“‘ . . . Of all Elements born, belonging to naught.’ —We have found her! Looking in the scrying bowl, I saw her magics surge. I’ve never seen anything like it. Incredible.”
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
Idream.
There’s something ancient, just out of sight.
I try to call out, but my voice catches in the wind. I reach for something—someone—and the moment I touch it, it slips through my fingers like smoke.
Then—a flicker.
Light twists like flame in wind. Cold slithers in—heavy andwrong. The kind of cold that feels like grief before it has a name.
Smoke and heat rise behind me. I turn.
Lyra’s house is burning, flames climbing the thatched roof, crackling and alive. Shadowed figures shift through the alley—too many to count.
I spin. The village is ablaze, smoke coiling into the sky like a scream. And at the center of it—a figure. Silver eyes. White hair like moonlight. Lips blood-red.
He smiles, slow and wicked, like he’s seen this before. Like it’s already happened.
Liora is burning.
Then, a voice.
“Amara . . . my starlight . . . it’s time. Wake up.”
Not Mother’s voice. Someone else.
It wraps around my name like a caress.
And a command.
“Wake up.”
I jolt upright, heart pounding, breath caught in my throat.
Mother is there, crouched beside my bed, her hands on my shoulders. Her face is drawn in the moonlight, her brows pulled tight with worry.
“Amara,” she says again. “Are you alright? You were tossing, crying out—”
I grab her wrist. “Mother,” I breathe. “Something’s wrong.”
She blinks. “What do you mean?”
I throw off the quilt and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. “The village—something’s happening. We have to wake the Durnharts.”
She stares at me, startled. “But—Amara, it’s the middle of the night. What are you—?”
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” I cut in, already grabbing my boots. “But I felt it—saw it!”
The words taste strange in my mouth, like they weren’t mineto begin with.
Mother hesitates, eyes searching mine. I can see the doubt in her furrowed brow, the caution—but underneath it, something else.
Memory.
