Chapter 891: Terrible nightmare
Dawn settled heavily over the Celestial Palace. After the political confrontation, the provocations, the tests of strength, and the constant tension that had marked the audience with the Emperor, the enormous complex seemed finally surrendered to the rare silence of the deep night hours. Corridors once watched over by attentive eyes now remained almost empty. Lanterns of bluish light burned in stone niches, casting long shadows across the ornate walls. Outside, the wind swept through hanging gardens and elevated terraces with a continuous whisper, as if the palace itself breathed while its occupants rested.
The group had been given spacious quarters, perhaps out of genuine hospitality, perhaps out of strategy. The chambers reserved for them were in a secluded wing, adorned with slender columns, discreet tapestries, and beds large enough to accommodate important visitors without insulting them with modesty. Yet, despite the comfort, none of them slept completely relaxed. Everyone in that place knew that palaces rarely truly rested.
Ouroboros was the first to fall asleep.
Lying on her side in one of the central beds of the shared room, she seemed calmer than usual. Her face, free from the vigilant posture she maintained while awake, revealed an almost youthful serenity. Her hair spread across the pillow in soft waves, and her breathing followed a regular rhythm. For those who only knew her while awake, it would be difficult to imagine that this same woman possessed a mind capable of anticipating conflicts before they even arose.
But that night the peace was short-lived.
The dream began without warning.
She was running.
There was no clear context, no stable landscape. Only the visceral certainty of urgent movement. Her feet pounded against a floor that changed every instant: damp stone, dark sand, ancient corridors, living roots, cracked snow. The environment transformed with each step without obeying any logic, as if the world itself refused to fix a form sufficient to be understood.
Ahead of her was something.
Or someone.
A distant silhouette, always just a few meters beyond reach, moving too fast to be seen clearly. Sometimes it seemed small, almost childlike. At other times tall and slender. At others, a black mass without defined contours. Ouroboros knew only that she needed to reach it. The need was absolute, so strong that it nullified any questioning.
She tried to call out.
No sound came out.
The figure turned a corner that hadn’t existed a second before. Ouroboros ran after it, crossing a corridor of closed doors. Each door vibrated with internal noises: cries, laughter, familiar voices, muffled screams, old promises. She ignored them all.
The silhouette continued ahead.
Faster.
Further away.
Despair began to grow not because she was losing something, but because she sensed she had already lost something before.
The scenery changed again. Now she was running through a forest of trees too tall, whose trunks were made of cracked mirrors. In each reflected fragment she saw different versions of herself: child, warrior, old woman, bloodied, smiling, dead, empty. None helped her. They all just watched as she passed.
The figure ahead crossed the woods.
Ouroboros increased her speed until her lungs burned. Branches cut her skin. The ground crumbled into black mud. Even so, she continued.
When she finally managed to get close, she reached out and almost touched the shadow.
Then it turned its face.
There was no face at all.
Only emptiness.
A deep, impossible emptiness that seemed to suck away warmth, memory, and meaning. Ouroboros staggered back in the dream, and around her all the trees began to rot instantly. The sky cracked like glass. Familiar voices began calling her name from all sides, but each voice carried accusation.
You were late.
You left.
You forgot.
You failed.
She spun around in panic, searching for the source of the sounds, and saw dozens of hands emerging from the earth, trying to reach her. Small hands, large hands, old hands, childlike hands, burned hands, bloodied hands. All pulling at her ankles.
The faceless figure was now behind her.
Very close.
Ouroboros tried to run again.
She couldn’t move her legs.
The void leaned towards her as if to whisper something into her soul.
She woke up screaming.
The sound tore through the entire room.
Her body abruptly rose from the bed, breathing irregularly, her hands trembling as they sought support on the crumpled sheet. Tears streamed down before she even fully understood where she was. Her chest rose and fell too quickly. Her wide eyes scanned the room unfocused, still trapped between dream and reality.
The others’ reaction was immediate.
Tiamat practically leaped out of bed, landing on the floor and instinctively searching for an invisible threat. Scarlett woke with a start, her hand reaching for the dagger under her pillow before realizing there were no enemies invading the room. Strax opened his eyes and rose in a single fluid movement, his face flashing with total alertness for a fraction of a second.
Then they all saw.
Ouroboros was crying.
Not discreet tears, not restrained breathing. She was truly crying, uncontrollably, like someone whose internal structure had suddenly cracked.
This frightened the three of them more than any attack.
Strax was the first to act. Without hesitation, he crossed the space between the beds and sat beside her, pulling her into a firm and immediate embrace. His arms enveloped Ouroboros with the speed of someone who doesn’t think, only responds.
"Hey. Hey. It’s okay. You’re here."
His voice, usually marked by irony or casual harshness, was low and urgent now.
Ouroboros gripped the fabric of his clothes with involuntary force, as if she needed something solid to stop the world from collapsing again. She continued to cry, her face pressed against his shoulder, her breath broken between sobs that seemed to humiliate her as much as they hurt her.
Scarlett stood still for a few seconds, still holding the dagger without realizing it. Her eyes alternated between Strax and Ouroboros, clearly disoriented.
"She... she’s hurt?" she asked, her voice lower than usual.
"No," Strax replied without letting go of Ouroboros. "I think it was a nightmare."
Tiamat remained standing beside the bed, her mouth open.
She had never seen Ouroboros cry.
Never.
Not after bad battles. Not in the face of death. Not under physical pain. Not in moments when anyone else would have crumbled. Ouroboros was, for Tiamat, a constant. Intelligent, cold when necessary, calm when everyone else went mad.
And now she trembled in Strax’s arms like someone lost.
"This... this is real?" murmured Tiamat, unable to hide her shock.
Scarlett finally sheathed the dagger and approached slowly.
"Perhaps that’s not the best question right now."
Ouroboros tried to speak, but her voice failed her. She needed two breaths before she could form words.
"There’s... there’s something wrong with me."
Strax stepped back just enough to look at her face.
"There’s nothing wrong with you."
"Yes, there is." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I feel awful. Awful. Like... like something is broken inside."
Tears kept coming, further frustrating her attempt to compose herself.
Strax held her face in his hands with unexpected care.
"Listen to me. You had a bad dream. That’s all."
"No." She shook her head desperately. "It wasn’t just that."
Tiamat slowly sat on the edge of her bed, still staring at the scene as if she didn’t understand the natural laws of that room.
"I’ve never really seen that," she said quietly to Scarlett.
"Neither have I," replied Scarlett, equally serious now.
Ouroboros took a deep breath and almost choked in the process. Strax ran his hand through her hair, trying to steady her.
"What did you see?"
She took a few seconds to answer.
"I was chasing something. Or someone. I needed to reach it." Her voice trembled. "But I never could. And when I got close... there was nothing. It was empty."
The room remained silent.
"Then everything started blaming me."
Scarlett crossed her arms, her expression less playful than perhaps they had seen on her in a long time. "Blame for what?"
"I don’t know." Ouroboros put her hand to her chest. "For everything."
Strax pulled her close again.
"Dreams lie."
"Sometimes they reveal," she murmured.
Tiamat snorted, trying to regain her composure.
"If dreams revealed anything, I would have already destroyed three continents and married two fire serpents."
Scarlett gave her a look.
"Curiously specific."
"It’s not the time."
The clumsy attempt at humor did little good, but prevented the atmosphere from sinking further.
Ouroboros was still trembling. Strax noticed and pulled the blanket around her while keeping her close to him.
"Look at me."
She slowly raised her red eyes.
"You’re here. In this room. With us. Nothing is chasing you."
"But it feels like it is."
"Then I chase back."
She let out a small sound between crying and involuntary laughter.
Scarlett exhaled through her nose.
"It’s annoying how this sometimes works."
Tiamat finally approached the bed, even less comfortable with emotions than with battles.
"Do you want water? Or I might threaten a nightmare. I don’t know how these things work."
Ouroboros wiped part of her face with her sleeve.
"Water would be better."
"Great. Finally, a clear mission."
Tiamat strode quickly to the pitcher on the sideboard and returned, almost offended by the simplicity of the task. She handed the glass with surprising care.
Ouroboros drank slowly, her hands still unsteady. Strax held the glass along with her to prevent her from spilling.
Scarlett sat at the foot of the bed.
"You’ve been carrying a lot," she said, in an unusually gentle tone. "Sometimes the mind chooses dramatic times to collect."
Ouroboros let out a weak, tired laugh.
"That sounds wise coming from you."
"Write down the date."
The silence that followed was no longer one of panic, but of recovery.
Outside, the wind continued to blow through the elevated gardens. Inside the chamber, Ouroboros’s breathing finally began to slow.
Tiamat watched everything, still somewhat stunned.
"I really thought you were immune to this."
Ouroboros rested her head on Strax’s shoulder, exhausted.
"Immune to what?"
"To being... human."
Scarlett raised an eyebrow.
"Deep for someone who almost offered to punch a nightmare."
"I’m layered."
Strax snorted a short laugh.
"Layers of violence."
"Also."
Ouroboros closed her eyes for a few seconds, now not asleep, just resting.
"Sorry for waking everyone."
"If you apologize again, I’ll throw you out the window," said Tiamat.
"I agree," Scarlett finished. "Nightly dramas are part of living together."
Strax squeezed her hand lightly.
"You don’t need to apologize for suffering."
Those words brought tears to her eyes again, though now without the previous despair.
"That was annoyingly beautiful," Scarlett commented.
"Shut up," Strax replied without any real hostility.
Tiamat pulled up a chair and turned around to sit down, resting her arms on the backrest.
"No one else is going to bed anytime soon, are they?"
"Probably not," Scarlett said.
"Great. Then tell us secrets."
"No."
"Damn it."
Ouroboros took a deeper breath, finally stable enough to speak without breaking down.
"Thank you."
No one responded immediately, as if thanking each other was too strange to be treated naturally.
Then Tiamat shrugged.
"Next time, warn me before you collapse emotionally."
Scarlett smiled.
"Next time, cry less frighteningly."
Strax merely rested his forehead against hers for a moment.
"Next time, wake me up before the nightmare arrives."
Ouroboros closed her eyes and, for the first time since waking up, believed that perhaps she could breathe normally again.
That dawn, in a palace that didn’t belong to them, surrounded by fragile alliances and future wars, four dangerous figures remained awake around a bed only because one of them needed to collapse.
And none of them mocked it again.
