Prologue

Hushed voices slip through the dark like smoke beneath a door.

Whispered urgency. A tremor of fear woven between each word. The sound pulls at me from somewhere deep, somewhere I don’t recognize but somehow know.

I lie still beneath my blankets, barely breathing.

The hallway light spills in through the crack of my bedroom door, thin and pale, doing nothing to chase away the heavy darkness pressing against the walls. The air feels wrong. Thick. Suffocating.

A sharp crash shatters the quiet.

A man shouts.

Glass breaks.

I yank the blanket over my head and scramble backward until my spine hits the wall. My eyes sting, but I don’t dare cry. If I cry, they’ll hear me. If they hear me—

Another crash. Closer this time.

The whispers are gone. Now, only raised voices. Struggling. Something heavy slams into the floor. The house groans as if it feels pain.

And then—

The smell.

Smoke.

It creeps in slowly at first, curling beneath my door like a living thing. My chest tightens. My heart pounds so hard I’m sure it will burst.

“Vaelora.”

The voice is distant. Muffled. Aching.

I squeeze my eyes shut. This isn’t real. It can’t be. It feels like a story I once heard. A nightmare I’ve had before.

But the heat is real.

It seeps through the walls. Through the floor. Through my skin.

A scream splits the air.

A woman’s scream.

I bolt upright beneath the blankets, but I can’t move. My body won’t listen. The air grows hotter, thicker, impossible to breathe. Shadows flicker red beneath my door now, dancing like cruel spirits.

“Run!”

The word echoes in my skull.

The door bursts inward in a spray of sparks and splintered wood. Flames roar behind a towering silhouette.

A man steps through the fire.

I cannot see his face — only the outline of him carved in burning light.

And his eyes.

They glow.

Not with reflection.

With power.

The world fractures into red and gold. Heat devours everything. The scream tears from my throat—

I wake choking on smoke that isn’t there.

My room is dark. Quiet. Whole.

No fire.

No screaming.

Just the echo of it lingering inside my bones.

My hands tremble as I press them to my chest, half expecting to feel ash, soot, proof.

There is nothing.

Only the faint scent of something burned… clinging to memory.

I tell myself it was just a dream.

It has always been just a dream.

But somewhere deep inside me—

Something knows it wasn’t.

The silence in my room feels wrong. Too still. Too watchful.

I strain to hear something—anything—but the house is quiet. No footsteps. No crackling flames. No distant sirens. Just the steady tick of the clock on my nightstand and the ragged sound of my own breathing.

One thirteen a.m.

It’s always the same time.

My throat burns as if I’ve swallowed smoke. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and press my bare feet into the floorboards, half expecting them to be warm.

They aren’t.

They’re cold. Solid. Real.

I stand slowly, drawn toward the door before I can stop myself. My fingers hover over the handle. For a split second, I hesitate, my pulse drumming in my ears.

What am I expecting to find?

Ash?

Charred walls?

A man with glowing eyes waiting in the hall?

I pull the door open.

Darkness greets me. Harmless. Ordinary.

The hallway stretches empty in both directions. The air smells like laundry detergent and old wood. Nothing more.

But as I step back into my room and close the door, I swear I hear it—

A faint crackle.

Soft. Subtle.

Like something, somewhere, is still burning.

And deep beneath my ribs, warmth flickers in answer.