Chapter 286. Last Breath

*Isaac*

Whatever dreamlike state I’ve been suspended in lifts, replaced by soft, golden light. I open sore eyes and blink away the blurriness, that dreamscape replaced by the rippling, swirling mural of florals painted on the ceiling in my bedroom.

My bedroom back home at the castle.

I don’t move. I’m not sure if I’m actually here, or if this is another trick of my mind. The last several weeks don’t seem real at all. Not the war, not the battles, not the unrelenting darkness that swallowed my lands whole.

But there is sunlight here. It warms the sheets around me and my skin. My chest is bare, and I glance down and see a ray of golden light full of dust that shimmers like silver stars. I raise a hand and turn it back and forth in the light, watching the dust swirl around my fingers in a dizzying dance.

She turns in her chair by the window, her wine-red hair cascading loose down her back. She stands, those stormy, dark blue eyes wide. Her cream-colored si