Chapter Five

Aedan

Darkness lay thick across the room, as though the night itself were some heavy, living creature crouched between the walls. Only embers still glimmered in the hearth; their faint orange glow just grazed the edges of the furniture, while the cold moonlight spilling through the window etched pale patterns on the glass—like signs creeping in from the other side of the world.

I woke to Nyra trembling beside me.

She was gasping, throat dry, eyes wide as if too much light had been forced into them; it took minutes before she realized she was sitting upright in bed, her fingers digging into the fabric of the blanket. Then… she broke. At first, a soft sniffle. Then tears—silent, then shaking, like a child who has stayed quiet too long. Her shoulders quivered, her face buried in her hands. And in me echoed the words she had heard in her nightmare: “You do not choose. The blood has already chosen.”

The cradle. The fire. The crying. The signs. And the knowledge that something was alread