All Chapters of The stolen Heart : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

I hummed before I even realized I was doing it. It was a habit my father warned me about, back when he was still alive. Humming in public, where anyone could hear. But the kitchen was empty, the fire was low, and the night outside was quiet enough that I forgot myself. The pot in front of me bubbled softly, steam curling up into the dark, and for a moment it felt like the whole world had shrunk down to just this: the fire, the warmth, the quiet. *Hush now, child, beneath the moon,* *The embers sleep, but wake too soon.* *Beyond the veil where shadows fly,* *A dragon waits beneath the sky.* I didn’t know where the song came from, only that my father used to sing it to me as a child, late at night, his voice barely above a whisper, as if the walls themselves were listening. After he died, my mother begged me to stop. “Never sing that, where others can hear you,”she warned, again and again. “Promise me, Mira.” “I promise,” I always said. Just to get her off my back. She never e

Ryo POV “Hey.” I raised my hand to catch the bartender’s attention, and it worked. He walked over. “Give me something strong,” I said, before he could ask. He turned without a word and came back a moment later, setting the cup down in front of me. I gave him a nod of thanks. Just one sip and I felt whole again. I’d been on this journey for a while now, and finding a place like this quiet, anonymous, far from anyone who knew my name felt like the closest thing to relief I’d had in days. I was halfway through my drink when a woman walked in, and the whole room shifted around her. She had the kind of dress that didn’t belong here, hair slightly windswept and undone, like she’d ridden hard to get to this town. For some reason, she had me sitting up a little straighter too. The regulars weren’t used to women walking in especially not one with a sword strapped to her hip. She strode past the stares like she didn’t notice them, heading straight for the bar like she had every right to

Ryo POV I stared, wide-eyed, at the slender frame of the girl as she rode out into the streets on a horse twice her size completely steady, completely in control of the beast beneath her. I couldn’t help but smile, and before I knew it, I was laughing out loud. She had bested me. No one ever bested me. I was the trickster here. *There’s more to her,* I thought. “Surely you don’t find this funny?” Anya asked. “No not at all, Anya.” I forced the words out, still fighting off another round of laughter. I wondered what she could possibly need with the only book on the Ember Heart in existence. What was she, exactly? It couldn’t have been simple curiosity there had to be more to it than that. Was she searching for it herself? And if so, why? “I need to inform the guards. She can’t have gotten far,” Anya said. “That book needs to be retrieved.” Something in me went still at the thought of guards on her trail. I realized, with a strange jolt, that I didn’t even know her name and som