“Caelen,”she shrieks.
Standingin the mouth of a dark grove is a figure that doesn’t belong to this era. He is encased in heavy, ancient armor. He doesn’t move. He simply stands there watching the tragedy unfold. A faint metallic clink catches my ear. I can feel his gaze through the narrow slit of his visor.
“Wait!”I scream.
I run after them,my feet hit the scorched earth with heavy thuds. The faster I run, the more the world begins to warp. The ash turns into thick, silver mist; the smell of burnt cedar shifts into the sharp, clean scent of fresh water.
The knight doesn’t moveas I pass him, but the metallic clink of his suit rings out like a funeral bell.
“Not yet, Lumi,”a voice whispers directly into my mind. It sounds like stones grinding against each other.
I’m soclose to the man wearing the warpaint. I put everything I have into my next few steps. My fingers graze his back, but the second I touch him, he shatters into a thousand shards of ice.
The ground falls away.The sky collapses.
“Come back to me, Naya.”
I gasp.The sensation of falling is replaced by the sudden, heavy pressure of water against my skin. My eyes snap open. I’m not on a battlefield, I’m in Andrik’s bed, wrapped in his arms.
“Come back to me, Lumi,”he whispers. “I’m right here. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
“I had this dream,Andrik—there was a woman and a battlefield. A knight, a literal knight in shining armor.”
“A nightmare,”he murmurs, stroking my hair. “Maybe from the fever?—”
“No.”I pull back slightly. “It felt real. Like a memory that wasn’t mine.”
“I believe you, ael’soryn.”He lowers his antlers. “Tell me about it. What happened in this dream?”
“I don’t know.There was this woman running barefoot through the woods. Two identical men were chasing after her.The first one kept screaming ‘Naya,’ over and over again. ” I shake my head in confusion. “She called him Caelen, and I don’t know why, Andrik, but hearing those names makes me feel like I’m drowning.”
Something flickers across his face,pain maybe? It’s gone before I can name it.
“Just a dream,”he says quietly. But his arms tighten around me.
I restmy head against his chest, trying to slow my heartbeat.
The names echoin my skull over and over, like pieces of a puzzle I should know how to solve, but the edges are blurring and melting before I can lock them into place.
Andrik’s breathing shifts.I glance up, but he hushes me back against his chest. His lips brush against my forehead. “Sleep, Lumi. I’ve got you.”
I let my eyes close,but the names keep spinning behind them on an endless loop.
The witness POV-
The cottage is perfect now. Every detail is exactly how it should be. For her.
I step back,surveying the room with a critical eye. The bed is made with the fresh linens I took from her apartment—the ones that still carry the faint scent of her laundry detergent.
Her favorite candlesline the windowsills. Lavender and rose petals are scattered across the pillows in a pattern so precise it looks grown rather than placed.
She’ll finally seehow much I care. She’ll see that while he offered her a cage of ice, I built her a sanctuary of home.
I adjustthe curtains for the third time, making sure they hang evenly. Everything must be perfect. She deserves nothing less than a masterpiece.
I moveto the small table by the window, my pulse jumps as my fingers trail over the items I’ve collected. A ribbon she dropped in the snow. A pressed flower from the path she always walked home from work. The sketch I drew of her sleeping.
Once the elixir is complete.Once she’s in my arms. He’ll be nothing but a memory, and she’ll see that I was the one who truly loved her all along.
