The Dream and the Tide

Chapter Four — The Dream and the Tide

The night turned restless.

The sea whispered against the cliffs below Willow Lane, and in the cottage, Rowan stirred beneath her blankets, caught in the kind of sleep that feels like drowning.

Rowan’s Dream

She was barefoot in the fields again. Frost clung to the grass, cold seeping into her bones. The moon hung heavy above her, swollen and watchful, silver light spilling like water over the horizon.

Smoke threaded through the air — faint at first, then stronger. It smelled of oil and burned wood. Her heart began to race.

“Not again,” she whispered, though she didn’t know why she said it.

The farmhouse stood ahead, glowing red behind its windows. Flames licked the roof, the door. She heard her mother’s voice — clear and terrified — calling her name.

“Rowan!”

She ran forward, but the ground stretched beneath her like sand, her feet sinking, her breath ragged. The closer she came, the hotter the air became, until it shimmered and fractured.

Then she saw her.

Isolde.

Her grandmother stood within the fire, untouched by it, her long hair twisting like smoke, eyes lit with the same silver fire as the moon. The flames bent away from her, bowing instead of consuming.

Rowan stopped, trembling. “Grandmother?”

Isolde’s voice came through the crackle of the blaze, soft and endless.

“The fire was not meant to destroy you, my star. It was meant to reveal you.”

The flames flickered, shaping into wings that rose behind her. In the center of the inferno, something glowed — a circle of light, ancient and alive.

Windy appeared beside Rowan, smaller now, her fur aglow with faint lunar shimmer. When she looked up, her mismatched eyes caught the reflection of the burning moon: one blue, one brown, and in the brown, that tiny spark of blue pulsed brighter than ever.

“Windy?” Rowan whispered.

The dog leaned close, pressing her head to Rowan’s knee, as if to anchor her against what came next.

From the fire, Isolde raised her hand.

“When the moon chooses, the blood remembers.”

Then everything collapsed — the sound, the color, the world itself.

Lucien’s Awakening

Lucien woke with a sharp breath, hand gripping the sheets. His chest ached as if he’d been standing in that same fire.

For a moment, he couldn’t tell whether the vision had been a dream or a memory. The scent of smoke still clung to him, faint but unmistakable.

He had seen everything — through her eyes.

The field. The farmhouse. The Moon’s light breaking through the smoke. The child crying out for her mother. The black dog standing guard.

He rose, crossing to the window where the moon hung over the harbor, too bright for midnight.

The mark on his wrist glowed softly, a symbol of the bond Selunara had forged long ago — one that now pulsed in time with Rowan’s heartbeat.

“She’s remembering,” he said quietly to the night. “And I can see it.”

Wind shifted through the open window, carrying the faintest trace of chamomile and smoke.

Lucien looked toward Willow Lane. He could feel her presence even now, sleeping restlessly, unaware of the tide she had stirred.

“The past is bleeding through,” he murmured. “The fire’s not finished with us.”

Outside, the waves struck the rocks below with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

And from somewhere deep within the mist, the Moon whispered back.