Aria POVThe fortress slept, but I couldn’t.The world felt stretched thin too quiet, too still the kind of silence that happens when something big is waiting to breathe.From my window, I could see the sea. It was calm again, unnaturally so. No waves, no wind. Just the red shimmer beneath the surface, faint as blood beneath glass.Every night since the fog, I had dreamed of her. But tonight, the dream didn’t wait for sleep.It began with the sound. A hum, low and steady, threading through the stones beneath my feet. It rose through the walls, into my bones, until it became part of my pulse.“Aria…”My breath caught.I’d heard that voice before not in nightmares, but in the moments between them.“Clara?”The air didn’t answer, but the window frost began to form patterns circles, spirals, runes half-remembered. The same sigils from the old scroll.I reached out a hand, tracing one lightly. The moment my skin met the cold, the room vanished.I stood ankle-deep in water. Not the sea outsi
Last Updated : 2025-11-08 Read more