The silver eyes
~ Aria POV
Every night, I had the same dream.
I stood in a dark forest, the cold moonlight brushing my face. Shadows shifted around me, and everywhere I looked, silver eyes glowed, staring at me silently. The wolves in my dreams circled me, but instead of attacking, they bowed their heads, lowering themselves as if I were their queen. I never understood why.
I had asked my mother when I was little, and she had smiled softly, brushing my hair from my face.
“Wolves are not just animals, my little one,” she had said. “They see things humans cannot. They protect those chosen by the moon. One day, you may understand, my darling.”
I had laughed then, thinking it was a bedtime story, a tale meant to make me sleep with wonder instead of fear.
But now, the dreams felt real. Too real.
I shivered in my thin dress, waking to the cold reality of my small room. My parents were gone. They had died when I was very young.
Their bodies were found one morning in the market square. The night before, they had gone into the forest to pick herbs for the village. They never returned.
Nobody knew what had happened.
Some whispered it was punishment for their sins.
Others said they were cursed.
But I never believed it.
My heart told me they were murdered, and I had to find out who had done it.
My aunt, a cruel woman, had taken me in after my parents’ death. But “taken in” meant nothing but daily insults, harsh labor, and endless punishment.
“You useless girl!” she would scream. “If your parents were alive, maybe you’d be something. But they are gone, and I’m stuck with you! Weak, pitiful, helpless—you are nothing like them!”
I pressed my face into my thin arms, wishing the words could vanish. I worked from dawn to dusk, washing dishes until my fingers cracked, scrubbing floors until my knees bled, carrying water from the well until my arms shook. Sometimes, my aunt would lock me outside in the scorching sun or pouring rain, shouting insults through the window while I shivered and prayed for even a shadow of kindness.
The villagers didn’t care for me either.
Children never played with me.
Women whispered when I passed.
Men glanced away quickly.
To them, I was the orphan girl, the one who had lost everything and had no one to protect me.
Even strangers looked at me with suspicion or pity.
I had nowhere to go. No friends. No safe corner. No warmth except for memories of my mother.
At night, I hugged myself, wishing I could feel the comfort of a family that had been ripped away.
And every night, the dreams returned.
The silver eyes. The bowing wolves. The cold forest. Something deep inside me stirred when I woke, a strange pull in my chest I could not explain.
My heart raced, chills ran down my spine.
It was as if the dreams were calling me, trying to tell me something I could not yet understand.
Sometimes, I thought the stories my mother told me as a child were coming to life. Wolves weren’t just stories after all.
There was magic in the world, something powerful that whispered to me in the night, something waiting for me.
I curled tighter on my thin mat, staring at the ceiling as moonlight crept into the room. Tears fell silently, not from pain but from the loneliness that had settled over me like a thick, heavy blanket.
My parents were gone. My aunt was cruel. The villagers avoided me. And yet… in my dreams, I was never alone.
The silver eyes watched.
The wolves bowed.
And deep down, I knew, even if I did not understand how or why, my life was about to change forever.
Something was coming. Something I could feel, but not see.
And when it arrived, the me who had lived my life as a powerless, lonely human would never be the same again.
