The dream

 This was written for the story that I am also writing, but I love the imagery so here we go:

I slept deeper than I had in days—so deep it felt as if the world loosened its grip on me entirely. And in that depth, something opened. I say I dreamt, yet it was more than a dream, less than reality… a vision suspended between breath and oblivion.

I was no longer myself. I was a blood-red phoenix, rising effortlessly through a sky so vast it seemed to breathe around me. Flames unfurled from my wings and tail—silken ribbons of fire that curled and shimmered, spilling molten embers that tumbled into the wind like falling stars. Everything glowed in shades of crimson and gold.

Beneath me stretched lands I had never seen—emerald plains so lush they gleamed like polished jade under sunlight. Hills rolled like sleeping giants, rising and folding in endless waves, pausing only to give way to wide, serene flatlands. Rivers glittered like silver serpents, dividing the country into four perfect quarters—each one familiar yet humming with its own soft magic, as if each were a variation of the same enchanted dream.

Buildings dotted the landscape like forgotten memories, and a colossal tree commanded the center—its branches sweeping the sky, its roots wrapped in a gentle green hill. I soared over its crown, then over a broad expanse of water where the light bled into darkness and the sky turned the color of bruised twilight.

My own flames became my lantern.

Below, the land shifted—now a vast swamp, black pools stitched together by islands of mud and rot. The stench of decay rose thickly, sharp and oppressive, yet threaded strangely through it was the unexpected sweetness of unfamiliar flowers—petals glowing like shards of stained glass. A contradiction. A warning.

Crows swooped beside me, wings brushing the edges of my fire. Their presence was an omen—an escort into something hidden and ominous. Ahead, a dark castle emerged, but by the time I reached its looming shape, its walls dissolved like mist, and I was suddenly within.

The walls—black stone—shimmered as if alive, shifting subtly each time I blinked. Beautiful. Dangerous. Hypnotic. Other fae drifted past me, cold as winter drafts, glances sliding through me as though I were carved from the stone itself.

Then came the voices—whispers curling through the air like smoke, none of them familiar until one slipped directly into my ear. Quiet. Commanding. Divine. The voice of a Goddess.

And I followed.

I moved through corridors like flowing water and found a small chamber hidden like a secret heartbeat within the castle. The room pulsed with mysteries—scrolls stacked like slumbering knowledge, gold glinting faintly in candleless light. But at its center, on a pedestal of shadow, rested what called me.

A ring.

Five gems braided together in a cage of twisted metal—red, blue, white, green, black—each one a tiny world glowing softly, humming with ancient power. I stared for what felt like an eternity and an instant. Then the ring shuddered, exhaled light, and darkness wrapped around me like a living thing.

It tightened… coiled… constricted…
I could not breathe.
I could not scream.
I could only fall—

I woke violently, coughing, my lungs burning as though the dream still held its grip. The cold stone beneath me told me where I was—the castle I had fled from. The place I had sworn never to return to.

My body flinched before my mind could catch up. My eyes, wide with fear, searched through the lingering mist of confusion as a voice drifted toward me—soft, distant, and terribly real.