Chapter 26: "After the Echo"
I sat up, gasping. Sweat clung to me like guilt after a poorly thought-out prank. The sky was back. The stars, real. The ground... real enough to hurt.
I blinked. Looked around.
My wife—still sleeping next to me. Her hair tangled, one arm flopped dramatically over my chest like she passed out mid-lecture. Arc lay beside me too, humming softly like a sword with a hangover.
Lyria? Face-down in the dirt. Elegant as a sack of potatoes.
Grubnuk? Snoring. Loudly. Curled like a cinnamon roll of emotional damage.
> "Of course," I whispered. "That all happened."
I remembered everything. The void. The shadow. The fight. The echo.
I remembered the child version of me singing a broken melody and somehow healing something that swords never could.
And then…
> "Wait—where's the Prince?"
I stood. Wobbled. Looked around.
No sign of velvet. No perfume of expensive entitlement. No royal groaning.
He was gone.
Greg rolled over nearby, clutching his ferret like a stuffed toy.
> "You look like you saw your future taxes," he muttered.
> "The Prince is gone."
Greg blinked. Sat up.
> "Oh dear. Either he woke up early and ran away… or something woke him up and took him."
Arc's voice buzzed in my head.
> "I felt something. Just before we came back. A pull. Like a thread being cut."
> "You think it took him?" I asked.
> "I think… whatever's behind this story isn't done with us yet."
The wind shifted. A whisper through the trees. One word.
> "Dandelion..."
We turned. And in the horizon, the land twisted again—this time, toward a new chapter. A darker one.
But for now, we gathered what remained. Tended to the bruises. Woke up the snoring. And made breakfast over prophecy-fueled campfire.
Because even when reality breaks— you still need pancakes.
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End of Chapter 26 (Dreams end. Mysteries deepen. And the Prince is missing... again.)