“Your focus is too rigid,” Dimitri says, his voice calm. “The shadows don’t obey like a blade does. They only move if you invite them.”
I sigh, brushing loose strands of hair from my face. “I’m inviting them. They just keep ignoring me.”
Kallan watches from the side, leaning on the wall, arms crossed, and smiling softly. He tries to hide it, but I can see the frustration. His magic is fire. The shadows won’t listen to him, and vaelshadbelongs to those who can command darkness.
“Try again. Picture a place within sight. Somewhere your mind can hold clearly,” Dimitri says, taking a step closer.
This time, I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. The shadows rise around me like a tide, brushing my shoulders, curling along my arms. The world vanishes. When the shadows melt away, I’m directly in front of Kallan.
He grins proudly. “That’s my girl.”
Then everything falls away.
I’m younger now, curled in the big velvet chair by the fire. My father sits across from me, the flicker of flames dancing in his tired eyes. His shoulders are strong, his voice steady as he reads aloud from the old stories I used to love. My mother sits beside me, humming softly, brushing out my hair with slow, gentle strokes.
A feeling swells in my chest. Peace. I had forgotten whatit had felt like.
The fire dims, and the dream changes again. A different memory now. A deeper one.
The lake shimmers under the starlight. I stand at the shore, my heels forgotten in the sand, my feet kissed by the cold water. Behind me, I hear the laugh that always melts my tension, always brings the warmth back to my skin, no matter how long the day has been.
I turn toward him.
It’s Kallan’svoice. The same playful tone, the same quiet strength beneath it. But it isn’t his face.
It’s Koen standing there, shirt damp from the water, onyx hair tousled by the wind, that crooked grin on his face that makes my heart twist.
He says something, but the dream muffles his words.
I laugh anyway, reaching for him, my fingers brushing his wrist. The touch is familiar and grounding.
This isn’t right,a voice whispers in the back of my mind.
Itfeelsright, though.
I remember this. I remember the way his hand had once wrapped around mine, how we danced in the clearing after midnight, how he whispered promises I once believed.
Only...it had been Kallan. Hadn’t it?
Why is it Koen’s hand holding mine now? Why is it Koen looking at me with love and sorrow?
The stars ripple above us like water. His mouth moves again, but no sound comes. I want to reach him. To ask. To understand.
But the dream slips through my grasp like water throughmy fingers.
The stars fade. The lake dissolves. I’m in the forest, sunlight filtering through the leaves. The trees blow in the wind, and the world is quiet except for the sound of footsteps beside me.
I look, expecting Kallan. But it’s Koen again.
He doesn’t speak. He simply walks beside me, holding my hand. The silence is warm and familiar. I feel safe.
We reach a clearing. It’s the one I always sneak away to, the one not many know about.
“Do you remember this place?” Koen asks softly, kneeling to brush his fingers along the wildflowers blooming near a fallen stone. He looks up at me, and for a heartbeat, his eyes aren’t Koen’s at all. They are Kallan’s. The same deep, storm-gray color. The same pain hidden behind the calm.
I take a step back. He doesn’t follow. He just looks at me like he has so many times before…before he died. Like I was the center of his world, and he was afraid to hold too tightly.
The clearing vanishes.
