Sold To The Cruel Prince

Chapter 149: Shaking Dreams

Aveline slowed as she approached him through the endless meadow, confusion slowly replacing the joy that had filled her only moments ago.

Something was wrong.

The Theron in her dreams had always felt warm to her. Even when he teased her, even when he acted distant, there had always been something unmistakable in his eyes whenever he looked at her. Recognition. Familiarity. Possessiveness. Tenderness hidden beneath sharp words.

But now... He was only staring at her, as though he did not know who she was.

Aveline’s steps faltered.

"Theron?" she called softly again.

The wind moved through the wildflowers between them, carrying the scent of rain and sunlight, yet the warmth of the dream was beginning to disappear. Even the sky seemed dimmer somehow.

Theron did not answer.

His expression remained unreadable, his dark eyes fixed on her with a strange distance that made fear slowly creep into her chest.

Aveline tried to step closer, her heart beginning to pound harder.

Why was he looking at her like that? Why did it feel as though she had become a stranger to him?

The Theron in her dreams usually moved according to her heart, almost as though the dream itself understood what she longed for. He would smile when she wanted comfort. Stay when she feared abandonment.

So why...

Why was he acting like he had never seen her before?

Before she could understand what was happening, the meadow suddenly trembled around her.

The flowers vanished first.

Then the wind.

Then the sunlight itself.

Darkness swallowed everything whole.

And Aveline was left alone inside it.

-----

Meanwhile, Theron woke with a sharp gasp.

His body jerked upright violently, breath ragged as sweat clung heavily to his skin. Damp strands of dark hair stuck to his forehead and neck while another line of sweat slid slowly down the bridge of his nose and along his back beneath his soaked shirt.

The room was dark and silent. But his heartbeat thundered violently inside his chest.

"What was that..." he whispered hoarsely.

His fingers dragged through his sweat-damp hair while his breathing slowly steadied. The muscles in his shoulders remained tense, tight beneath pale skin as though his body itself still remembered the dream even when his mind struggled to grasp it.

He had seen that woman earlier in the day. The strange girl standing in the corridor of the Arcanum.

Aelion Sylvarien’s woman.

And now... She had appeared in his dreams. She did not merely appear. She had called him by his middle name.

Theron.

A name almost no one used. A name most people did not even know.

Theron’s brows furrowed sharply.

Something cold settled deep in his stomach.

What exactly was going on?

The feeling returned again—that unbearable sense that something inside his memories had been torn open and stitched back together incorrectly.

That woman... She did not feel like a stranger his eyes had simply lingered on.

No.

The ache in his chest whenever he thought of her was far too deep for that.

And the more he tried to ignore it, the more obvious the gaps in his memory became: missing pieces, blurred edges... thoughts that slipped away the moment he reached for them.

Theron slowly lowered his hand from his hair, his eyes darkening.

Then the thought came to him at last, heavy and terrifying.

Did his father... erase part of his memory?

The idea should have sounded absurd.

And yet the moment it surfaced, something inside him clenched painfully in recognition.

Because the King had been acting strangely for the past few days.

Theron’s jaw tightened.

A faint pulse of anger stirred beneath the numb emptiness inside him, not because he remembered what had been taken, but because deep in his soul...

He could feel that something precious was missing.

But... how come he was involved with a woman belonging to another man?

Nothing made sense. He needed to investigate.

-----

Aveline woke abruptly from the darkness of that dream, her breath uneven as though she had been struggling against something unseen.

For several long moments, she remained still beneath the covers, staring into the dimness of her room while her heartbeat slowly calmed. The remnants of the dream clung stubbornly to her chest, leaving behind a strange ache she could not shake away.

She lifted a hand and rubbed her forehead tiredly.

The dream had felt wrong.

She remembered seeing Theron earlier that day beneath the oak trees. He had looked exhausted somehow, distant in a way that lingered painfully in her thoughts even now.

Was she simply internalizing that?

Was her mind twisting her worries into strange dreams because she missed him too much?

Or... Was it something else entirely?

Aveline frowned slightly. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

She had already wondered whether the vision of those shadowy figures attacking Theron had been a premonition rather than imagination. What if this dream was the same? What if something truly had happened to him?

The thought made unease crawl beneath her skin.

Or perhaps there was something deeper connecting them, something she still did not understand.

As she sat there lost in thought, a strange grinding noise suddenly broke the silence of the room.

**Crunch**

Aveline blinked.

A faint flicker of candlelight trembled nearby, casting soft gold shadows across the floor. She turned toward the sound slowly, her sleepy thoughts instantly sharpening with caution.

The first thing she noticed was the faint glow on the ground.

One of the aetherstones.

"Hamilton..." she whispered.

Hamilton was crouched beside her bedside table, happily chewing on the glowing stones she had stolen from the Archduke’s laboratory as "compensation."

One stone had already vanished completely.

And now he was crunching enthusiastically into another.

"Hamilton!" Aveline scrambled upright at once and hurried over, quickly snatching the remaining two stones before he could swallow those as well.

The little creature looked up at her immediately. Instead of guilt, his tail wagged.

Aveline stared at him in disbelief.

"You like it?" she asked slowly.

Hamilton blinked his large amber eyes at her and wagged his tail harder as though proud of himself.

Aveline could only stare.

Ever since he was born, he had never properly eaten anything. She had worried endlessly about it in secret, wondering how something so strange and tiny could survive without food.

And now it turned out... He liked aetherstones?

She looked down at the half-chewed crystal in disbelief.

This overlooked glowing stone... What exactly was it?

But as she continued staring at Hamilton, another realization slowly settled over her.

He had changed again.

Aveline’s eyes widened slightly.

His wings.

Before, they had been small and thin, almost fragile-looking, as though they could never truly support his body. But now they appeared longer, stronger, the delicate membranes shimmering faintly beneath the candlelight.

They no longer looked decorative.

They looked functional.

And Hamilton himself had grown again.

Not dramatically.

But enough for her to notice immediately.

Aveline slowly crouched beside him, her earlier anxiety fading into stunned fascination as Hamilton chirped happily and nudged his head against her hand.

"What exactly are you?" she whispered softly.

Hamilton only blinked at her innocently before trying to reach for the remaining stones again.