Chapter 8: Cursed

Aaron’s words left Asher staring at him.

"In your dreams?"

The prince nodded weakly against the pillows.

Asher glanced toward the heavy chamber doors, then back at the pale figure in the bed. He suddenly wished someone else were present, preferably someone who could explain why the Crown Prince of the human kingdom had been dreaming about a broke fortune teller from the lower districts.

The only people nearby were the guards stationed outside, and Asher had a strong suspicion that announcing "His Highness has been having prophetic dreams about me" would not improve anyone’s evening.

"So," Asher said carefully, "you’ve been dreaming about me."

"Yes."

"For how long?"

Aaron hesitated. The truth sounded worse when spoken aloud, but his life was already hanging by a thread. Withholding information would only make things more dangerous.

"Months."

Asher’s eyebrows climbed. "Months?"

"Yes."

"That’s..." Asher looked around the opulent sickroom as if searching for an escape. "That’s incredibly uncomfortable."

A faint, tired smile touched Aaron’s mouth, the first real flicker of amusement Asher had seen from him.

"You’re not what I expected."

"Neither are you," Asher replied. "I expected the Crown Prince to look considerably less pale."

Aaron gave a quiet laugh that quickly dissolved into a harsh cough. Asher was on his feet at once, moving to the side of the bed and steadying the prince by the shoulder.

"Easy."

The fit passed. Aaron closed his eyes for a moment, breathing carefully, before looking at Asher again.

"You really are him."

Asher frowned. "Who?"

"The man from my dreams."

The words should have been flattering. Instead, something cold slid through Asher’s stomach. He had already seen pieces of Aaron’s future when he first examined him. If the prince’s dreams resembled any of those visions, Asher was not certain he wanted to be part of them.

"What exactly did you see?" he asked once he had steadied himself.

Aaron’s brow furrowed slightly, as though the memories were difficult to sort. "You. Sitting in a small room."

Asher’s pulse skipped. "A small room?"

"It was dirty. Very dirty."

Asher slowly withdrew his hand from the prince’s shoulder. That description matched his old room in the lower districts far too well.

"There was a table in front of you," Aaron continued. "Something on it."

"My crystal ball?"

Aaron nodded. "You were using it. Talking to someone. I could never see his face clearly, but the build... it was a man."

Asher said nothing.

Aaron’s breathing quickened a fraction. "And sometimes... there was blood."

Asher’s expression hardened, and he suddenly felt a chill. "Whose?"

"I don’t know."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. The floor. The walls. Your clothes."

Asher’s stomach turned. "Was I hurt?"

"No."

"Was anyone else there?"

Aaron shook his head. "Sometimes I saw people running. Sometimes I heard screaming. Sometimes I saw a throne."

"A throne?"

"You were standing in front of it. Looking at someone."

"Who?"

"I never saw their face."

Asher rubbed his forehead. This conversation had already become far more complicated than examining a sick prince should have been.

"So every dream was different?"

"Not always. Sometimes the same images repeated." Aaron’s eyes locked on him. "You. Older. Not by much—only a few years. But you looked different. You weren’t smiling. You looked angry."

Asher shrugged, it sounded like him. "I can be angry."

"I know. I’ve seen it."

"In the dreams."

"Yes."

Asher exhaled. "Wonderful. Apparently even in your subconscious I’m difficult."

Aaron’s faint smile returned, then faded. "You were holding someone’s hand."

The last of Asher’s humor vanished. "Whose?"

"I don’t know. I could never see them. They were always behind me. But I knew something was wrong." His fingers tightened in the blanket. "I was dying."

The room went still.

Aaron’s voice dropped. "In some of the dreams I was lying in this exact bed. People around me—physicians, guards, family. And every time, you were there. Watching. Sometimes... you were crying. You looked angry about it."

Asher let out a slow breath. He had walked into the palace expecting a strange illness, a reading, and a swift return to Marcel before the week expired. He had not expected the Crown Prince to have been seeing him in visions long before they ever met. And he certainly had not expected those visions to include his own presence at the prince’s death.

He pulled a chair close to the bed and sat.

"These dreams," he said. "Do you think they’re predictions?"

"I don’t know."

"Have any of them ever come true?"

Aaron was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded. "My illness. I dreamed of lying in this bed three months ago. The fever began almost exactly two months later."

Asher’s fingers curled around the edge of the chair. So the dreams were not ordinary. They were fragments of possible futures, pieces of events that had not yet fully formed. Different from Asher’s own gift, which showed shifting possibilities, but no less dangerous.

He leaned forward. "When you dreamed about dying... what did you see?"

Aaron met his eyes. "You. Beside the bed. Holding my hand. You told me not to be afraid. And then I died."

Asher stood abruptly. "No."

Aaron frowned. "No?"

"That isn’t happening."

"You can’t know that."

"I can. Because you’re still here."

Aaron stared at him for several seconds, then gave a weak, genuine smile. "That’s your argument?"

"It’s a very good argument."

"It isn’t."

"It is to me."

Aaron laughed softly. This time the sound did not break into coughing. Asher found himself smiling in return, until the moment the laughter faded.

Something shifted. The same strange pull he had felt earlier when their skin touched returned, stronger now. Asher’s eyes narrowed. He reached for Aaron’s wrist again.

The instant their hands met, the chamber vanished.

For a heartbeat Asher saw Aaron standing in a dark corridor—older, healthy, a crown on his head, people bowing around him. The image fractured. Aaron lay on a stone floor, blood spreading beneath him. Another shift: Aaron before a throne. Another: Aaron screaming. Another: Aaron still and lifeless.

Asher tried to wrench free. He could not.

Something moved behind the prince in the vision, a dark, smoky shape clinging to him like a second shadow. It pulsed, feeding. The darkness drifted closer to Aaron’s chest. Aaron’s mouth opened in a silent gasp—

—and Asher was back in the sickroom, ripping his hand away as if burned.

Aaron looked alarmed. "What happened?"

Asher stared at him, breathing hard. "How long have you been feeling weak?"

"Three weeks."

"Before that."

Aaron frowned. "I was tired. More than usual. I couldn’t sleep. Nightmares every night."

"That’s when they started?"

"No." Aaron looked confused. "The dreams have always been there."

Asher’s stomach dropped. The fever had only been the moment the rest of the world noticed. Something had been draining the prince long before the visible illness began.

And Asher had seen it, the dark thing attached to him. He was not ready to name it. Not yet.

Aaron watched his face closely. "You saw something."

Asher forced his expression to smooth. "I saw pieces of your future. Several of them. Sometimes you lived. Sometimes you didn’t."

Aaron looked unsurprised. "That’s what I see too."

"Does it ever stop?"

"Yes." Aaron’s voice quieted. "When you’re here. The dreams stop when you’re near. They haven’t returned once since you entered the palace."

Asher glanced toward the door. "That’s... interesting."

Aaron’s gaze dropped, almost embarrassed. "That’s why I didn’t want you to leave. Every time I dream that you’re gone... I see myself die."

For once, no joke rose to Asher’s lips. He simply stood there, looking at the Crown Prince, then slowly drew the chair closer and sat again.

"Well," he said quietly, "I suppose that means you’re stuck with me for the week."

Aaron smiled. "Good."

Asher returned the smile, but weakly. Something was terribly wrong in this palace. He could feel it, now more than ever, and whatever it was didn’t want him here. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions yet, but he was almost certain that the prince was cursed, and whoever that had cursed him wanted him dead.