Someone sobbed, breaking through the spell that had tried to keep Casden from ever waking. Casden could barely hear the sobbing, the voice small and faint inside his head, but still, he heard it.

Someone was calling his name, and crying. Casden let the small crying voice lead him back, the faint touch on his hand making him look towards it.

But as he moved forewards, he felt someone else was also there with him. They were Invisible to his eyes but he could feel their presence.

This other presence felt weird to Casden. It didn’t feel like it belonged to this place. Casden stopped ascending when this foreign presence latched onto him, trying to keep a desperate hold on his hand. Whatever was holding onto to him, suddenly pulled him back to the ground and knocked the breath from his lungs. Their tight grip on his arm pulled him from the dream and back into the darkness of nothingness.

They whispered. "You will return for it is your destiny..."

Casden felt the release on his mind instantly as fear instead took over. He felt his hands shaking and he felt like the darkness around him was trying to swallow him whole.

When he thought he could never escape this darkness, only then did he wake.

Casden jolted awake and sat up in his bed. When he cracked his eyes open, the bright light of his room almost blinded him. He found many faces staring at him, causing him to gasp in shock.

He was glad to be back in reality but then he felt a faint sting in his eyes which made him close them. Only the stinging intesified and he started to panic.

Casden’s eyes began to burn and his breathing fell at fast pace. He dropped back onto the bed clutching his head with his hands and screaming from the pain that suddenly started to wreck its way through him.

"Casden!” Gale screamed as she saw her brother writhe in pain. "Oh, by the gods...Calus! Get mother quick! Casden’s burning up!”

Whatever was happening to him, Casden felt as if his head was about to split in half. Gale watched over her brother as he cried out, wringing her hands anxiously. She couldn't explain what she had seen, one moment Casden mumbled in his sleep in an unexplained language and the next moment, he was glowing - it was a bright light that had surrounded his body. Then the light suddenly flashed and tried taking casden with it, only Gale and Calus had quickly grabbed onto their brother's hand, trying to keep the light from taking him. They gave it all their might until the light finally dimmed and Casden woke.

But earlier she had also realized Casden was becoming transparent, and that had frightened Gale to no end. That was before she began to grab at her brother, yelling for him to wake up. And now it was like his skin was on fire, just what is happening to him?!

"Make it stop! It burns! It burns!” Cansden continued to cry out in pain and agony.

"Step aside!” Their mother said as she quickly entered the room. "Gale, go fetch some cold water!”

She saw her daughter was still frozen to the spot and demanded coldly. “Hurry child!”

Gale snapped out of her trance and hastily did as her mother wanted.

Bethany looked down at her baby boy crying on the bed. She was wondering what else was going wrong with their family. Her husband had just been laid off at the plantation and money was becoming an issue, now if Casden was to become ill, they would not know how to get by and care for him.

Rushing back in the room with a pail of cold water, Gale soaked a damp rag in it and passed it over to her mother. Bethany had already stripped Casden and as she feared, his body was as hot as a fire stove. This was definitely not normal, Bethany thought and started to panic. But she couldn't show any of that on her face, less she frighten her other children.

The cold rag placed on his body helped to calm Casden down and his breathing eventually evened out. But his eyes remained close and he was still groaning a little.

Sighing, Bethany took the rag from her youngest head after sometime and switched it for a fresh one.

"I will leave you each to watch over him,” Bethany told Gale. "I have to run down to Mr Benton and get Casden some pain medicine.. keep cooling his head with the cloth."

After she said this to her oldest children, she stood and left them in the tiny room to tend to their younger sibling.

Bethany set out in the cold winter night to find help for her baby, even if it would cost them an arm and a leg.

Back in the room, Casden had opened his eyes a little, the burning he had felt becoming dull.

"Gale…” He tried calling but his voice was too hoarse and the words sounded garbled.

"Oh by the gods, Casden! Thank heavens! We thought you wouldn't wake up."

Clearing his throat casden look at his sister weeping by his side.

"W-wa…”

"Here drink this."

Easing up on his elbows, Casden let Gale feed him the cold liquid. He closed his eyes as the water did it's jobs and soothe his throat.

"Thanks…”

"What was that casden? Something...we haven't told mother because we are scared." Gale looked at casden with frightened eyes.

"What was what? All I know was that I was dreaming... then I woke up in pain."

"You were like... y-you were surrounded by this bright light casden... we had to pull you out of it...i-it was like you were going to disappear..." Gale whispered in fear. "And you kept speaking in some unknown language..."

"W-what did I say?”

Gale glanced at Calus who was standing quietly at the end of the bed. He was also looking a little shakened up.

"Facio, Voco...something, you kept calling someone...moon.” Gale said softly. “Casden, just what is going on?”

*********

"The sun shall rise and meet the moon, and the two shall rule the skies together. When the bond is set, the sun shall shine brighter than ever, the kingdoms shall fall to bring forth an Empire. If the sun should die, the moon shall be no more and Thelinora shall crumble."

"Facio, Voco, Ferre" = "This I do, I call, to bring you forth"