Page 70 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Two

Dawn's Surrender

~GWENIEVERE~

Sunrise filters through the room like liquid gold, warm and languid as it spills across surfaces still half-shrouded in fading night.

The gentle transition from darkness to light tugs at my consciousness, drawing me slowly from the depths of dreamless sleep into a state of peaceful awareness.

I can't remember the last time I felt this comfortable, this perfectly warm and content. Even before opening my eyes, I sense something different about this waking moment — a security that goes beyond mere physical comfort, touching something deeper within me that's been brittle with wariness for too long.

My body feels wonderfully heavy, limbs loose with the kind of relaxation that only comes from truly restful sleep. The pillow beneath my cheek carries an unfamiliar scent — cedar and night air with subtle undertones of something sharper, almost metallic, yet oddly comforting.

When I finally allow my eyelids to lift, the world comes into focus with lazy reluctance.

The first thing I register is that I'm not alone.

Sometime during the night, I've become thoroughly entangled with another body. My legs are wrapped around a muscular thigh, one arm draped across a chest that rises and falls with deep, even breaths.

My head rests not on a pillow as I'd thought, but in the crook of a shoulder, my face nestled against a neck where I can feel the steady pulse of a heartbeat against my cheek.

Cassius.

The realization brings a rush of heat to my face, embarrassment flooding through me as I become acutely aware of our intimate position. I've essentially climbed him in my sleep, wrapping myself around his form like ivy seeking support from a sturdy oak.

Yet despite my initial mortification, I make no immediate move to disentangle myself. There's something profoundly peaceful about this moment — this quiet intimacy unmarred by the complications and tensions that fill our waking interactions.

Instead, I take the opportunity to study him in a way I've never been able to before.

In sleep, Cassius looks younger, the carefully maintained mask of Duskwalker stoicism temporarily abandoned.

His features, typically set in careful neutrality or calculated distance, have softened into an expression of genuine peace. The harsh lines usually marking his brow have smoothed away, and his lips — those same lips that have hardly ever curved into true smiles in my presence — appear almost gentle in repose.

His silver-black hair falls across his forehead in disarray, so different from its usual immaculate arrangement. The sight of these unruly strands humanizes him somehow, transforming the untouchable Duskwalker prince into someone more accessible, more real.

My gaze drifts to his closed eyes, noting how his lashes cast delicate shadows against his high cheekbones. Those eyes, whenopen, carry centuries of carefully controlled observation — silver depths that seem to catalog every detail without revealing the thoughts behind them.

Now, with their piercing intensity hidden behind closed lids, I can admire the perfect arch of his brows, the subtle hollow at his temples, the barely visible scar that traces a fine line along his left cheekbone.

Where did that come from?

I wonder, resisting the urge to trace it with my fingertip. What battle or trial left its mark on a being whose very nature should make him impervious to most physical harm?

I glance around the room, seeking Grim's miniature form.

The little shadow being is nowhere to be found, having apparently disappeared sometime during the night. His absence leaves us truly alone, observed by no one as dawn gradually strengthens outside.

My attention returns to Cassius, unable to resist the pull of his sleeping presence. I've never seen him this unguarded, this vulnerable.

Sure, asleep, yes…but like this. It’s much more raw…and beautiful.

The realization sends a different kind of warmth through me — not the heat of embarrassment but something more tender, more dangerous to my carefully maintained emotional boundaries.

Against better judgment, I find myself reaching up, fingers hesitating just millimeters from his face before making contact. The touch is feather-light, barely there as I stroke his cheek with the barest whisper of contact.

His skin feels cool beneath my fingertips, yet somehow radiates a different kind of warmth — the kind that comes from within rather than from physical temperature.

What are you dreaming about?

The question forms in my mind as I watch the subtle movements behind his closed eyelids, evidence of whatever visions visit him in sleep.

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