Page 111 of Cursed By the Dawn

They fractured like broken statues, bones collapsing as their power surged up in a void of pure, light-eating darkness.

Mithras raised his free hand, golden light pulsing from his palm.

And with a final burst of brilliance—

The void was consumed.

Our combined power, along with the long-awaited deaths of Raelion and Estaroth, ignited an immediate, mind-bending change in the Dream Realm. Erebus tucked me into his chest as the world raged around us. We lost sight of Mithras in the chaos. It was destruction. It wascreation. I held on tightly, unwilling to be separated from him. When the world finally stilled, I tentatively opened my eyes. We were suspended above a bright, glistening Nocturne, its glass-like waters reflecting the Dream Realm’s starlit sky.

A sky slowly filling with light as the spirits of our Shadow Legion rose up and away to be with the Maker.

My chest seized. I’d never seen anything so beautiful and heartbreaking in all my life.

The bare skeletons of Raelion and Estaroth sat hunched over what remained of Citadel Evernight, a stark reminder of what we’d just barely overcome. There was no more fighting. No more screams. No more demons. We’dwon. Thousands of dreamers, those who had gathered in Istralla, stood before the bones, gaping as they beheld both the fallen demons and the shimmering Nocturne. Nine bridges rose from the Nocturne’s depths, connecting the domains with Evernight. Fire, water, earth, air, past, present, future, light.

And shadow.

Our domain was empty now. All our dreamers, all the spirits, had ascended to be with the Maker. All except Ceveon and Sorren. They were standing near the surviving dreamers, grinning at Erebus and me. I couldn’t believe it.They’d chosen to stay.But there was one person still unaccounted for.

Elliot.

Where was Elliot?

“Esmer!” shouted a voice somewhere below. To my left—my lower left. “Esmer!”

I was barreling to the ground before I could think twice. Elliot was taller and thinner than I’d ever known him to be, and wearing armor that marked him as a trainee Light Legionnaire, but he was still Elliot.

“Elliot,” I sobbed, squeezing him so tight that I thought I heard his armor crack. “You’re alive.”

His dark hair flopped over his eyes as he cried, voice deeper but still brimming with glimpses of that childlike wonder and inherent goodness that was sohim. He held me as if I were a ghost made into flesh, and I held him as if I could stitch back every year we’d lost.

His eyes flicked up to Erebus and my stomach dropped.

Surely he wouldn’t condemn him as the Shadow Bringer?

“I saw what you and Erebus did,” Elliot said, wiping away what he could of his tears. “We all did. We were trapped in the Beyond, but we could feel you calling for us. And when you fought those demons with the Light Bringer, we were in the Nocturne watching. It was cradling us. Letting us rest until we were ready to be free.”

Hesitant, I looked around.

But it was true.

The dreamers weren’t staring at us in fear. No, they were looking at us in openjubilation. My shoulders instantly relaxed. Mithras flew above us, held up by wings of pure white. He was disintegrating slowly into soft golden threads, a mirror to how he’d looked in the Beyond. Only this time, he was absolutely radiant.

“Thank you,” Mithras said, tears falling from his face. “Thank you for saving Noctis. Thank you for saving the Dream Realm. And thank you for redeeming me.”

Erebus flew up to embrace him; I followed closely behind.

His body melted away into golden swirls of light as he disappeared in Erebus’s grasp, finding solace in the arms of the one who was once—and always would be—his friend.

“You’re dying,” Erebus said, bewildered.

“Raelion sustained me for centuries,” Mithras said, smiling sadly. “Just as Estaroth sustained Silas. He is already gone. It is my turn now. But I feel at peace. More so than I’ve felt in centuries.” He looked to the sky; not to the sky we could see, but beyond it. “I can feel my father and mother, just beyond the veil. I can feel the Maker, too. I only wish that I could stay long enough to see what you’ll build. The world you’ll shape. How brilliantly you’ll make Noctis and the Dream Realm shine. That is my only regret.”

His face was breaking apart now. The edges were unfurling like paper left to the flame.

“You will be good for this world,” Mithras said, his body more light than man. “You and Esmer will bring a new dawn upon Noctis. One worthy of everything we’ve lost. And one day, I will see you both again.”

With that, he was gone.