolic, and the petals danced back, spinning like tiny oracles.

Her nieces and nephews escaped their parents and ran to her, bright-eyed and barefoot, seizing her hands and whirling her into a circle. Their laughter joined the music. Her curls bounced. Her dress flowed like spring itself.

Honesty danced with Wotan, her sharp tongue silent for once as they moved in a fierce, martial rhythm. Pride and Ares glided like flames in perfect control. Melancholy leaned her forehead against Vidarr’s, swaying in sorrowful serenity. And Happiness laughed as Lugh spun her three times too many, her golden skirt flying.

Primness had Destiny’s arm, of course, and she had already begun explaining the structural differences between minuet and quadrille before he politely corrected her. Delirium and Temperance tossed petals like paint, watching them change color in midair, and while Delirum burst into laughter each time a rabbit hopped past in rhythm, Temperance gently laughed at the unworried nature of the youngest endless.

In a corner of plush cushions and velvet shadow, a cupid wept softly at Despair’s feet, reciting a sonnet about unrequited longing that made even the roses wilt in sympathy. And even Desire was half-lounging on a railing, half-sighing, “Remember the orgies late at night at the last awakening? At least three gods and one mountain got pregnant…”

Across the ballroom, Death was not watching her siblings. She stood just behind Dream, her hands behind her back, her smile quiet and knowing. He hadn’t moved for several minutes.

Not since Love had begun her final turn around the golden sigil, the skirts of her gown billowing like seafoam and sunrise, the children spinning around her like little moons. Rabbits tumbled between her steps. Doves traced her silhouette.

His breath had caught in his chest like a boy glimpsing the sun for the first time.

Death nudged him lightly with an elbow. “You could ask her to dance, you know.”

His eyes remained fixed on the swirl of color and motion—Eoster at its heart, her smile luminous, her gown blooming into hues that shifted with every breath, every step. “I do not dance,” he said, almost absently.

Death gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, yes, Lord of Shadows, embodiment of restraint. But she does.”

He said nothing. His jaw tensed, some thought caught behind his teeth. Finally, he murmured, “She is already dancing. I would not intrude.”

Death didn’t press. She only looked at him, softer now, her voice more quiet. “She dances for everyone. But she’s waiting for you.”

He met her gaze, stoic as ever, but something flickered in his eyes, something warmer, something almost afraid. Death raised her eyebrows, sighing again, though not unkindly. “Go. Or don’t. Just don’t pretend you don’t want to.”

He held her gaze a moment longer. Then, with a faint eye-roll, annoyed by the shared trait all siblings seem to have which was knowing him better than he knows himself, he turned back toward the sigil, toward the seafoam and springlight and the woman who danced in defiance of winter.

But she was gone.

The circle still glowed, the sigils now evident to anyone who wanted to appreciate the hand work paint. Rabbits bounded between boots and grass-laced hems, the children laughed, the doves cooed above, but the heart of it, the warmth and the rhythm, had vanished.

Morpheus turned his head slowly, searching. His gaze moved without haste, yet with unmistakable intent, his stillness belying the tightening in his chest. His? Hers? She would never leave before the rite was sealed.

A stir of unease began to settle in the hollows of him. Something was not right with his wife. Whatever it was, he had to find her. He took a step forward.

"These celebrations are vulgar and loud.” said a voice behind him. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

A familiar voice. Dry as salted wind and just as sharp.

Thessaly.

—-----------------------

It began with the twirls.

The rhythm of her dance had taken on its own life, fluid and instinctual, the sigils beneath her feet glowed, exhibiting the golden light to the guests. The crowd faded into blur as her body moved with the season, awakening spring not with sight, but with sensation. Love turned with a smile, half-lost in the rhythm of the dance, the pull of the children, surrounded by color and admiration. She knew how to be adored. She wore it like a cloak. And for a fleeting moment, she was pure magic.

And then…She felt it.

The tremble of a harp string out of tune. A subtle dissonance beneath the orchestration of the ball. She slightly frowned. Did anyone hear it?

But it wasn’t outside.

A strange tightness pressed against her chest.

She breathed. Once. Again.

The air wasn’t warm anymore. The music was too loud. The twirl of silk and shimmer now a blur that churned her stomach.

She danced still, gracefully, elegantly, but her heartbeat was no longer keeping time with the music. She could feel it now, pounding against her ribs, something unfamiliar and humiliating blooming deep in her. Was this… fear?

No. Why would it be? She was not afraid. She was happy. Spring was borned again. The seasons would turn. It was perfect. Grand. Regal. No one would question’s Dream position, or power.

Everything went well.

Everything was fine.

Then why did her chest felt like it might explode? Why was her corset stabbing her ribs?

Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for Elijah, or Lucienne, perhaps for Morpheus, but instead, they caught other faces.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a shimmer of green and silver. Titania, watching her, of course. That was expected. That was manageable. She was queen of Faerie. The Dreaming and The Garden had diplomatic and peaceful relationships with the fae realm. And unfortunately, Titania was not one to lose a party. Especially a lavish event like the Solstice.

But just beyond, a flicker of something too pale, too knowing, Alianora.

And then a cold gaze framed by unremarkable hair and extraordinary arrogance. Thessaly.

Her steps faltered. Only slightly, a heartbeat's worth, but she felt it like a stumble.

Why were they here?

Her mind, so full of music, color, and purpose, clouded.

Why them?

She twirled again. Their eyes were not even locked on her. They looked at the dance, at the awakening of spring, as if she were incidental. As if she were no more than a vessel, a seasonal tool. Or worse, as if they pitied her.

Did Morpheus invite them?

The thought crept in, sharp as icewater down her spine.

Did he want them here? Did he-

No. No, he wouldn't be so careless. Would he?

Or maybe he had.

Something deep, deeper than vanity or wounded pride, whispered:

‘He brought them to humiliate you.’

‘To show you your place.’

Maybe this was his kind reminder, that no matter how many centuries passed, she would never be the only name he spoke.

That she could be Princess of Spring, Queen of the Dreaming, his eternal soul-bond wife, and still, still be the second choice.

Still be the girl he married by a trick.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

The thought made her bones tremble. He wouldn’t. No. He changed.

But did he?

She couldn’t breathe.

The petals, the animals, the defrosting snow, the circle of watchers, it all closed in, and her throat tightened. Her chest refused to open. The dancing. The children. The colors. The joy. It had been beautiful, but it had been too much. She could not pull in a full breath.

She hadn’t realized how thin the thread was until it snapped.

Her skin prickled like it wasn’t hers. Her hands trembled.

“Excuse me, my darlings,” she murmured, a smile blooming on her face with such radiance that it blinded all concern. The children, entranced as they were by the wonders of Spring’s first breath, gave little heed, scarcely noting her departure.

She walked, glided, really, her skirts trailing like a stream of dawn-lit water.

And then, Titania.

Of course.

Elijah had already stationed himself between the Fairy Queen and his lady, a pale sentinel with a charming smile that was just a shade too polished. His brows held a tension of polite alarm.

“Your Grace,” he began with admirable cheer, “May I tempt you with a dance? A Mother’s wine, perhaps? The Philia Cupids boast this vintage as their finest from the Eighth Century.”

“Perhaps later, dear little Cupid,” Titania said with a voice as silken as it was dismissive, brushing him off like dandelion fluff. Her gaze pinned Love with a feline glint. “I came to offer my praise in person. This Spring,” she said with a reverent bow, “is among your most dazzling. My Queen of Blossoms.”

Of course she did.

“Ah, Titania,” Love replied, her expression a gentle mask, her hand resting upon Elijah’s arm to anchor what remained unmoored within. “Blessings from the Garden. What a lovely surprise.” Her voice was poised, her smile unyielding, for if Titania so much as glimpsed a falter, she would feast on it for centuries.

And Love refused to give her any entertainment. It is enough that she thinks it is some sort of personal victory to have bed Morpheus, while married to Eoster, and spread it like it is the most exciting thing to have ever happened in her long fae life.

“Oh, not so lovely as yours. I do believe half the court gasped when you descended the stairs. Even your husband seemed caught in his own dream.” Love had to hold herself with more intent to not roll her eyes.

“You look radiant tonight, dear Eoster,” Titania murmured as she took Love’s hand in both of hers and held it rather too long. “I daresay even the stars must feel second-best in your presence, how fortunate they are to remain so far above your court, and safe from comparison.”

“You are far too generous,” Love replied. “I merely fulfilled my duty. Now, if you’ll forgive me-”

But the Queen of Faerie had not yet exhausted her sport.

“Duty, yes. You were always so dutiful, our dear dove.” Her eyes narrowed, smile sharpening at the corners, with a furrow of brows hinting the one thing that Eoster hated: pity. Even fake ones like Titania’s. “You know, when Dream visited my court, he spoke often of longing, of beauty too delicate to hold. Such a poetic man. Famished, truly. For something real.”

She leaned in, just a breath closer, as though confiding some ancient, irrelevant curiosity.

“I do wonder what you were doing then. While he slept beneath my canopy. Fulfilling your duty, I assumed. Not your wifely duties, though. At least not quite so well.”

Love’s smile did not tremble. Not even slightly. Her arm pressed a fraction harder into Elijah’s. The Cupid had to battle a most uncharitable desire to tear Titania limb from limb, and give her insides to The Emissary so he could feast on them. Yet he remained still as marble.

There were those who often forgot that Love, gentle, patient and soft-spoken, was raised since birth in courtly insults, and lethal politeness. Whatever courtly game Titania played, Love improved the rules.

“What a ghastly little thought,” Love said sweetly. “I must confess I did not entertained the same. Not when Auberon pressed his mouth to my ear and begged me to warm his bed. Nor during the years he sent those… ambitious sonnets, detailing his pulsing desire.”

Titania’s expression faltered, a flicker of incomprehension passing over her elegant features. Love never told the fae queen or anyone, apart from Elijah about it. After all, never felt the need to talk about her endless admirers across realms, all the impolite proposals she received over the centuries. She felt talking about all the impolite proposals and endless admirers, were not a reason to gloat, not only it gave more credit and attention to them, but, did nothing for her.

Completely useless and vulgar.

“I did not believe it a fault in my dear friend. How naive I was.” Love’s smile deepened. “I simply grieved for the women, queens or otherwise. undeserving of such disloyalty. And you may rest easy, dear fae, I declined his persistent attentions with all the grace I could muster.”

She paused, just long enough.

“And I forgive you for expecting the same from yourself. It would be rather like asking the desert to produce rain, charming, but misplaced.”

Elijah made a small noise, suspiciously like a cough, and had to turn away lest he betray his laughter. Titania, for once, struggled to summon words. Love remained dazzling.

But then, above Titania’s shoulder, she saw something that pierced her like ice.

Morpheus.

He stood far, engaged in what might, to an untrained eye, appear a perfectly civil exchange. And yet beside him stood Thessaly.

Her mouth moved still. Something refined and biting, surely. Her eyes fixed on him with a familiarity sharpened by memory. Her hand — her hand — rested on his shoulder, and when she leaned in to whisper…

The ache returned, swift and sharp.

“Elijah,” she said, turning with slow grace, her voice as light as birdsong. “If we may?”

“Your Majesty—” he began, glancing toward Titania, who now seemed quite disinclined to continue their conversation.

Love pressed her hand, once, into his arm, that quiet, desperate pressure he knew too well. Her silent plea.

He inclined his head, and with swift courtesy, made his excuses. A graceful bow to Titania, a final turn, and then they were moving, cutting through the revelers, past dancers and drifting petals.

Behind them, the great doors shimmered and closed in golden hush.

And beyond them, at last, no one followed.

Love stepped through the quiet archway and into the Garden. Her garden.

The one Morpheus gave her, long ago. Not as a gift, but a distraction. A place to keep her. A cage that looked like Eden.

She had made it bloom. She had tried to show him. She had loved it. Because she loved him.

And when he returned from his imprisonment, he had taken her there. Told her it was the only place in the Dreaming that had thrived while he was gone.

And they had fought.

And the garden had withered.

Now it was quiet. Broken. Brown. Branches like bones against the sky.

She walked in. Alone.

And finally, exhaled but it did not soothe her.

It only left her hollow.

—-------------

He turned.

She was waiting for his response.

“They are not for you.”

A pause. Not awkward. Not tense. Simply space. Breath between blades.

She tilted her head. “Protective now, are we? Quite the change from before”

“I have learned.”

She smiled, almost kindly. “Your little queen taught you?”

“No,” he said. “I taught myself. After.”

His eyes remained distant, fixed ahead. .

Her fingers, arrogant and slow, drifted to his coat. A touch that claimed knowledge, ownership, something already worn thin by time. Her fingers lingered.

"She’s very pretty," she said, almost kindly. "Delicate. Honey-dipped sweet. Does she weep when you leave her bed? Whisper your name like a hymn while you slip into shadow?"

He didn’t dignified her with an answer.

“I imagine she does. That breathy voice, the trembling lips. A good little wife for a dreamer. You always did prefer them pliant, didn’t you?”

Still silence.

Her voice drops, low and teasing, a razor beneath the silk: “Don’t give me that look.”

“Speak only of things you understand,” he warns.

“Oh, but I do,” she purrs. “You forget who you were with me.”.

Her voice turned low, dark with memory. She leaned in, her breath brushing his skin.

“Remember when we argued through storms and summoned gods just to silence us? When you tore the Dreaming open just to prove me wrong?”

She leaned in closer, lips near his ear.

“Remember when you fucked me so hard the stars dimmed? I defied you, and you punished me because you wanted a challenge.” Her hand remained, definitely pressed to his chest.

“But you were colder then.” Her breath brushed his cheek, soft but tinged with a quiet bitterness. “I suppose that’s progress,” she said, her voice low and edged with irony.

“You mistake warmth for weakness, Thessaly. You always have.”

There it was. The smallest shift. The flicker of offense.

She frowned and rolled her eyes.

“Should I be more like your spring queen, then? What does she do, exactly? Apologize when you hurt her, cry when you come inside, say thank you, perhaps? Do you ‘make love’ now, Dream? Are you chasing forgiveness between her thighs?”

Morpheus turned his head, slowly.

“She’s everything you never allowed yourself to be,” he said. “Everything I never let myself want.”

Her voice dropped again, poisonous with certainty.

“She isn’t your equal, Dream. She’s a fantasy. A doll made for your bed and your pity. A thing to be looked at. Played with. Sweet, yes. Loved, maybe. Broken, certainly. But not matched. And you-”

She leaned back, eyes narrowing.

“You were never made for sweetness. You may want to pretend to be a fairytale prince, but you are still the king of shadows, still a creature of silence.”

He looked at her then.

His gaze met Thessaly’s.

Not with fury. Not with disgust. But with the silence of something ancient and over. A glacial stillness, as winter might have ended everywhere but behind his eyes.

"You think fury made you my equal?" he asked, his voice soft and terrible. "That defiance alone was intimacy? That punishment replaced meaning?"

She froze. Just for a breath. Thessaly was never intimidate by him. And she refused to let his words hurt even if they did.

Morpheus’s reply was quiet. Flat. But it rang with finality.

He stepped forward, and she, proud, vicious Thessaly, instinctively stepped back.

His voice remained low, even. Crueler for it.

"You speak of my wife with the bitterness of someone who knows could never fit her shoes, and the audacity of someone who forgets herself. I did not love you. I possessed you. Because you were loud, and clever, and you reminded me of myself. You were not my match, Thessaly. You were my mirror. A cracked one."

Her jaw tightened, fingers curling at her side.

"You mistake her softness for emptiness. But she holds galaxies in her gentleness. Her strength is not in her sharpness, but in the grace with which she bears wounds. Including mine. To endure what she has, and still choose love is a grace beyond your grasp"

Dream stepped away. Done.

A silence like crushed glass stretched between them.

And then Lucienne arrived, clearing her throat as she approached, worry tensing her posture. "My lord." her eyes flicked to Thessaly, who turned to he startled.

Dream stopped “Lady Thessaly was saying farewell,” he said, as if answering a question neither had asked. “Let Lucienne escort you. You’ve earned that much courtesy.”

Lucienne blinked. "Of course, my lord."

He did not spare her another glance. He turned.

Just past the next archway, where he caught the flick of a gown. Soft white. Motion halted.

Elijah stood at the door, hands folded behind his back like a sentry, trying very hard to appear casually intrigued by the dances and music.

—————---------

The cold air was a welcoming one. The soft hush of wind against her flushed skin, and the dim illumination outside was far less punishing than the golden riot of candlelight and dancing within. But the tightness in her chest only squeezed harder, a coil of wire pulling tighter with each step. Her lungs wouldn’t expand. Her ribs would not give.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to remember how to breathe.

How cruel it was, she thought, that such a natural act as breathing could betray her in this hour.

Eoster pressed a trembling hand to her chest, the pressure meaningless against the pressure inside her. Panic whispered with too many voices. Her vision prickled at the edges, bright as frost.

Why were they here?

She shut her eyes and tried to banish the image that came anyway to haunt her: Thessaly’s fingers, insolently placed against the black fabric of his coat, the pads of her fingers splayed against his chest. Her mouth near his ear. The flicker of an ill-intended smile. The tilt of her head was intimate, practiced.

She had no right.

She shouldn’t be here. Neither Alianora.

Eoster’s own mind turned sharp against itself, a dance of shadows and accusations: Thessaly, Titania, Alianora

Why? Why would they come? Was it to test her, to expose some frailty she dared not acknowledge?

Love and Morpheus needed to show unity. Poise. Power tempered by grace. She knew well enough the eyes that watched them, gods, demigods, empires, demons. And instead of a strong front, they found this fracture.

Perhaps this wasn’t their demonstration of strength, but his alone: a cold proclamation that his power, his freedom, and all that he claimed, wife and mistresses alike, were his to command.

But no.

No, she told herself, gathering what little resolve remained, that could not be. He had not invited them. Morpheus did not aid with the list. He had not shed the invitations. He hadn’t even read them.

Only she, Elijah, Lucienne, and Matthew knew of these invitations.

Matthew, she was certain, was blissfully unaware of any of them. Elijah and Lucienne wished nothing but peace, or at least to avoid trouble, and would never betray her.

Had she, in some careless moment, granted permission? When? Love wouldn’t. Not out of politeness. Not for show. Not even for peace.

But didn’t she allow a bunch of extra invites when Elijah asked her? She recalled the day with the Seamstress. Eoster was distracted, her head kept circulating around the words from Lady Death.

How could she be this stupid? Who delivered those extra invites? They were not on her list for sure. So they must be someone plus one.

And yes, a bunch of entities hated Dream and wanted undermine him. But they wouldn’t do this. Too irrelevant to the kind of foe Dream had.

Now, Love. Love might be well connected and on good terms with most entities, but that would not stop some of them from wanting to draw blood from her.

And most of them knew how appearances mattered to her.

But even if his mistresses receive the invitations. Why did they come? Have they not had any grace?

Well, she couldn’t expect it from Thessaly. She had no use for manners or subtlety. But she despised these kinds of gatherings. Eoster had overheard her say more than once, always in that clipped, bored voice she used when she wanted to wound: “Frilly excuses thrown by ornamental dolls desperate for attention”

Always loud enough to be heard. Always sharp enough to hurt. Always just as Eoster passed.

Still, Thessaly had come. To stare, to judge, to remind and to take.

Alianora, Eoster wanted to believe her better, that she would have declined, kept to be in her own pocket world. Yet perhaps she had believed too much.

And Titania.

Ah. Titania. That was different.

She had been invited. The Queen was too powerful to snub, too tied to the Dreaming’s fragile threads. Also The Garden and Faerie held a history that Love would not sacrifice to personal pride. Besides, Auberon would attend.

Once, long ago, Titania had been a friend, at least, Eoster had thought so. As with Desire, she had mistaken appearances for allegiance. Titania did not treat her as a naive pup; rather, as a rival wrapped in silken poise, diminishing with a glance, mocking with a smile.

Now, the Fae Queen wielded mockery like a blade, veiled beneath polite smiles. She shared the bed of Morpheus when the chance arose.

A constant reminder of Love’s fragile place.

A roaring filled Eoster’s ears, her vision blurred, and her knees gave way.

She needed…

Air, more air.

Her knees buckled. Her body folded like fine silk set aflame. She sank to the earth, her gown whispering across the dirt like a funeral shroud. Arms curled around herself, as if holding her broken pieces together. Her forehead pressed to bent knees, hands clawing at her hair. Her chest still refused the breath she craved.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t breathe.

She tried to pull in air, but it felt like drowning dry. Her lungs burned. Her ribs screamed.

The harp string inside her, that strange, delicate line she’d danced on all night had snapped.

He had let her believe. He had let her hope. He promised her she would not shed a tear in his name anymore.

Then what did he call this?

Where was he? Had they fled upstairs, to private chambers? To their quarters? Would he humiliate her like that?

Why did the bond fail her now? Could he feel her pain? Or worse still, did he feel and choose indifference?

She fought tears, fought the breaking.

She tried to breathe again. Looking at her garden. The one Morpheus gave her a gift, so she “would not miss home”, the one she poured her entire heart, waiting for him to come, to see her love, to see her. But the only ones who ever visited were troubled nightmares, who wished for something they could touch and not destroy. She had welcomed them, tend their hidden wounds, fixing what was not supposed to be fixed. Given love to those who should not receive it.

And It was beautiful. Her garden was beautiful.

But not anymore. And even if spring bloomed everywhere else, it didn’t here.

Spring wakes dormant things, not dead ones.

Wilted stems stood like gravestones, petals ash-gray and brittle, branches barren and shorn.

She danced. She smiled. Laughed even, for others, for joy, for rebirth, for the endless turning of the seasons.

Her fingers digging into the earth beside her. “Why,” she whispered. “Why did you let it die?”

The trees were grey skeletons. The vines hung dry, strangled. Nothing had grown. Nothing had been touched.

Her garden had died unloved.

As would she.

“Eoster”

Morpheus. She didn’t look up. His footsteps were slow, deliberate, drawing closer until she could hear the whisper of his coat against the dead vines. If she looked at him now, he would see her face, still marked, even if dry, by tears. He would know she had been crying. He always knew. But he had never cared.

Would he care now?

“Please, Dream, just…” Her fingers raked through her hair as she lifted her head. “Just go back inside. Leave me.”

“Spring thrives,” he said quietly. “Why are you hiding here?”

Her breath caught, sharp, furious. “Why were you talking to her? You said…” She broke off, gave a brittle laugh. “Is this a power play? Fine. You win. I give up. You can have it, all of it. I don’t want to play anymore.”

“No, you-“

“What?” she cut in, voice trembling “Weak? Ornamental? Sentimental? Aloof? Tell me, what incredible, uninspired venom did Thessaly feed you this time?”

“Eoster stop-”

“No! You, you-”

“I love you”

The words struck her like a knife, deep in her chest, resonating until her breath caught in her throat. For a moment she only stared at him, disbelieving or believing she couldn’t tell anymore, before finding her voice, small and shaking. “No you don’t, no you don’t”

“I do” he said, taking a single step closer, his voice deep and fervent. The dead vines swayed faintly in the cold breeze “I came to tell you this. Thessaly wants what she can’t have, what she has always known was yours. My lady. My soul. My Love”

Her heart stuttered at the last word. He reached for her then, his fingers brushing hers, lingering, not pulling, waiting for her to accept the contact.

She didn’t. But she didn’t pull away either.

His thumb traced the side of her hand, warm, deliberate. “Eoster,” he said softly, “Look at me.”

Against her will, her eyes lifted to his.

“You are being cruel” Her jaw trembled. She meant to pull his hand away, but her fingers didn’t move.

Something in them held her there, caught between defiance and surrender.

“Cruel,” he murmured, “was every day I let you doubt. Cruel was every moment I stayed silent when I should have told you-” He bent slightly, his hands now cupping hers completely. He was warm, almost too warm, his thumb sweeping across her skin with a lover’s certainty.

Her throat tightened. The bond flared, restless, like a tether straining. Like it wanted to pull her away from him. Why? Wasn’t it itself that was pushing them together, infiltrating their minds and imaginations? Maybe it was herself, her own mistrust, weariness, not a warning.

“You are not weak,” he murmured. “You are the breath in my lungs, the heartbeat in my endless night. You are the only dream I have ever wanted to keep.”

Her lips parted, her breath unsteady “Dream” but in that same moment, his arm slipped around her waist, steady and certain. In one smooth motion, he drew her up from the ground.

Her balance shifted, her hands instinctively finding his chest. And before she could question, before she could breathe, his mouth was on hers.

It was deep, deliberate, a kiss that stole the air from her lungs.

When he drew back, his forehead rested against hers. His breath was warm, his grip unyielding.

“You are beauty,” he whispered, “and ferocity, and every thought that has ever undone me.”

She tried to speak, to remember the reasons she had been angry, but his lips found hers again, firmer this time. His other hand slid to the small of her back, anchoring her to him.

“You deserve worship,” he murmured against her mouth, “and I am yours to worship you.”

Her head felt light, the air thin around them. “Why-” she began, but his lips brushed along her jaw, then down to her throat. His hands were already at her corset laces, fingers sure and unhurried.

“No more doubt,” he said, his voice a low hum against her skin.

Every time she pulled back to think, to argue, another kiss came coaxing, claiming, filling her with every word she had ever wanted to hear.

Her back pressed to the pillar now, the cold stone at odds with the heat coiling in her body. His hands moved with a deliberate urgency, not reverent, not the way she had imagined him, but insistent, each kiss another tether pulling her into the moment.

“You are everything,” he whispered, his lips ghosting the shell of her ear. “Every star, every blossom, every sigh that keeps the universe turning.”

Her breath trembled. “Dream-”

“You are not a wife to be left wanting. You are my queen. And every part of you-” his mouth was at her throat now, the brush of teeth making her knees weaken and a soft moan escaping her lips, she could feel him smiling against her skin “is mine to cherish.”

She felt her head grow light, as if the air had thinned, her thoughts smudged at the edges. His kisses found the corner of her mouth again, silencing what would have been a protest.

“Say you believe me,” he coaxed between kisses, his voice molten silk.

She opened her lips, to speak, to ask, she wasn’t sure, but his mouth claimed hers again, faster this time, like he was tasting victory.

His fingers tightened at her waist, the other hand working deftly at the corset laces, loosening them one by one.

“I…” The word was lost in another kiss.

“Say you want me,” he murmured, the syllables low, dangerous, and sweet all at once.

Her eyes fluttered shut. “I…”

And then-

Her lips still tingled when she heard it.

“Eoster.”

The same voice.

The same cadence.

But this time… it came from ahead of her.

Morpheus.

The weather in the Dreaming was curiously pleasant. Some might even say it was the finest it had been in ages. To call it a sunny day would be an exaggeration, for no golden rays pierced the skies, and the sun itself remained hidden. Yet the absence of dark, brooding clouds, replaced by a pale blue firmament adorned with clouds like spun sugar, marked a change distinct enough to be noted. Her sisters had arrived the previous evening, as tradition dictated. It was their custom to gather on the eve before the turning of the seasons. Togetherness, this year, meant merely proximity, for Love had taken great pains to avoid the company of Pride, Honesty, and Melancholy. Happiness, as usual, had not yet arrived. Honesty had more than once dubbed her "attention harlot," for Happiness had a tendency to steal the spotlight from whichever sister was being honoured. At a winter gathering, she once appeared mere moments before Pride passed the Seasons Sceptre to Melancholy, an event meant to be the pinnacle of the evening. But with radiant Happiness in the room, who paid heed to the sombre, meek Melancholy? That year, Mel’s wrath unleashed one of the harshest winters known to humankind, its bite lingering well into summer.

Eoster had evaded them all, citing overwhelming demands upon her time and promising instead to join them for breakfast the next morning. And what a morning it was—gentle, fragrant, and graced with the hush of a new beginning. Thank the stars her sisters were not early risers, for as soon as dawn’s light touched her chamber, she donned a bonnet borrowed from one of her dream-servants and wandered through the palace corridors toward the only room—and the only company—she truly desired.

Or rather, company of the plural sort.

She slipped through the door with practised silence, entering a chamber large enough to cradle eight sleeping children. Its ceiling was a canopy of stars that shimmered like ancient constellations. She was surprised by the thoughtful arrangement of the room. More care had been given than she would have believed of her husband, who, to her knowledge, had never met the eight little dreamers slumbering peacefully in their cozy beds. Her heart swelled as she gazed upon them. She had no desire to face her sisters, their prying questions and constant assessments of her marriage, but these—these dear little souls—she yearned for.

She hated that she did not see them more often. The fault was partly her own. Her tangled emotions, her yearning for a family she would never have, too often turned inward—into sadness, indifference, even anger. She feared letting the children witness such turmoil. And yet, by all the stars, how deeply she loved them.

The Queen shook herself free of such thoughts and crossed to the windows, flinging open the curtains and letting soft light bathe the room. The children stirred, groaning and covering their eyes. “I cannot believe you would rather waste such a fine day in bed than accompany me on an adventure!” she declared, her voice alight with youthful mirth, as musical and bright as any storybook nanny.

As deer prick their ears at the sound of rustling leaves, the children responded instantly. Some sat up, two tumbled out of bed, and the rest tangled themselves in blankets in their haste to reach her. Through the double doors echoed a chorus of delighted cries: "Aunt Love!"

“Alright, alright. I missed you too,” she said, laughing as she patted their backs, her arms not nearly large enough to encircle them all.

“A lot, then?” asked Alith, a dark-haired girl with silver eyes, one of Honesty’s brood, pushing her older brother Valkar aside with admirable determination.

“Yes, my love. A great deal,” Love replied, kissing her niece’s brow.

“Like Lady Mother misses Lord Father whenever they dance?” inquired Talon, son of Happiness, sent to the Dreaming with his cousins. He and his twin sisters, Elira and Solin, all bore that Mona Lisa expression that made Love uncertain whether their questions were innocent or sly. At merely six centuries old, they were wise beyond appearances. The “dance” he referred to was the so-called "eternal summer dance" — a euphemism for the violent quarrels Happiness and her husband, Lugh, engaged in each summer. Love had long pitied the triplets, who endured that endless cycle without comprehending it.

“Much more,” she said, lifting Talon into her arms and twirling with him until she fell with theatrical flourish onto the nearest bed, making him shriek with laughter. “Now, we can lie here and calculate precisely how much I missed you, or we can have an adventure in the Dreaming!”

“Are there nightmares here, Aunty?” asked Bellator, Pride’s son and a future war entity, whose greatest joys were swordplay and tales of ancient battles. He idolised his father, Ares, and even more so Wotan.

“Why? Are you afraid of them, Bellator?” she asked gently. He blushed. Of course he was, though he would never admit it. Nightmares to children were monsters, not the burdened beings they truly were.

“N-no! But Vanira is!”

“I am not!” his younger sister protested, shoving him. Fierce, though less battle-hardened, Vanira would not tolerate being cast as the frightened one.

“Yes you are! I’ll bring my sword to protect you!” he retorted.

“Am not!” she shrieked, lunging. Love intercepted her mid-leap.

“As long as you are with me, there is no danger, dears. Now, may I finally tell you our plan before your mothers come and kidnap me for a most dreadful breakfast?”

“Mum won’t wake until afternoon,” Lethe sighed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The child of Melancholy, her gaze always held sorrow, her shoulders bore its weight.

“Then we have time to visit Goldie. My dear friend.”

Heads tilted in curiosity.

“You know, my old friend Goldie the gargoyle.”

Even Lethe’s eyes lit up. If there was value in that ridiculous parade of introductions Morpheus had once conducted through the Dreaming, it was knowing its subjects. Love knew a creature as charming as Goldie would enchant the children and grant her a way to avoid her sisters a little longer.

__________________________

The Dreaming unfolded before them like an impossible tapestry — forests that breathed in rhythms older than time, rivers that hummed forgotten lullabies, and skies that shifted hues with every blink, as if responding to the heartbeat of the dreamers who walked beneath them. Along the winding path toward the Houses — the ivy-cloaked House of Secrets, crooked and whispering, and beyond it, the solemn, time-worn House of Mystery — the children of the divine were ushered gently forward. It was there that Cain and Abel received them.

Well, not exactly, because to receive one must be waiting.

More like invaded.

Could they blame the Queen? Cain sure felt like it, but as Abel told him before she could get any closer, Love did not know many places at the Dreaming. Lord Morpheus took her on a parade and he showed her their houses.

Cain, tall and sharp-eyed beneath his wide-brimmed hat, stood with arms crossed, lips curled in theatrical suspicion. Abel hovered behind him, wringing his hands, a nervous smile flickering under his mustache like candlelight in the wind.

Cain scowled under the brim of his battered hat, his arms crossed like closed gates. “What is this,” he muttered to no one in particular, “a divine field trip?”

“H-hello,” Abel, ever stammering, offered a nervous wave. “W-we weren’t told—um—exactly that anyone was—visiting today, but it’s—it’s lovely to see you! Isn’t it lovely, Cain?”

Cain grunted. “Lovely is not the word I’d use for a swarm of divine brats threatening to trample my roses.”

“They’re not trampling, they’re just—uh—exploring,” Abel offered, glancing nervously at the children.

“I saw one licking a sundial,” Cain growled. “And the twins are using my prized irises as catapults.”

Abel blinked rapidly. “Oh, n-no, that’s—that’s probably just creative play—” Just then, Solin shrieked with delight and launched herself at the House of Mystery’s doorknob, trying to hang from it like a tree branch. Cain flinched.

“That's it. I'm retiring. I'll go live in a dream of mildew and silence.”

But even Cain's usual snarl softened when Love approached. Hair half-loosened by children’s hands, her cotton gown brushed with grass, the timid sunlight caught in the folds like memory. The air itself seemed to hush at her arrival.

Cain tipped his hat with a reluctant grace. “Queen Eoster.”

“Cain,” she returned, warm but distant.

“Your—um—Majesty,” Abel added, nearly tripping over his own feet in a frantic bow. “A-a pleasure, an honor, and also a bit of a surprise—though not, not unwelcome, of course!” Love raised a brow, smiling slightly. “ I apologize for the sudden intrusion. These are my sisters’ children. Someone told them about Goldie and they desperately wanted to meet her. Would you find in your good hearts enough patience and decorum to make the introductions?” Even Cain could not say no to her request. Morpheus demanded, he ordered as their sovereign, Eoster charmed them, making it impossible to deny any request she made.

Cain would deny ever falling for her ‘spring tricks’ as he would secretly call her looks and sweet voice, but he only fooled himself. Anyone who did not deal with Love daily, got mesmerized by her. Abel gave a solemn nod, which earned him a broader smile from the queen. “Thank you, Abel. You’ve always had the kindest heart in this realm.” Cain rolled his eyes with theatrical exasperation, but Abel made no attempt to disguise the way he lingered—caught, perhaps, a moment too long in the glow of her gaze. He nodded again, slower this time, entirely entranced.

Cain delivered a sharp jab to his brother’s ribs.

Dream and the queen were not known for the blissful harmony of their union. But. Lord Morpheus was fiercely possessive of anything he deemed his own, so Cain knew that if he even considered that Abel was gazing so longingly at his wife, he might find himself dispatched—swiftly and unceremoniously—into the darkness. Love, for her part, merely chuckled. She was quite accustomed to such reactions.

Turning a vivid shade of pink, Abel abruptly thrust the gargoyle into the air like a talisman of self-preservation. “G-Goldie!” he stammered, voice cracking slightly. “W-would you like to meet Goldie?” The children turned their heads in perfect unison—like chicks glimpsing corn for the very first time—before stampeding toward him with divine enthusiasm.

Abel knelt with reverence, cradling the small stone gargoyle in his arms as though presenting a sacred relic. Goldie blinked once, languidly, his wings curled inward like a sleeping bat. A collective gasp of awe escaped the children. For a moment—just a breath—the world stood still in perfect reverence.

It lasted, of course, precisely three seconds.

Then came the inevitable storm.

“Do gargoyles dream?” “What’s the difference between a secret and a mystery?” “Can nightmares be nice if they’re yours?” “Can Goldie eat nightmares?” “Can Goldie eat you?” “Do nightmares taste like pepper?” “Are you a nightmare or a dream?” “Are you a nightmare because you are bald?”

Abel’s smile became a grimace of earnest panic as he tried to answer all of them at once — stammering explanations, making vague gestures, and nervously glancing at Cain for help that would not come.

Cain looked appalled in the singular manner only an ancient murderer could manage.

“Why,” he asked, deadpan, “are they asking so many questions? Is this the Inquisition?”

“No,” Love replied with a lightness born of divine patience. “It is curiosity—unfiltered, untamed, and—”

“Sticky,” Cain finished grimly, “like the footprints on my ceiling.”

“I do apologize, my dear Cain,” Love said, her voice a gentle murmur as she turned toward him with regal grace. “My nieces and nephews can be rather—”

“Pampered pests?” he interrupted, one brow arched with dry derision.

To that, Love responded with a smile—not a bright, beaming grin, but something measured, opaque, designed to suggest that she neither agreed nor disagreed.

“Spirited little wonders,” she corrected, voice still warm. Where Cain saw unruliness, unpredictability, and a complete disregard for order, Love perceived a sacred spark. That wildness—so often misnamed disobedience—was, to her, vitality itself. Promise. Emotional honesty in its purest form. She had once known such a spark herself, before her role demanded it be quieted. She saw their chaos not as an affront, but as a kind of necessary, divine disorder—a garden left wild to grow what it would.

Cain, with a huff and inward sneer, thought darkly: Ah. So that’s what they’re calling it now. A polished name for gremlins with crowns.

“If they break anything,” Love added, her voice as honey poured over wine, her hand reaching gently for his as though it were the most natural thing in the world, “do let me know. I shall see to it myself.”

Even Cain—who distrusted monarchs as a matter of philosophy—found himself offering the faintest of nods, grumbling something incoherent about compensation in blood and sanity. It was, of course, meant as dramatic embellishment, though in truth, only partly so.

He didn’t look her in the eye. He never did, not for long. Not because he feared her, exactly, but because something happened when he did. She had that same crownless weight that her husband wore — that gravity of old laws and older roles — but she wore it like silk instead of stone.

Looking at her too long made Cain uneasy. Made him feel like maybe the children weren’t demons in disguise. Like maybe he was a bitter old caretaker who had simply forgotten how to laugh. Looking at her too long made him question the narrative — and Cain had only ever felt safe when he controlled the story.

“One of them,” he said instead, voice dry as the Deadlands, “I’m not naming names, but it rhymed with Vanira — threatened to lick my sundial.”

She smiled.

Not a smirk. Not a courtly grin. Not even a polite upward twitch. Just a slow, genuine thing — like spring thaw on a grave. She didn’t take offense. She took it as truth, offered in the only way Cain knew how to give it.

It was enough for her.

She gave him a farewell glance — all rose-gold and soft firelight — then turned back to the chaos of the garden, skirts trailing moss and the scent of honeysuckle. Cain watched her walk away, and for a moment he felt something like vertigo. Like the whole world tilted around her steps.

Cain had seen kings and gods and nightmares rise and fall. He had seen galaxies burn out like candle wicks. But he had never seen anything quite like her.

She moved through the children like a song remembered. Her presence calmed the riot — not through commands, but through grace. They gathered around Goldie now, chattering, climbing, touching feathers with reverence. And in the center of them, Love knelt to cradle the smallest one.

Lethe.

The quiet one. The watcher. The child with eyes like fogged glass and a silence that made even Cain uneasy. But now she folded into Love’s arms like a shadow drawn to a flame.

And Love? She held her without hesitation. Without fanfare. As though the girl had always belonged there.

Cain swallowed thickly. It wasn’t natural.

Morpheus never did that. Morpheus loved through architecture and silence, through stories told in sand and sorrow. His affections were distant stars — beautiful, cold, precise. But her? She was the sun at dawn, and the children bloomed around her like stubborn weeds.

She didn’t ask for loyalty. She received it.

Cain looked away.

There was something unsettling about that kind of power — soft and boundless. He didn’t like the way it twisted the narrative. It made him doubt the ending. And Cain, above all else, hated stories that refused to end the way they should.

And then — as always with her sisters’ offspring — chaos bloomed like weeds after rain.

Soon, Bellator had conscripted Abel into a dramatic reenactment of The Siege of the Screaming Bridge, complete with phantom blood, exploding ghosts, and impromptu stage directions shouted by Valkar.

Meanwhile, Cain had been strong-armed into playing “Two Truths and a Lie” with Happiness’ triplets, cornered near the garden wall like a reluctant suspect. Alith, her curls bouncing, insisted she could unmask any deception with a single question. Cain snorted. “Good luck, girl. I’ve been lying longer than your mother’s been dancing.” Vanira and Talon solemnly sealed a bet over the outcome — fifty years of servitude, paid in song or silence.

Elsewhere, Solin and Elira whispered conspiratorially, discussing the ancient rumor that Cain always killed Abel over petty grievances. They wondered if he’d try the same with one of the cousins—since, admittedly, they were spoiled, annoying brats—and most importantly, what Aunt Eoster would do if he dared.

After all, no one had ever seen Aunt Love truly angry. And wasn’t that a story worth witnessing? Would she have any power over him? Would she tell their uncle? And what would their mysterious, cruel, cold, never-before-seen uncle do? And most important: Could they watch?

But not all the children plunged headfirst into mischief.

While the rest of the cousins dashed through the gardens with the recklessness only children possess, Lethe lingered behind. She was not like the others—soft-spoken, inward, always watching, rarely joining.

The others burst into the world like firecrackers.

Lethe was mist — silent, ungraspable.

And only Aunt Eoster seemed to notice.

Of all the divine sisters, it was Eoster — not Pride, nor Happiness, nor even Melancholy herself — who knelt to tie a child's ribbon, who laughed at their riddles, who wiped their tears with the same tenderness that once birthed spring into the world. Sometimes, Love even preferred their company to that of her own siblings.

Lethe once overheard her mother murmur to Aunt Happiness, "Darling, It’s because she’s no mother herself." But Lethe wasn’t so sure. Eoster, to her, felt like the heart of motherhood—radiant and aching. Valkar once told her it was jealousy she heard in their aunts’ voices—even in Honesty’s. Lethe didn’t quite understand why. Valkar didn’t either. He could only sense it.

Now stroking the little gargoyle’s snout with reverence, his leathery wings curled in like a sleeping bat, his blinking eyes half-closed in pleasure. Her fingers moved with sacred care, as though Goldie might stir and sigh if only touched gently enough.

“Will there be spring this year?” she asked, voice nearly inaudible. A breath more than a question.

Eoster froze — her fingers halting mid-stroke in Lethe’s curls.

“Of course, my heart,” she said softly. “Why would there not be?”

Lethe didn’t answer. She whispered into Goldie’s ear, as though confiding in something older than stone.

“You feel like Mama… before the grey years.”

The words were quiet—but they landed like thunder.

She feels it.

The grey years. Melancholy’s reckoning. The age when the world was wrapped in silence, rivers forgotten, skies brittle with sorrow. Even the pulse of the land grew dull, the seasons slipping their rhythm.

Lethe remembered. A child too young to name grief, yet old enough to drink its bitter draught. Born in the stillness between thunderclaps, raised on lullabies that never lifted above whispers.

Viddar, Lethe’s father, stood unwavering beside her—dusk made flesh, a shadow born of twilight’s grief. He loved Melancholy not despite her sorrow, but through it—mesmerized, as a sculptor who bows before his masterpiece wrought from ruin and mourning. Together, they moved through their kingdom without warmth or laughter—only the sacred and terrible art of despair.

But Lethe was still a child.

She longed not for myth or shadow, but for her parents.

“Maybe a cold spring,” Lethe breathed, fingers brushing Goldie’s weathered ridge. “Would you like that, Goldie?”

Her niece’s word digging deep beneath her skin, stirring her pulse.

She feels it.

Lethe bore more than softness. She saw with her skin, felt with her breath—the frost gathering before the grass shivered.

A cold spring.

Would such a thing come to pass?

“Aunt Love,” she asked with devastating innocence, “Would different flowers bloom if the spring were cold?”

The question struck earth like a spade turning soil.

Cold ground yields no blossom. Seeds sleep beneath its frostbound shroud. Love knew this truth well. No matter how gently she sowed, no matter how fiercely she warmed the earth—nothing could rise from barren stone.

A cold spring meant no spring, the seasons would collapse, the mortal realm would be put in danger.

No.

Mortals must have spring.

Fertility. Renewal. The turning of the ancient wheel.

Even if she could not feel the earth calling for her. Even if the Garden ached, and her own heart faltered, the earth must awaken.

Duty was the reason she kept being faithful to her broken marriage, the reason she came back when he asked. Everything was her duty.

Eoster drew Lethe close, her lips brushed the child’s brow in solemn vow.

“No matter what shadows linger in my heart, little one,” she murmured, “spring will come—warm, fertile, and true.”

Lethe looked up, eyes deep as still pools, heavy with knowledge no child should bear.

“That’s good,” she said, voice soft as a prayer. “Because I heard the earth whisper it’s waiting.”

_____________

By then, both Cain and Abel had surrendered — not with dignity, nor in any gentlemanly terms of parley, but with the panting breath of men besieged by a force of nature in silk ribbons and opinions. Cain had made a valiant stand. He had raised his voice (twice), bared his teeth (once), and at some point brandished a rake with all the pomp of a ceremonial halberd. Yet children — especially the overindulged sort born of immortals — do not fear monsters they consider decorative. And to them, Cain was simply an eccentric antique from a nursery tale, dusted off and brought into the sun. Little Alith, curls bouncing with the entitlement of a minor empress, had fixed him with the imperious stare of the terminally unamused. “You do own a skull made of glass,” she had declared, “and you did steal a kiss from a banshee. So that means—”

Cain had thrown up his arms in despair. “Fine! Yes! I was married to a troll. It’s all true. I regret nothing except my willingness to participate in this conversation.”

That was when he knew he had lost the war.

Abel, poor soul, had fared no better. He had been conscripted into a reenactment of the Siege of the Screaming Bridge — a historical travesty if ever there was one, written and directed by Bellator himself, who claimed strict accuracy despite ghost-skeletons, jellybean bombardments, and a goat in epaulettes serving as Supreme Commander.

At one point, Abel found himself crowned with dandelions and declared “Queen of the Fallen River.” His confusion was audible.

“Do I… do I have to be?”

“Yes,” intoned Valkar gravely, “Until the moon cries” He took a second to think, and childish shrugged it off “Or snack time. Whichever is first.”

From the corner of her eye, Love perceived the signs of fatigue — the twitch at the corner of Cain’s mouth as he feigned civility, the shrill edge to Abel’s laughter, half a beat too late and half a tone too high. They were fraying, unraveling before the altar of indulgent youth.

But Eoster did not need to raise her voice. She did not chastise. No thundercloud darkened her brow.

She merely stepped forward “My little lords and ladies I would take my tongue out if I have ever encountered a group as,” she said, her voice a warm gleam upon the garden stones, “Valiant as you and…” Her eyes flicked gently to Bellator and Valkar. “As sharp of mind and tongue as you” she added, with a wink to Alith. “And of course, never met any group of such kind hearts, that I believe I do not even need to request, would kindly let both Cain and Abel rest, after such an enthusiastic visit.”

The children blinked. And then turned. As if her voice had magnetized the air.

“But we were about to—” Valkar began.

“Let me guess,” said Love with a smile that suggested omniscience and a touch of mischief. “A third attempt at the Siege of the Screaming Bridge?”

Bellator squinted up at her. “How did you know?”

She touched a finger to her lips in mock secrecy. “Because I know you, dearest.”

She paused — dramatically, deliberately — then sighed, a picture of feminine regret. “Of course, if you prefer playing at battles you’ve already won, you may stay here and rehearse what you know. But… I had thought you were brave enough to undertake a proper quest.”

Their ears pricked up.

“Only the truest of knights,” she said in a whisper full of promise, “Have ever dared the Maze of the Garden and retrieved the hidden treasure kept by Cain in its center. Some returned. Not all.”

Vanira gasped. So did the others.

Then — a shriek. “EVERYONE FOLLOW ME!” Vanira shoved Bellator aside and took off like a comet, the rest thundering after her in a flurry of satin and shrieking valor.

Somewhere beyond the hedgerows, a flowerpot shattered with a dramatic crash. Cain did not turn. He merely blinked slowly, like a man awakening from a fever dream.

She had untangled the storm with half a dozen words and not a drop of sweat.

Love approached them now with Lethe nestled upon her hip “They will not trouble you again,” Love said simply, her voice still laced with mirth. Then she dropped into a graceful courtesy. “You have my eternal gratefulness.”

Cain’s mouth opened. Closed. Then, in a low mutter: “That was deeply unnatural.”

“Merciful,” Abel breathed, crumpling into a heap. “She’s like… like spring with hands. And an agenda.”

Love laughed — the sound chiming like glass in sunlight — and glided past them. Her hair caught the wind like a banner. Lethe blinked sleepily at the brothers, then buried her face in Love’s collarbone.

Cain watched her go the curve of her shoulders, the ease with which she carried Lethe, the way her presence transformed chaos into choreography, and how just as calmed the storm, she returned humming an old spring melody.

“She’s not like him.” Cain finally said.

Abel tilted his head. “You mean Lord Dream?”

Cain nodded. “Morpheus commands with silence. Fear. Presence. You obey him, even when you don’t want to. But her? She makes you want to follow.”

As the children scattered into the winding garden maze behind the manor, their laughter echoing like windchimes through the hedgerows, soft moss and violet petals cushioned their quick and heedless steps. Love tried, with no success, to forget that her sisters were almost certainly hunting her down as one might a wayward lamb.

No doubt they had already cornered poor Lucienne and Elijah, pressing them for her whereabouts with the veiled ferocity only sisters and sovereigns could manage. And no doubt they were simultaneously inspecting every corner of the Dreaming, fingers twitching for some small imperfection to criticize.

It did not matter that this was the very realm from which their own dreams arose, that it was shaped, nurtured, and guarded by her husband.

Or perhaps it mattered precisely because of that.

Of course they would hate it. That was the nature of sisters and old grudges, particularly when thrones and pride were involved.

But her brief illusion of peace shattered not with footfall or trumpet, but with Alith’s unmistakable, high-pitched declaration ringing through the hedges “It is a dance!”

Vanira shouted from behind the hedge, exasperated. “There’s music and twirling and dresses! That’s the definition!”

And that was enough for both brothers to hide in their houses. Love could not blame them.

Elira and Solin responded with an unison groan. “It’s not a dance if half of you are throwing acorns at each other.”

“And it’s not a dance if you keep complaining” Valkar chimed in, arms flung wide. “Dances are supposed to be fun!”

“You don’t even know how to waltz!” accused Bellator, pointing at Talon, who was awkwardly attempting a waltz step and looking like he might trip over his own lineage.

“I do know how!” Talon snapped, red in the ears. “It’s just—these boots are cursed.”

“Cursed with clumsiness,” Solin muttered, earning a shriek of laughter from Elira.

The commotion had reached an operatic pitch — dandelion crowns flung like gauntlets, accusations of cursed boots and rigged duels echoing behind the hedges. Eoster watched from the edge of the garden with a bemused expression, one hand gently smoothed Lethe’s silken hair while the other stayed loose and open, catching the breeze like it might hold music.

Lethe murmured softly into her aunt’s warm breast, “They are trying, you know—to dance as grown folks do at parties.”

Eoster smiled down, a faint crease touching the corners of her lips. “And do you think they succeed?”

Lethe tilted her head with the curious innocence of youth. “Only in covering themselves with mud. Are you going to put a stop to this, Aunt?”

Love regarded her niece with a brow slightly knit. “Surely, no one has thought to teach them to dance at this tender age?” It seemed strange, indeed, considering how she and her sisters had been initiated into the art of the ball as soon as their feet could carry them.

Lethe shrugged with a quiet admission. “The nannies despaired of the attempt. And the dance instructors—well, they would sooner meet an untimely end than face this crowd. And my uncles did threaten them. It is a most hopeless endeavour.”

She spoke with the modest reserve of one who had herself been taught young, yet had never quite embraced the ritual. No one of her gentle stature usually danced. Moreover, her parents, she reflected, were seldom inclined to do so themselves.

“They are merely spirited children,” Love replied softly, “not creatures beyond hope.”

“Only with you, Aunt.”

With that, Love rose—graceful and unhesitating—and stepped into the tumultuous circle her nephews had wrought.

She clapped her hands once; the clear note rang out like the herald of spring’s first morning.

“Attention, my dears,” Love called out with the regal mischief of a sovereign who had long ago mastered the art of gentle command. Her voice rang out over the din like a silver bell at court. “I can no longer bear witness to this slaughter of the precious art of dancing.”

All movement ceased.

She stood at the center of the garden like the eye of a storm—grace in full bloom, skirts catching the breeze, hands folded as if cradling laughter. Her gaze swept over them with playful severity.

“I shall teach you,” she declared. “And I will not—will not—tolerate partners being twirled headlong into hedges, nor acorns being lobbed as though they were battlefield missiles.”

A guilty cough escaped from Talon. It was swiftly followed by Elira’s elbow jabbing him with sibling efficiency.

Love’s smile curved into something warmer, almost wistful. “I can assure you, your parents once spent many evenings—often at the expense of their dignity and shoes—engaged in precisely this sort of amusement.” Some look surprised that their parents would actually engage in dancing.

If only they would know what men do to catch the way of women.

“It is, after all, how a princess shows her grace,” Love continued, eyes twinkling, “And how she may observe equally graceful princes.”

What she did not mention—though her tone held the faintest flicker of memory—was how such dances led to couples slipping off into hidden alcoves, or vanishing entirely into garden mazes. But that was knowledge her nephews and nieces would acquire in time. Hopefully not too soon.

“Sometimes,” she added with a perfectly timed pause, “Matches are made.”

Rather than sighs of romantic delight, she was met with synchronized groans and noises of pointed disgust.

Ah, children.

“But only when you are much older,” she conceded, fighting a smile. “Until then, if you do especially well…” she lowered her voice as if sharing the most coveted secret in the realm, “they award you cake and lemonade.”

She delivered it with the tone of one offering a consolation prize.

The children, of course, did not know it was a consolation prize. Probably because Love had invented the entire idea—complete with ritual and ceremony—just to keep them interested.

To them, cake and lemonade were the crown jewels.

“Now! Two lines, if you please,” she instructed, “Princesses on one side, Princes on the other. I would hate to assign partners as if this were a lesson in old-fashioned matchmaking.”

A cheerful scramble ensued. Valkar and Solin nudged each other in mock opposition, Vanira helped Talon discern left from right, and Bellator tried and failed to change sides thrice before being intercepted.

“May I have this dance?” Love inquired, extending a hand and fluttering her lashes with an exaggerated coquettishness.

Before Bellator could comprehend the invitation, Talon pushed him out of the way, but Solin put his foot in front of his younger brother, and, ever the peacock just like his mother, swept an exaggerated bow before Love, one hand tucked behind his back, the other extended with all the pomp of a courtier triple his age.

“My Lady Queen,” he proclaimed with theatrical flourish, “May I claim the honour of your first dance?”

Love laughed, the sound like bells on a spring breeze, and took his hand. “You shall, my dear prince.” She gave a delicate curtsey and called out the steps, her voice a clarion call to joy. “Face your partner. Hold your heads high, no barn owls among you, but royalty at the grandest ball of the season. Yes, even you, Alith.”

Alith’s eyes rolled in mild rebellion.

“Now, bow,” Love instructed, dipping into a gracious curtsy. The children tried, some with dignity, others more like wobbly storks. But Love made no correction, only laughter, and that was enough to bind them together.

They began to move, hesitant at first, then with growing confidence. Love’s skirts billowed as she floated across the clearing, guiding—not commanding—the steps, weaving their disorder into a fledgling harmony.

“Observe me,” she said, taking Solin’s hand. “Step forward—one, two—and then back. To the side, and switch. Like so. The secret is to feel the music, even when it dwells only in your hearts.”

The Dreaming itself seemed to respond; the trees bent with the rhythm, the breeze caught an unspoken tempo, and the dappling sunlight across moss and stone marked time with quiet precision. She spun lightly, her feet barely touching the earth. The children followed, clumsy and imperfect, but eager and bright.

Partners exchanged; Love passed Solin to Elira, calling to Vanira as she spun her beneath an arm and caught her again, “Remember, it is not the precision that matters, but the presence you bring.”

Talon hesitated, cheeks flushed with uncertainty, until Vanira grasped his hand firmly and gave him a look that brooked no refusal.

Though far from perfect, the scene was enchantment made flesh—children whirlwinds of laughter and effort, trying, stumbling, rising anew. Love was the quiet axis around which their world turned, her laughter the subtle force binding them.

Then, suddenly—a faint crack. Her heel betrayed her.

She should have known better; with such wild company, one never knew if the dance might become battle or chase. The sound was soft, but her balance faltered. She caught herself, now barefoot on one foot.

The children halted, breaths held.

A broken heel might have ended the revelry for any of her sisters.

But Love waved a hand, light as spring air. “The first rule of any ball, my dears,” she said, lifting the ruined shoe for all to see, “is to choose good shoes.”

It was a shoe of lilac satin, delicate as a petal, embroidered with hearts and trimmed in lace, a small silk rose perched on its toe. The very pair she had worn on the night she and Morpheus first appeared as husband and wife—perfect shoes for a perfect dance, and yet never danced, not until today. And it broke. Guess it was not the perfection she had hoped.

She tossed the broken slipper aside, then shed the other, the movement freeing her utterly. The children exhaled—some in delight, others in wonder. Solin offered another bow, his relief plain. Love curtseyed barefoot in return, looking every bit the woodland spirit rather than the queen of love.

A strange pang struck her—a yearning for a freedom lost, for years slipped away like shadows at dusk. This was no fault of Dream’s, she knew. Long before him, she had yielded her wildness—bit by bit—to the demands of mortals, to their need for rules and order.

Love had once been simple and raw, a force as impulsive and untamed as spring itself. But mortals complicated their affections, weaving them into codes and customs. So Love evolved, mastering protocol and etiquette, becoming a keeper of ceremonies and expectations. Only now, with bare feet upon moss, did she realize how dearly she missed the unbound wildness of her youth—when she could be all that she was meant to be, unshackled by the endless rules.

Perhaps it was the mortal fate, she thought, to surrender the lightness of youth to the weight of responsibility.

“Shall we continue?” she asked, and the children nodded eagerly.

The music resumed—if one could call the chaotic clapping and humming that—but one by one, the children surrendered themselves to the spirit of the dance. Even Talon dared a twirl that was more than mere stumble. Lethe smiled, clapping her hands.

Eoster let the dance dissolve, watching the children scatter back to their small worlds. She stood at the clearing’s center, skin warm with laughter’s glow, tendrils of hair clinging to damp temples. Her white underdress, loosened and flung carelessly in play, revealed glimpses of a gold-stitched corset beneath—delicate, intricate, and somehow a symbol of all that held her together. It was then she felt it.

Not in sight, nor in sound, but in the quiet stir that filled the space between heartbeats—a presence that made the air itself pulse with meaning.

She did not look.

But she knew.

A silence—not from the children, but from the world itself, a deep sensation like a bell in form of a bond. Their bond.

He stood between the trees — not walking, not arriving, but simply there. Morpheus, cloaked in dusk and memory. Watching her, the children, the circle of joy she'd conjured with nothing but will and affection.

His eyes moved to her bare feet. Her flushed face. Her undone laces. Her joy. He never saw her like this. Was she this free at the Garden? And why did she looked more beautiful than ever? He had seen her wearing pieces made with the sole purpose of entice a man, wrapped for his pleasure, black and lace, silk, see through, also seen her dressed like a queen in thick chiffon, velvet, silk gowns heavily embroidered in pastel colors, but he never saw her this…free and unpolished. The thought made him glance away back to the safe innocence of children.

One by one, the children slowed down until they fell silent. They stopped their game mid-laugh, staring. Lethe tugged at Eoster’s skirt, asking quietly to be held. Their mothers didn’t talk a lot about their uncle but when they did, none of the stories they told were comforting. It didn’t help that Morpheus looked more scary than friendly.

He didn't speak. He simply watched.

Love turned toward him, her breath catching — not in fear, but in something she didn’t have a name for. The air seemed thinner, charged with the silent awareness only he brought, cutting down the idyllic domestic scenery.

As a reflex she fixed Lethe in her lap. Suddenly hyper aware of her state, the hem of the dress painted in mud, feet at the ground , hair falling down with many threads wild. He would be disappointed. He would think she was provoking him just a day before they had their understanding in amicability. He will think that she is doing this to embarrass him.

Love only hoped he would berate her behind closed doors and not in front of their nephews.

The children clustered closer to her, even Bellator’s grip on his wooden sword faltered.

Then, a small voice spoke.

It was Elira, one of the triplets. Wide-eyed and unblinking, her golden curls tangled from running. She stepped forward, hesitantly.

“Lord uncle, is it true…” she asked, clutching the hem of her dress, “that you put bad children inside mirrors forever?”

A hush fell like snow. Love’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth, unsure if to scold, reassure or protect. Would he even answer her? Morpheus knew how to be painfully cold. Worse than that was the fact that she couldn't sense anything other than silence in the bond, which must be wrong.

But Morpheus knelt slowly, folding himself like dusk, his cloak rippling across the ground like ink spilled in reverse. It made the queen hold her breath.

He looked at Elira, then at the others, and softly answered “No, Elira, daughter of Happiness and Lugh, Princess of Joyous Light, I do not punish children for being loud, or wild, or afraid. I dream them stories of who they might become… and sometimes I walk beside them, if they are very brave.”

The silence cracked, gently. Talon tilted his head. Lethe's eyes shimmered with something unreadable, but she still clinged to Love like Morpheus could take her away from her aunt’s arms at any time.

Bellator didn’t speak, but took a cautious step closer.

“Lord uncle, do you… do you make dreams just for us too?” Vanira asked, arms crossed like she wasn’t impressed but her voice too hopeful to match her stance.

“All dreams are made for someone, Vanira, sister of Bellator, Princess of the Proud Blade.” He said, “and I remember each of you when I make them.”

“But you never saw us before!” Alith said, voice a bit too loud and too accusing, before hiding behind Love’s skirt, as it was the strongest shield in the realm. Morpheus remained kneeling a moment longer.

He didn’t look at Love, but his eyes wandered far too long over the cotton dress, lingered where her corset faulted and showed more of her skin.

Then he raised one pale hand and blew gently into his palm, sand took the air.

From his breath came shimmer: motes of starlight and ink, catching in the air like drifting embers. The children gasped as the dream began to bloom around them.

The sky above them shifted, deepening into velvet blue, and stars began to arrange themselves — not randomly, but precisely. Shapes formed. Whole constellations danced into life.

A silver wolf descended from the sky, made of smoke and moonlight. It circled Lethe gently and bowed its head. “ Lethe, daughter of Melancholy and Viddar, Princess of Whispering Shadows and Quiet Lament.” the sad-eyed child reached for it, her fingers vanishing into the soft illusion. “Her name is Threnody,” Morpheus said quietly. “She remembers your sorrows so you don’t have to carry all of it.”

Bellator’s wooden sword glowed suddenly with runes of fire. “Bellator, son of Pride and Ares, Prince of Proud Wrath” The air split with a war drum’s rhythm as phantom warriors rose on the horizon — but none of them fought. They saluted him. He stood straighter, stunned. “A soldier’s worth,” Morpheus said, “is not in battle… but in restraint.”

Elira and Solin found themselves atop a floating tower of books, with feathered wings sprouting from their backs. They flew — awkwardly, at first, then laughing. Talon watched as a map of doors unfolded in midair, each leading to strange, enchanted summers that only he would know.

Valkar and Alith’s hands filled with mirrors. But these didn’t reflect faces — they showed paths. Choices. Some difficult. Some beautiful. One cracked when he hesitated, then healed when he whispered his name. “Even truth must make peace with uncertainty, Prince of the Iron Resolve and Princess of the Unyielding Truth” Morpheus said, his voice low.

Vanira found herself inside a storm, not battered by it — but dancing in its center. Lightning obeyed her hands. Her hair lifted like a goddess, and she grinned in wild wonder. Love blinked a few times, she mechanically had to let Lethe down, because the girl was unusually agitated with her dream wolf.

From afar Cain and Abel watch the couple Her husband being kind and gentle to children. Her nieces and nephews. Chaotic, full of energy, overwhelming. Everything she knows he hates.

Or at least she thought.

Eoster had never glimpsed him with children — perhaps that was how he had been with... Orpheus. A sharp, forbidden ache tugged at her heart, a secret she dared not cradle, as if she were touching a flame meant to burn but not to warm. Was this the father Dream would be? Would he cradle his cubs with tenderness, their warmth woven into his shadow? Or would he drift cold and distant, a ghost among them, as Morpheus’s own blood had been — as her own kin had been with her? Or worse still, would he mirror her brothers-in-law? Men who saw their children only as prizes of virility and tokens to secure the fragile legacy of their bloodline.

It seems unlikely.

The children’s eyes sparkled—wide and expectant, limbs already twitching with anticipation. And just like that, they were gone—scattering through the garden like starlings loosed from a cage. Some danced, some tumbled, others plotted dramatic duels under rose arches. Goldie fluttered after them like a small, winged sentinel. Love turned… and realized the garden had grown still behind her.

She was no longer surrounded by laughter and limbs and petals. Instead, she stood with her husband again.

Alone.

It was as though the universe—quietly insistent and more meddlesome than it let on—had conspired, yet again, to fold time just so, to hush the world around them. To leave them alone. As if it knew something still needed to be said. Or done. Even though they had already settled their marriage in words, drawn the lines between them with solemn civility.

“Thank you, husband.” She said softly “You didn’t have to be this kind”

Morpheus remained where he knelt, cloak still pooled like a second shadow, mud in the hem of his cloak. His eyes followed the children as they scattered into their dreams — laughter rising like flocks of birds into the deepening twilight. And Eoster pretended that the bond and his presença alone did not edge their bond, aching inside her, whispers of attraction she was shutting down.

“I did not do it out of obligation,” he said, his voice quiet but resonant, he was perfectly presentable not a single hair out of place which made Eoster even more aware of herself. Vulnerable. This wasn’t a moment for him. She wasn’t ready to be presented, not wearing her armor in disguise of gowns, or pre-rehearsed speeches, or even had the time to think and prepare her actions.

“And neither did you when you gave them your lap or your laughter.” He softly said, as it was something so obvious.

Love didn’t answer, lips parted slightly, a breath she hadn’t meant to hold catching in her throat, he had been watching her longer than she felt comfortable with. She felt her cheeks burn and thank the gods for the natural flush from dancing hiding it.

She couldn’t answer, out of embarrassment but also because his voice held that aching softness — the one he never used with her unless it slipped through his walls by mistake. And the Dream King rarely made a mistake.

He stood slowly, and the night stirred around him, folding back into its usual gravity. When his eyes met hers, they weren’t cold — just unreadable, as always. But softer at the edges, like moonlight over still water.

“It is the Solstice today,” he said, hands behind his back, changing the subject, though not without meaning. “The day winter dies.”

She let a breath out through her nose. “Or fails to.” Why did she confess this to him? Why did the words felt so easy in her mouth? Even to her sisters she would not confess this uncertainty.

He tilted his head. “Do you doubt your power?” His voice did not hold judgment, as her sister would, but a hint of curiosity and worry.

She looked where Lethe now curled against the wolf made of sand, where Elira was still circling overhead with a crown of stars trailing behind her. Love pressed her palm to her own chest, where the warmth should have been rising.

“The earth is not answering my call” she admitted. “I usually hear a hum that grows louder and louder until it turns to pure music at the spring solstice. I thought I was just too busy with the arrangements and your return that I was too distracted not to hear” She sighed, hugging her arms. “And then came today.” She could hear every palace noise, but not the melody she needed.

She has come to an understanding with Morpheus, Lucienne and Elijah were working together, the cupids were at the Dreaming, the preparations were at full speed, guests from all over the universe were coming, everything was on course but spring herself. “I can’t feel the thaw.” She confessed. More frustrated than sad “I can’t feel the earth sing the beginning of the spring melody.”

Silence stretched between them again — not uncomfortable, but fragile. Morpheus and Eoster knew little of each other, although they had more than a few centuries as a couple, but one thing the Dream King knew as he knew his own soul, his wife was one of the most dutiful entities he has ever know, and her work was her reason to be proud or a failure. He understood that.

“You are not failing,” he said at last. “You are afraid.”

He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but the bond had whispered it to him — not in words, but in the ache between her shoulders, the tremble veiled beneath her poise. He could feel it in his spine, as though her unrest had become his own.

He saw it clearly now — the weight she bore, invisible but immense, taken up not for glory nor favor, but for him. The Spring Solstice celebration had not been mere spectacle. It was strategy. She had summoned the universe to witness not festivity, but stability. Strength. Continuity. She had done so not to be seen — but to make him seen again as unassailable.

She did not need to orchestrate the revelry of gods and spirits and stars. She did not need to summon ancient rites or lace each ritual with symbolism that even he, until now, had failed to decipher. She did it because she saw the danger — the silence left behind by his imprisonment, the way rumors curved like blades when they sensed weakness.

Did she always work like this?

In the footnotes of his reign, hidden between sentences of silence, weaving safety into beauty, diplomacy into dance?

Had she always carried this weight — unasked, unthanked — to ease burdens he didn’t even know he bore?

Even after everything. Even after the betrayal, the hurt, the cold chasm between them, she still thought of how to protect his realm, his name. Still chose him, not with words, but with action. Even when it cost her.

And he — in his blind sovereignty — had not seen.

He could not have asked for a better queen.

She blinked at him. As if stunned that he had seen at all.

There was no accusation in his voice, no attempt to correct or contain her. Just a truth, spoken plainly — like someone offering shelter to a stranger in a storm.

But Love — who had learned long ago to make her home inside tempests — flinched at the kindness. It was too raw. Too real. She had grown accustomed to surviving in harsh winds and cold silences. This warmth was disarming.

“I did not know you could be kind to me,” she confessed.

The bond seemed to push the words forward, as though they had to be spoken — and she regretted them the instant they left her lips.

“It is not kindness,” he replied, his brow barely furrowing.

The words weren’t entirely true — not to the marrow — but he knew they would make her more comfortable. Eoster had never wanted to be wooed by gentle gestures, had never asked for softness. She had learned to distrust it.

“I am afraid it is mere selfishness,” he added, gently. And Eoster could swear there was a smile hidden somewhere in the shadows of his voice. “You promised a spectacle of strength.”

He could sense her unease with his support — the discomfort of needing someone — and they silently agreed it was better to keep things rational. Easier that way. Cleaner. He was simply giving her what she needed to hear, because it served him — not because he wanted to carry the weight she bore.

Not because he saw her. Not because he felt for her.

Not because he loved her.

He wouldn’t know how to offer help without it sounding like pity. And pity would break her.

When you’ve stepped on a rose a hundred times, there’s no way to pick it up without it falling apart.

They stood close, within arm’s reach. Neither moved.

He looked past her, to the garden’s edge, where the first crocus had quietly opened near the fountain. Life, soft and defiant, returning despite the cold.

“You could have performed a spectacle on your own,” she said. Her voice was quiet, steady. “You are Dream of the Endless.”

He had regained his full power. He could shape stars and storms with a blink. He didn’t need her. She had always been — in her mind — an ornament, a footnote, a beautiful distraction that fate bound to him by error or design.

But even as she said it, she looked at him. Still searching. Still hoping for an answer that would prove her wrong.

Morpheus didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped forward — only slightly — just enough to brush the edges of her presence with his own.

How many times, in one day, would she hold her breath near him?

His voice, when it came, was lower now. Softer. Like an embrace they couldn’t share.

“No. Today… I am Spring’s husband. Or perhaps only a man who knelt before your nieces and nephews and gave them dreams.”

A beat passed.

“Tomorrow, I may be the Dream King again.”

She couldn’t tell if it was the answer she wanted. But it sounded like something shaped carefully for her heart, like a dream constructed to feel like truth.

She swallowed. Her voice wavered.

“And if I fail to bring the spring?”

If she failed, it would not just be as his queen, but as Love itself — as the Princess of Spring, the Queen of All Four Loves, patroness of desire, affection, devotion, and care. She would fail the mortals who adored her, the cupids who served her, the sisters who expected her strength, the children who believed in her. She would fail herself.

Morpheus could feel it in the bond — the weight behind her eyes, the tight coil in her stomach. The tension she carried like a second skin.

Had she always felt this way? Every spring? Who helped her? Who listened?

Not the cupids — she would not burden them. Not Lucienne. Not her sisters, who had little mercy for vulnerability, especially in one of their own.

He should have noticed.

He should have been there.

His face turned fully to hers then — all shadows, stars, and sorrow — and he spoke with a devastating calm:

“Then I will dream the thaw for you.”

A promise, quiet and vast. A spell cast in syllables.

“Mortals will dream of blossoms. Of warm winds. Of golden light that clings to skin and wakes the soul. They will dream of spring so vividly, so achingly, that the world will be unable to resist its call.”

She almost turned away — not in rejection, but as if to shield herself. To hide whatever rose in her throat. She wanted to offer him something — not forgiveness, not warmth, not yet — but something like belief.

Could she trust this? Would he hold her if it all collapsed? Would he soothe her aches or punish her again?

And just then — the breeze shifted.

Not cold. Not harsh.

But scented.

______________________

Lilac, myrrh, smoke, rosehips and a sweeter perfume, intoxicating, refreshing, intense.

She didn’t even need to look.

A battalion of sisters, commanded by The Queen of Summer herself, Happiness, looking over them.

She was draped in honey-colored silk and jewels that shimmered like laughter, she walked as if the world applauded each step. She always made an entrance — late, radiant, deliberate.

“My, my,” she said, surveying the scene with raised brows and a wicked smile. “Is this our Spring Queen? Or a shepherdess from a pastoral tragedy?”

Love felt her throat tighten. Happiness had always shone like sunlight — beautiful, beloved. But it was a brightness that burned, especially when turned on her.

“We’ve been waiting nearly half an hour! Is this the new dress rehearsal? Muddy hems, tangled curls and flushed cheeks?” Pride’s voice came, rich and honeyed with contempt. If Love was conscious about her state, feet covered in moss and mud, sleeves wrinkled from carrying children.

It was way worse under her sister's judgment.

Love straightened instinctively, smoothing her cotton dress to conceal her corset and crossing her arms. But Pride and Honesty’s sharp eyes and even sharper tongues missed nothing. They exchanged knowing smiles — if smiles could speak, Love was certain she could hear the unspoken thoughts flickering between them: “Playing the innocent, tempting peasant, are we?” — “Could Dream truly be as naive as a lovestruck stable boy?” — “Indeed.” They would all agree.

Honesty, trailing dark silk and wearing a smirk sharp enough to cut the air, offered a brief curtsy. “My dear brother-in-law, what an unexpected pleasure to see you,” she murmured, her tone deliberately cool. “I confess, I could never have imagined you might be so…”

“Unexpectedly domestic,” Happiness finished smoothly, eyeing Morpheus up and down with a glint of mischief.

Morpheus remained unmoved, as ever — unreadable and still. Yet Love could feel the subtle thinning of the air around him. Not with anger, but with restraint. He would need it, facing her sisters’ sharp tongues, their polished pleasantries concealing barbed wit. Pride and Honesty together were like a hive of vipers.

With a slight bow — both courtly and cold — he greeted, “Ladies.”

Pride rolled her eyes with a faint scoff. Happiness, her velveteen voice dripping with mock sincerity, continued, “We watched from the terrace. Though, one might think the terrace was doing its best to avoid us.”

Love glanced at Morpheus. Was this true? Did he not want his sisters to see them? Or see her? Did he shield her from their inevitable judgment? She only wished he would be a bit more effective.

Honesty pretended to brush dust from her bouffant sleeve, her tone thoughtfully casual. “Dream of the Endless, on his knees, conjuring fairy tales for children. You do have a remarkable talent for appearing sincere, my dearest brother-in-law.”

“We were nearly moved to tears,” Happiness added, placing a hand dramatically over her heart, though her expression betrayed nothing but disdain. Happiness and Love were almost like twins — their hair and eyes differing in color, but their faces and figures much alike. Where Love’s dark curls were thick as oak branches, Happiness’s tresses were long, sun-kissed, and flowed almost to her knees. Where Love had green eyes framed by thick dark lashes and skin as pale as lily petals, Happiness’s eyes were the blue of a clear summer sky, with golden lashes and sunlit skin.

Yet where Love carried gentleness and compassion, Happiness bore cunning and decisiveness. If, centuries ago, Happiness had chosen to pursue Morpheus, it would not have been a trap for two but a long, strategic design made by Happiness. She was as relentless as the summer sun at its peak, intoxicating and overwhelming.

That would be the villain Morpheus thought Love was for all these years.

But Happiness had no taste for men who spoke in riddles or lived in illusions. She preferred the calloused hands and sun-baked skin of rustic honesty. Any day, she would choose a blunt, even rude man over one who moped about like a forlorn cat.

“But we did not,” Honesty interjected, her smirk sparkling like cold steel. “Forgive us, dear brother, if we remain unmoved. Children and tender hearts often mistake illusions for promises.” Her eyes settle in Love with a warning and a correction, turning back to Dream “We, however, are old hags with cold hearts.”

Melancholy, silent as her name, took Love’s arm gently. Her voice was like mourning lace, trailing soft and sorrowful. The long grey-blue veil she wore fluttered in the breeze, framing her ghostly pale features. Her disdain for Morpheus was so complete, she barely acknowledged him.

“Come, dear Love,” she said softly. “You have a season to awaken and rituals to uphold. Unless, of course, you intend to summon spring like a milkmaid pulling flowers from the moist dreams of soldiers at war.”

Melancholy began to pull Love away from the children and Morpheus, but before she could lead her toward the waiting sisters, Love planted her feet firmly and met her husband’s gaze.

“I should go,” she said quietly.

Morpheus nodded once. “You should.”

Yet neither moved, even with Melancholy’s gentle but persistent tug.

Then he stepped closer, while her sisters watched like hawks, their eyes sharp and unyielding. Not close enough to touch, but close enough for Love to feel that familiar pull—the terrible gravity between them they both pretended to ignore.

“I meant what I said,” he murmured.

She didn’t ask which part.

Instead, her voice barely above a whisper, she asked, “And if I fail?”

He tilted his head, his voice softer than the breeze stirring the garden leaves. “Then you did, but you will rise—and I will dream the thaw, until you feel it again.”

She swallowed hard; her throat ached with unshed words.

“Careful,” she managed a smile. “If they hear more of that, they’ll accuse you of the greatest crime: tenderness.”

He gave no smile. But the space between them shifted—not warmer, not colder—just... closer.

“Eoster.” Melancholy tugged her arm once more. She would not let her sister say another word.

“Let them,” Morpheus said, before Love was drawn away, swallowed by the furious ocean of colorful skirts his sisters-in-law made.

“And brother,” Pride called out with a sly smile, “Since you’re so taken with domesticity, might you be kind enough to guide our nannies in rounding up our little brats? I dare say they’re in desperate need of a bath.”

“Or an exorcism,” added Happiness, clutching Pride’s arm as she giggled over their terribly pampered little angels.

With a sharp snap, Pride opened her fan and turned her back on Dream of the Endless, issuing commands in his own realm as if he were but a humble servant.

Barely the sister turned dragging Love away, an army of old women, in Victorian uniform, with long black skirts and white appron, walked down the hill, trying to prepare themselves to catch their little lords and ladies, who despised baths as they were liquid poison.

The barbs from his sisters-in-law struck deep, yet Morpheus maintained his posture, the faintest flicker of restraint in his otherwise unreadable gaze. He had been expecting their sharp tongues, but it was never quite easy.

If only these weren’t his sisters-in-law.

“I was playing with the children,” Love said, twisting to avoid Pride’s relentless combing.

Happiness rolled her eyes and lobbed a silk stocking at her. “Stop shifting about, you’re disturbing everything.”

Love hurled it back. “Stop throwing things.”

Pride yanked her head again. “Stop moving.”

Love groaned in frustration. “I was teaching them to dance. Since the rest of you appear quite determined to raise a generation of socially inept heirs.”

That struck.

Pride froze mid-brush.

Honesty nearly dropped the gardening hat she had lifted from the closet.

Happiness choked on her wine. A singular chuckle escaped.

“Well, well,” said Honesty, her grin spreading. “Our bucolic rose has thorns.”

“And sharp ones,” added Happiness, dabbing at her lips. “Careful, Pride. She might prick you.”

Pride narrowed her eyes, unused to being challenged, least of all by sweet, docile Eoster.

“We saw your game, Love.” Honesty flopped onto the bed, letting the gardening hat fall from her head and helping herself to Love’s hairpins without shame. “Bold move, but be careful not to fall into it yourself.”

“There was no game,” Love insisted, plucking a garter out of Pride’s hands before she could repurpose it as a headband. “This obsession you all have with strategy is bordering on paranoia.”

“And how are we supposed to explain a queen, usually perfectly dressed and composed” Pride asked, arching an eyebrow “dancing barefoot with an open corset in the mud, while her emotionally stunted husband just so happens to be passing?”

“A coincidence,” Love said flatly.

“She really does take us for fools,” Melancholy mused, rolling her eyes, stepping in from the adjoining chamber where a steaming bath, thick with flower-scent, waited.

“Honesty!” Love cried, turning toward her sister, now adorned with eight mismatched pins in her hair. “Surely you believe me? Or have Alith and Valkar finally drained all reason from you?”

Honesty laughed, swept across the room, and kissed her sister’s cheek. “I believe you, dear. I’m only teasing.” Pride pushes her out of the way and yanks Love’s head again. Reasoning back into the conversation “What can’t be denied, and do not even try, is that your husband was eye-fucking you the entire time. Like you’d walked out of some erotic pastoral fantasy, and he was a starving stable boy who’d never touched a woman.”

Happiness twirled her wine. “Like an erotic painting he wanted to frame in his quarters."

“That is a very improper but true metaphor, Happiness” Said Melancholy who found the discarded hat and now twirled languidly with the it, the veil following like a dancing shadow.

“Thank you, my queen of winter” Happiness gestured a bow.

“Dear stars, have pity on me.” Love sighed “Not every interaction with my husband is adult foreplay.”

“Are you even acquainted with the concept, sister of mine?” Happiness asked sweetly, the venom unmistakable.

“Ignore them, Eoster,” said Melancholy “They are being improper. We all know no interaction with your husband is foreplay.” Melancholy, ever serene thought this was helping, but it came at as comical since she was right. No interactions between them was ever foreplay. They didn't do foreplay.

Love straightened slightly. “We’ve come to an agreement. Amicability. He will no longer require marital duties from me, and I shall not be obligated to see him unless I wish to. He invited me to the Dreaming if I’m so inclined. And I’ve required him to come to the Garden. He is its king, after all.”

The sisters glanced at one another. Love’s voice was calm, regal, assured. even

The sisters exchanged glances.

Pride spoke first. “Very diplomatic.”

“How political,” said Happiness.

Silence followed.

The silence remained for a few moments, and just before Pride restarted brushing the curls, Honesty spoke what everyone else in the room was thinking, half-laughing.

“So what, he will let you take lovers now, without turning them to dust, without you needing to feel guilty?”

“Legitimate question,” said Happiness, raising her glass with renewed interest.

Love studied the hem of her chemise. “I’ve no interest in lovers,” Her voice was even. “But he said that if he’s not the one making me smile, he still wants me to be happy.”

The sisters looked at one another.

And then they grinned.

“Now that’s a marriage deal.” For them, if her sister wasn’t being satisfied in her marriage, an affair would heal her internal pains. And more, she could avenge the years of loneliness, making him pay. And they knew exactly how it would go.

“You should write to Destruction,” said Honesty, leaping onto the bed beside Happiness, both squealing and clap like schoolgirls. Even before Love ever crossed paths with Dream, her sisters had always had a huge crush on Destruction. When he left, not only he left his realm and his siblings, but four platonic widows.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Love darted across the room, while Pride got lost in her own reflection adjusting her bodice, and plucked a black lingerie that Happiness was admiring “Stop rifling through my things!”

“He’s your brother-in-law,” Honesty insisted. “He’d never refuse you.”

“You know very well the Prodigal abandoned his duties. And does not want to be found.” Love said, voice hard.

“Then whisper his name, and let the wind carry it. He’ll come.” Pride said, convicted, pointing to the chair, so Love would return.

“No one denies Love when she calls.” Melancholy said, gazing out the windows like she was waiting for him on a white horse.

“Oh, imagine the revenge!” Happiness clapped. “Tell him how cold your marriage is. How devoted you’ve been. Such a good wife, and all you get are cold stares, and a cold bed. Tell him how utterly unsatisfied you have been. How celibate.” She pretended to faint in the bed, like a damsel.

“Now that,” Pride adds wickedly, “is a man who’d make you forget all Dream’s moody silences and cold cock.”

“Just imagine Destruction, laughing in your bed, the Dream King watching from his tower. Regretting everything he took for granted.” Honesty sighed romantically, clutched her hands against her chest, like she was spilling her own fantasy.

“That is indecent and beneath you, Honesty.” Melancholy added

“No,” said Happiness. “Indecent would be riding the Prodigal on Morpheus’s throne. In her own chambers? That’s liberation. Or should our sister remain a nun for all eternity?”

“Enough!” Love’s voice rang sharp. “The Prodigal is gone. I won’t write to him. I won’t summon him. Have you no shame? I’ve never had so much as a flicker of desire for him. He’s my brother-in-law. Yes, he was a good brother but he abandoned his duties and his family. I could never lay with such a man. He is your collective wet dream. Not mine.”

“Oh, right,” said Honesty rolling her eyes, “your fantasy is Dream kissing you in a field of poppies, playing house, surrounded by barefoot children like it’s a midsummer fairytale.”

“We know you weren’t playing a game, Love,” said Pride. “But he was. Down in the mud, with children and dreams, acting like he finally read your diary. He have seen your dreams, he knows what you ache for.”

“And if you fall for his charms again,” said Happiness, “you are a fool. Things will go right back to the way they were.”

“No,” Love said, her voice soft but razor-sharp.”Morpheus never glanced at my dreams, he always thought it to be inappropriate. A concept you do not fathom.”

“So you think, sister.” Honesty said.

“So I know, sister.”

Her gaze turned icy. She circled them now, as if weighing their worth.

“You have never understood my marriage. Nor have I asked you to. And as always, you all forget your place.”

Her tone shifted, imperial, absolute. “I do not wish to speak about my marriage again. And as your host, and the Queen of this realm, I require your respect. Disregard this once more, and you will not see the Solstice. I will cast you out of the Dreaming myself.”

“Don’t be dramatic, sister dear” Happiness murmured with a smile and a roll of her eyes.

“Try me,” Love said, deadly calm. “Once more, and you shall see dramatic.”

Happiness looked down. Love’s gaze burned too hot. And then Love turned, snatched her gardening hat off Melancholy’s head and slammed the adjoining door shut.

She opened it again.

“Call my maids. And Elijah. On your way out. I expect glee at the Solstice. And my nieces and nephews.”

Then she shut the door behind her with a satisfying snap.

A long breath. Stillness.

Then:

A laugh. Low and delighted.

After centuries of being coddled, pitied, and corrected, finally, silence.

Let them gather their jaws from the marble floor.

Tonight, she would sink into a jasmine bath scented with rose salt and power.

She doubted they’d dare challenge her again.

Love took off her chemise and lowered herself on the steamy bath, the water a lilac tone with hyacinth petals, rose, lilies, jasmine, making a mix of fragrance that one could not put his finger on what it really smell like. It was sweet and fresh.

Lilac waters rose to her shoulders as scented petals clung to her skin, drifting like fragments of a memory. The smell of wet earth before rain. Thawing rivers. Animals waking. Subtle but there. Was it the hum of the earth before spring? Was it there before, and she wasn’t paying attention? Or it arose after…

She would not dare. What if she was wrong?

Everything felt blurred. Her thoughts. Her heart. Her senses. But beneath it all, one thing shimmered with quiet clarity. She crossed her arms, hugging herself, sliding deeper into the warmth. The lilac water kissed her collarbone. A curl stuck to her cheek as she let her head fall back, hair floating like seaweed behind her. She felt lighter. Not like a feather dancing free but as if something was keeping her from slipping under.

She knew what it was. Their invisible string, the golden thread intertwining Love and Dream.

“I will dream the thaw for you.”

The words echoed in her chest

He never supported her, my stars he never even wanted to know what she did or didn’t do, and she had cared far too much. Had burned herself trying to warm a man that was more kin to coldness.

And now! Now he was trying. In that cold and careful way of his, he was offering her something. Lifting her burden, just slightly, as if saying: You are not alone.

He could’ve stayed silent. He could’ve offered her nothing. And yet, he did.

And her private doubts aside, she knew that in that moment he meant it. He still means it now. Like he continued to ease her mind, even after she left him in the field.

The weight hadn’t vanished, but it didn’t press down cruelly. It felt… lifted, just enough that she could breathe.

Nice.

That was the word.

How childish it sounded. No one had ever even thought of "nice" when describing them. Broken, yes. Distant, also. Cold, sure. But never “nice” .

She closed her eyes. Her fingers drifted lazily through the water. Not quite purposeful. Not quite innocent.

And her sisters. Love hated to admit it. They were wrong about many things, but not her dreams. Not the way her skin tingled when she remembered him kneeling before her nieces and nephews, the way his voice had lowered when speaking to the children or the way he turned fear into wonder with a word. She bit her lip, and a flush rose on her throat. Not the flicker of something soft on his lips when Elira asked him about bad children and mirrors.

He did not do it out of obligation. He did not do it out of duty. What obligation did the King of Dreams have to wild, unruly children, that would certainly cause more havoc before the spring awakened?

None.

And still, he held a shy smile. .

She let out a slow breath.

Her hand traced idle, lazy shapes in the water, slipping along her stomach. It wasn’t conscious, not exactly. More instinct than thought. Her body just needed it there where it aches.

He could have tried to impress Love, giving the children what they wanted, castles, and battles, but he gave them what was right for them. He knew them better than children know themselves. Stars, he probably knew them better than their parents knew.

She shifted in the bath, thighs sliding slowly in the warm water. Her fingers drifted just a little lower, their bond was so permissive today, would he feel it? Caressing her folds, pressing her long fingers against herself, her hips rising to meet her fingers, soft whimpers she would hold? Would he like it? Would he feel she was being too improper in such a moment?

The bond was a curious thing. So temperamental. So obedient when least desired, so absent when most needed.

Where was this mystical thread, when she had offered him a story and watched him dismantle it with the careless indifference of one unacquainted with love’s labour?

That memory, distant now, still had the power to wound her.

That was such a long time ago. She had been so young in love, not in years of course, Eoster was ancient, but in marriage she was new, as any maiden on the mortal realm stuck in an arranged marriage. She knew love in all its mythic shapes: philia, agape, storge, eros, but all in theory. Never like this. Never as a woman bound eternally to a man who would not look at her the way she looked at him. Never as a goddess made a stranger in her own bed.

And yet, she had loved him. Stars help her, she loved him.

Those were meant to be the golden years of their union, seasons of delight and shared joy, a courtship renewed across eternity. Instead, she had found herself cloistered in a palace of silence.

It was a time when she was completely alone in the Dreaming.

Elijah was allowed to come to the Dreaming but he also was required to go back to the Garden of Lovers, and Morpheus made sure no dream or nightmare spoke to her or offered a single word of gentleness. He had made quite certain she would not feel welcome in his realm.

She had tried. By all the heavens, she had tried. The memory exhausted her even now. It was humiliating, that hunger. A glance, a smile, any word from him at all. And each attempt she made to be closer, only seemed to deepen his resentment.

He had never raised his voice, nor behaved with cruelty, not overtly. He simply did not care. Or, if he did, he buried it too deep for her to reach.

“That will be all, lady wife.” He often dismissed her with those words.

Even Jessamy received kinder farewells.

And it was not only loneliness that plagued her. It was tedium, relentless and unrelieved. No duties were offered to her. No return to her Garden permitted. There were no soirées in the Dreaming, no confidantes, no laughter, no music, no dances, no clever debates, no lessons to teach or learn. Nothing but her trousseau and her reflection.

And so she bathed. And dressed. And undressed. She adorned herself for engagements that did not come, breakfasts never shared, walks never taken, waltzes never danced. Afternoon teas, untouched. A marriage bed, chill as any tomb. She became a doll of silk and satin, parading past him in corridors, hoping, always hoping.

It was boredom that led her to linger near the library doors that morning, when she overheard Lucienne and Mervyn speaking.

She sank lower in the water now, her eyes closing in remembrance.

She ought not to have listened.

"To linger at keyholes and corners is the province of bored maids and dullards, not princesses of emotions, future queens of realms." Her old nursemaid used to scold, whenever she caught her and her sisters trying to spy on entities. "You are the heir to the hearts and minds of mortals, gods and endless alike. You are not boring. Do not act as such. Eavesdropping is unworthy of the divine.”

“A triumph”, they said. Lord Morpheus’s triumph.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A play penned by a mortal, Shakespeare, and gifted with the power to mend rifts between Faerie and the Dreaming. Through theatrics, he had accomplished what diplomacy could not. He had caused Titania and Auberon to reconsider their fury.

A man of ink and inkling had moved kingdoms.

A mortal man had succeeded where she had failed.

The thought struck her with exquisite sharpness. If her words could not reach her husband, perhaps those penned by another might. He was, after all, the Prince of Stories. Perhaps a tale, beautiful and tragic, cloaked in artifice, might awaken what her voice could not.

It was, she would later admit, an idea born of romantic desperation.

But then, are not such ideas the most dangerous, and yet the most powerful?

It was the first morning of spring. The world smelled of damp earth and possibility. She found William beneath the shade of a venerable fig tree, his brow furrowed over a page, his fingers stained with ink and thought.

He looked up as she approached. She wore the fashion of his time, rich velvet, the colour of crushed rose, a girdle of gold at her waist, but there was something unplaceable in her bearing, that hinted him this was not an ordinary court lady, perhaps the gleam of her eyes, or the soft way the grass bent beneath her steps.

“My good William,” she said, her voice warm, musical, “how fare thee this morning? Didst thou pass by the hyacinths? They are in riotous bloom just past the hollow.” He looked up, startled. “I… my lady, I did. But… how—?”

“Your mother tended them, did she not?” she replied softly. “Do you remember? You were but a toddling child. Once, you chased their scent and nearly met a horse’s hooves. I thought you might like to see them again.”

His eyes narrowed, searching her face. “Does my lady have a name?” Cautious but curious.

“I bear many,” she replied, stepping closer. The grass seemed to bow under her feet. “Some known to you. Others lost to the world. But I believe my husband has a… gentlemen’s agreement with you.” He looked puzzled and mesmerized “Stories that will live forever, to be remembered long after you are gone”

“Ah.” His eyes widened. Realization came to him at the same time as surprise, Lord Morpheus, that looked like a villain from a bedtime nursery married to a lady that looked like the sweet damsel sang on tavern songs? Love really doesn’t seen eye to eye “Another performance, then?” he asked, bemused.

She knelt before him, lifting her skirts slightly to sit gracefully in the grass. A breeze lifted the edge of her sleeve.

“No my dear William, I come,” she said, “bearing a secret. One I trust you’ll bury deep within your heart. I wish to give him a wedding gift.”

“What would you have me write?” He set his pen down slowly, as if the moment itself might break.

“A tale of young love.” She thought “A love that cannot survive the world that surrounds them. And yet they try.” The morning wind stirred her hair, the light touched her in a way that made the fig leaves above her tremble, as if they too were listening. “A tale of an encounter that comes too soon and too late.”

William tilted his head, his quill idle now against the parchment. “A comedy, then?”

She tilted her head in turn, and though her tone was mild, her eyes held something far deeper, something like sorrow smothered in sweetness.

“No quite, dear William” she said, letting the thought idle in his head.

“A tragedy of young love?” He never heard of such a thing, love worthy of tragedy. “But, my fair good lady, can love be true, if it ends?”

“Parting is such a sweet sorrow, my young William” she said, her gaze far off. “This love does not end, it only has brief interruptions.”

For a moment, William was struck dumb. He could not say what it was in her voice that moved him, whether it was the conviction, the melancholy, or the grace with which she bore both. She seemed as if she had known the love she spoke of. And its loss.

“There never will be a tale of more woe than this one” Still seated beside him, she let one finger trace the rim of his ink pot, absently, as if stirring thoughts in its depths.

She rose as lightly as she had come, her skirts gliding over the grass like drifting petals. “ Yet never will be a tale of more love, either”

“Farewell, my dear bard of Avon,” she said, her voice already dimming with distance. “Write it kindly.”

—-----------

The crowd had assembled early. Merchants jostled alongside apprentices, noblemen beside whores, scholars near pickpockets, and poets shoulder to shoulder with the common. All were united by a singular hunger: the promise of a new tale from Master Shakespeare. The chill bit through the wooden galleries, but none murmured complaint. The play, said to be tragic, romantic, divine, had already stirred something like reverence in the air.

Morpheus stood among them, his garments, as always, black, but of the cut and weight worn by noblemen a century before: long doublet, high collar, silver rings at his fingers. His hair was longer here, falling in dark, unbound waves that brushed his shoulders, softening the sharpness of his features, though not the severity of his gaze.

He had come alone, as was his custom, and taken his place in the theatre’s private box. He sat with the stillness of one carved from night itself.

But just before the trumpets sounded and the crowd quieted into an expectant hush, she arrived.

Love had not anticipated that the play would be first performed in the depths of winter. Nor had she foreseen the plague. Yet here she was, in London. Complexion paler than usual, for winter is no friend to spring.

She looked like any noble lady of the time, fashionably attired but touched by the hush of confinement. There was an air of faded bloom about her, as though she had been kept from sunlight too long. Queen Eoster dressed in deep emerald velvet that shimmered like pine boughs touched by frost, hands hidden inside a muff of soft sable, her hair pinned in braids and coils beneath a delicate net of pearls, but a few wayward curls, ungovernable as ever, brushed against her temple and the base of her throat. She said nothing as she sat, only inclined her head slightly in greeting to her husband. The faintest of smiles curved her lips, neither coy nor triumphant, but dangerous. Hope.

She sat too close with a soft, eager smile.

He did not look at her, yet he made no move to bid her leave. Morpheus had not called for her, neither told her of his whereabouts. And yet, here she was.

Why?

Was this another attempt to be part of his life? Would he be obliged to lecture her once more? Were the Ladies of Emotion not rigorous trained in the ancient patriarchal proprieties of marriage? To obey their husbands?

She desired to be his wife, to be his queen, seized that title from him and Desire crowned her with it as if it were hers by birthright. If so, then she should have remained in the Dreaming.

He said nothing. His jaw remained set, his figure as still as ever.

At first, it was as expected. A brawl, swift banter, the bustling tempo of Verona.

But then came the first lines from a young maiden, Juliet.

His gaze narrowed.

There was a cadence there he had heard before, not in voice but in heart. Not in words spoken aloud, but in words meant, and never uttered. The mortal girl’s longing, her private rebellion, her dawning awe of love, was too precise, too honest.

He recognized it for what it was almost immediately: not his story.

It was Eoster’s.

Unmistakably, hers.

He heard his queen in Juliet’s every declaration, felt her breath between the lines. The metaphor of night and day, the exquisite ache of stolen hours, the bitter end too cruel for such a tender beginning. Not invention. Not inspiration. It was a confession.

Romeo, a boy who began the tale seeking another, Rosaline, vague and idealized, until he saw his true love, Juliet. Two lovers of warring houses, doomed by design, yet choosing each other still, even unto death.

He gripped the arms of his chair.

This was her doing. She had gone to the mortal, his mortal, and offered him a story not born of lore or myth, but of them. Of her heart. Her sorrow. Her accusation.

Without his knowledge. Without his consent.

Morpheus saw the way she leaned forward during the balcony scene, her gloved hands tightened within the muff; her breath caught on the verge of trembling fingers.

And the way she looked at him during the final moments, when Juliet’s dagger found her chest.

He had been too steeped in suspicion, too proud and afraid to believe she could love him honestly. He thought it was manipulation. Echoing Desire’s schemes. He was certain that she was trying to soften him for some hidden gain.

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.

Go hence to have more talk of these sad things;

Some shall be pardoned, and some punished.

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

When the applause began, he said nothing.

Not to Shakespeare, who had turned with humble anticipation. Not to Eoster, who was still applauding politely

He disappeared back to the Dreaming.

No farewell. No praise. Not even a shadow left behind.

Love apologized to William, and followed her husband, disappearing a few moments after thanking and praising the bard. Assuring him that his deal with Lord Morpheus was unchanged. Not that she was certain of it.

The king of Dreams waited until she returned to the Dreaming. She would find him. She had that annoying habit of always finding him in the palace even if he did not want her to. No matter the hour. No matter the frost in his voice. His hands clasped behind his back, framed by pillars of onyx and moonlight staring at the cold glow of stars through the windows of the throne room.

She arrived quietly.

The Dream King would have to endure one hundred years of imprisonment to realize those subtle changes his wife made in herself in those first years of marriage. Solely exclusive, aiming to please him. Trial and error to see what would please him better, since he gave no direction or wanted to.

Spring should not be quiet, and yet, his wife learned how to be.

"Lord husband," she said with a smile so delicate it could have been painted on glass. It wasn’t a smile out of happiness or confidence, but pure habit and politeness, like she was taught, like she has taught mortals through inspiration. Always meeting a loved one with a smile. "What a fine evening, wasn’t it?"

She removed her muff with careful grace, folding to occupy her hands, as if they were still a couple returning from a play, still companions in some private celebration. No answer. The air was thick with tension. What use was it to be a master in the art of conversation if your husband never responds?

“I spoke to William. I apologized. I told him your agreement remains sacred.” She tried to cut the suffocating silence only the Dreaming could provide. Love took a step closer, hands clasped before her, twisting the fingers together like ribbon unraveling. “Though I…” She looked down, biting her lip, realizing that it might have been a mistake. When did her husband ever like her meddling with his business? ”I know I had no right to do so”

He stood on the highest step to the throne. Far above her. Far from reach.

Her own voice sounded too loud in her ears, too childish, too inadequate.

But still she looked at him with a hope of a kind glance, or at least understanding.

He turned.

One slow, precise motion. A gesture that felt like turning a blade.

And Love was gifted with a stare that made her regret ever asking to be seen by him.

Glacial. Unforgiving. The kind of look that could strip flesh from bone.

“You went behind my back.” His voice was low but still echoed through the throne room. It made her spine shiver.

Her heart kicked against her ribs.“Forgive me, my lord husband, it was to be a gift. A wedding gift. Betrayal was not my intention and-”

The Dream King wouldn’t let her finish speaking. He rarely did.

“And when,” he asked, like asking the time, “have your intentions ever been pure, wife?”The word wife hitted her like a lash. It reeks of judgment, almost as if it was something to be embarrassed of, not something he cherished in having.

She flinched.

“Always,” She bit her lip, soft pink turning white. “Always. Please, I only thought… if you saw-”

“If I saw what?” he snapped, the hurt beneath it hiding angry, like she committed an awful betrayal. “A play twisting my agreement with Shakespeare? An emotional manipulation costumed in poetry?”

“No!” Her voice cracked like porcelain. She stepped forward, hope clinging to her spine like a corset. "I did it for you, to show you-" But Love could step forward as she wanted, it would never reach him.

He looked at her for a long time. “You thought flattery would soften me. That I would open to you, if you gave me something sweet and tragic.”

Her lip trembled. “I gave you something true.”

“Don’t twist it into devotion,” he said, eyes dark as obsidian. “You used my agreement with Shakespeare for your own ends. ” he said coldly. “I gave Shakespeare a contract. Not you.”

That hurt. More than he would ever know. More than he would want to admit. He separates them like two different entities.

“Please lord husband, don’t be cruel, I…”

“And you deserve tenderness?”

Her throat tightened. “I thought… if you saw what love…”

“What you think love is,” he corrected coldly. “You embarrassed us both.”

If he had slapped her it wouldn’t have sting like this.

She swallowed against the tears forming in her eyes.

He turned away, the hem of his coat sweeping like a curtain between them. “Do not meddle in my affairs again, lady wife.”

She held the cry in her throat, trying to fight words and a sob if he could only listen to her “Please just let me-”

“You may go.”

------------------------- “Now, there is my lovely niece!” Aunt Primness swept into the marble chamber as though she’d been born to it . Love jumped in her bath, returning completely to the present. Her gown was stiff with purple embroidery, her chin at an angle of permanent disapproval, and her voice carried the weight of ancestral judgment. She surveyed the room like it was an offending new wing in her manor.

Trailing her, of course, was Aunt Temperance, serene in pastel yellow lace, all gentleness and murmured apologies for a visit that was already in progress, eternally apologizing for the company she keeps.

Behind them came Elijah, ever unbothered, and Lucienne, who looked like she regretted her decision almost instantly.

How they found her quarters she didn’t know but had a feeling knowing her aunts it would not be a secret for long.

“Thank the old gods,” Primness said, hands on her hips, “This place. It makes no sense to anyone sensible. Curved walls! Hallways that lead to nowhere! Staircases that double back like they’ve been drinking! Who designed this, a drunk satyr?”

Temperance, unruffled, lowered herself onto a brocade seat near the tub, just behind Love’s back. “Prim, it’s the Dreaming. Dreams are not supposed to be sensible. Besides, we came to see Eoster, not conduct a real estate survey.”

“Well, one can do both, Temperance. I don’t expect it of you, of course, but I certainly can.” Primness narrowed her gaze at her niece. “Darling, why are you still submerged like a nymph in mourning? You look half-drowned.”

“I must say,” Temperance murmured, smoothing the folds of her skirt “I’ve never heard you complain after a solid night of sleep, Prim. Your mind must wander beautifully in these mists.”

“I do not dream,” Primness snapped as if Temperance had accused her of cavorting with swine. “Not since before the Greek gods picked up bronze. Waste of time.”

“That would explain so very much,” Temperance said mildly, still smiling, a warm beam that disguised the dagger beneath. The look Primness returned was enough to cut through flesh.

“Darling girl,” Temperance said more gently, ignoring the look of her older sister, uncorking a bottle and testing the oil like a seasoned apothecary. “You haven’t even touched your hair yet? Your scalp must be parched. I’ll tend to it.”

Love blinked water from her lashes. “What are you doing here? Both of you?”

“Oh, your sisters found us while we were admiring the most fabulous gallery,” Temperance said, easing lavender cream into Love’s wet hair with tender, ring-clad fingers.

“ ‘Fabulous’ is certainly a word for it,” Primness muttered, wrinkling her nose.

“And they told us,” Temperance briefly looked at Prim, pleading to her sister to give it a break, continuing delicately “That you had, well, dismiss them, with some degree of force, apparently.”

“So of course,” Primness said, her tone growing theatrical again, as she eyed the bath oils. Selecting one, she dripped it into the tub with a flick of her wrist. The water blushed deeper. “We had to come see you. We were worried.”

“Well. She was.” Temperance tilted her head, combing in a floral oil with her ringed fingers. “But I do worry when Primness worries. It’s so rare it must be serious.”

“Whatever you did,” said Primness “It was about time. Those sisters of yours, and those husbands! No sense of etiquette. No decorum.”

“We weren’t able to find your quarters,” Temperance added lightly, massaging and combing Love’s curls, as she did when Eoster was a kid still under her protection. “Until we ran into Elijah and Lucienne. They were very obliging.”

“Yes, obliging in doing their job.” Primness snapped her fingers toward the pair standing in stately discomfort at the door. “Chop, chop, you two, Cupid. Dream’s Cupid. Where is the towel?” Primness extended her hand waiting for the towel to magically appear in seconds by servant efficiency.

Lucienne and Elijah blinked, one with long-suffering grace, the other with a tightening jaw.

Elijah simply offered a knowing half-smile and bowed, retrieving the towel with his average elegance. He was used to being a second hand, valet and confidant to Queen Love, and bore it with pride. Not only that but he had known the old hags Primness and Temperance far longer than he would admit in polite company. He once fetched honeyed wine while Aunt Primness recited all seventeen of Love’s childhood misdemeanors.

He knew better than to interrupt their theater.

Lucienne, however, did not. She was The Dream King second hand and librarian. She adjusted her glasses as if to better see the audacity in front of her. “We are not here to assist with Lady Love’s preparations, my ladies” she said, tone crisp but civil.

Primness turned to her with imperial slowness. The look she bestowed would have curdled cream, the kind of glare perfected over centuries of inherited authority, as if Lucienne had personally insulted the family crest.

“Your husband's staff certainly takes after him in being polite,” Primness scoff, lethally sarcastic.

Lucienne remained still as marble, no flicker of indignation crossing her face, only the weight of a thousand neatly filed volumes of patience.

Elijah's mouth twitched. A duel between Primness and Lucienne? Worth watching.

Temperance, always the olive branch, drifted in. “Now, now, Prim,” she said, rinsing Love’s hair. “Let’s not be unkind to the Dreaming’s librarian. She was very kind in bringing us to Love”

“Well, Temperance, if the palace no longer tolerates a simple towel request, perhaps I should’ve brought my own staff” Primness muttered, satisfied enough to continue judging the room’s decor in silence.”Only in this impossible place” She sigh before clapping “Up you go, girl. It is been a long time since we last helped any of you girls to a season changing, but as far as I remember it did not include soaking for a day under scented water”

Temperance was already at her side, hands warm and maternal as she helped her niece rise from the bath, wrapping her in linen embroidered with laurel vines. “There we are. One foot, then the other. You’ve always been the hardest to lift. Even when you were a girl you carried everything on your shoulders.”

Primness tisked. “She carried her sisters, that’s what. And their drama. And their broken things.”

“She loved them,” Temperance said, guiding Love outside the bath back to her bedroom, sitting her in front of the mirror in a cushioned stool and patting her dry with firm, kind strokes. “Still does.”

“Unwise. But then, she was always romantic.”

“And you were always the realist.”

“Which is why I’m still sane.”

Love, swaddled and pink-cheeked, gave a soft snort as her aunts worked around her like orbiting moons. Primness reached for an ivory comb and began dragging it through damp curls with surprising gentleness, her sharp tongue not matched by her touch.

“Hold still,” she ordered. “Not even a miracle conditioning would tame your knots. Always a battlefield this hair of yours.”

Temperance was already at the dressing screen, laying out chemise, corset, underskirts, bodice, gown, layer upon layer in soft shades of pure white. “Do you remember,” she said lightly, “the last time we did this for a solstice?”

Primness grunted. “Not since they were little brats, who could not control the seasons properly neither mortal’s emotions.”

“Living with us. After their parents-”

“Yes, well.” Primness waved the memory away like ash. “That’s ancient history. And they were a menace!” Primness sighed, a shiver went through her as she remembered those little girls causing havoc in her manon “Remember how many days it took them to understand how to sit properly at a table?”

“She was six hundred,” Temperance chided, though smiling. “Do you remember, Love? The time when Melancholy insisted on a veil so thick she walked into a pillar.” Temperance said with a smile. “And Pride tied her corset herself and nearly fainted.”

“Happiness thought hers should sparkle, and almost set us both on fire” Primness said dryly. That brat almost ruined her curtains. “and Honesty wanted hers to match your apron, Temperance, because it was the only honest piece of fabric in the house.”

They laughed, softly, warmly. Love smiled despite herself. She remembered those days. The scent of crushed grass on bare feet, fingers stained with berry juice, flower crowns wilting under the sun. There were secret staircases and crooked corridors where they played at being queens long before any of them knew what ruling meant. They sang to the wind, made oaths in whisper, and every night came gently, like a mother’s lullaby. The world was smaller then. So full of promise. So possible.

“You always were the lovely one,” Temperance murmured with pride, helping Prim secure the unruly curls in a hairdo half up, half down.

“You,” Primness said, eyeing her niece, correcting her sister “were always the only hope.” She continued to comb her hair, already shaping the curls. “Happiness and Honesty were a lost cause, Pride too full of herself to obey and Melancholy was, well too melancholic.” Prim recollected “You were the only one who sat still, who listened. Eyes like spring rain and just as quiet. Once you asked if flowers would ‘bloom better’ if you perfected your dancing steps.”

“Did I?” Love asked, voice fragile as a thread of light.

Temperance nodded, helping her older sister in pinning their niece’s curls. “You did. And when they did bloom, you cried.”

“I thought I broke them.” Love had a memory of her red face, clutching to a rose. The petals were soft, vibrant, and she'd been sure her clumsy dancing had ruined it.

Primness scoffed, snapping a curl into place. “You thought everything was your fault. Still do.”

“You didn’t understand the changes that came with spring” Temperance said, her voice a thread of silver through the silence.

“And the blood, you foolish girl, clutched to the stem, blood dripping from your hand, ruined your dress.” Primness said regretting the ruined silks.

Eoster held her hands. She could still feel the sting of the thorns in her palms, the ache in her small fingers wrapped around a perfect rose. But the pain hadn’t mattered. The girl didn’t even flinch. All she cared about was that the flower survived.

Temperance’s hands stilled. Her voice, when it came, was soft as wind through reeds. “Maybe if you’d had someone to tend the garden with you, you would’ve understood.”

“Maybe if she wore gloves,” Prim muttered. “Or a bit more sense.”

Love looked at her hands. The hands of a delicate elegant queen. The rose she clutched, the marriage she stayed, even as it bled her. The beauty she tried to protect, even when it turned on her.

She thought if she held it tighter, danced more perfectly, loved more purely, it would bloom the way she dreamed.

And there wasn’t someone for so long to tell her otherwise. There was silent, coldness.

Maybe it was too late to change how the rose was held, maybe it was too late to avoid the thorns to sting her palm and blood being spilled.

But maybe now she could ask someone to help her prune the thorns.