The Memory Beneath Her Skin
541 Words
Liora collapsed beneath a tree’s twisted roots, the footsteps fading ahead. Cael stood guard a few paces away, blade drawn, eyes scanning the dark.
She didn’t mean tostranger’s close her eyes.
Didn’t mean to fall.
But magic was still crackling in her blood—whispers coiling through her bones like forgotten lullabies.
And the moment she blinked—
She was no longer in the forest.
She stood in a field of silver flowers, under a sky stitched with stars.
It wasn’t real.
It was a memory.
But not just any memory.
It was the last time she saw her mother.
A woman stood among the blossoms, her hair the same silver-blonde as Liora’s, her eyes like stormlight and sorrow. The moon lit her face, and yet, shadows clung to her robes like secrets.
The Veiled Witch.
She turned, smiling gently.
“Liora, come. Sit with me.”
Liora moved without thinking.
She was twelve again. Barefoot. Heart soft.
She remembered this moment. And yet—it felt different now.
Heavier.
“I had a dream last night,” her mother said, plucking a silver flower and spinning it between her fingers. “The kind that tastes like prophecy.”
Liora sat beside her. “What did you see?”
“You. Dressed in flame. Smiling like vengeance.”
She looked at her daughter then, her voice suddenly distant.
“You were walking into a palace. And everyone bowed.”
Liora swallowed. “But they hate us.”
“They fear us,” her mother said. “Because they buried what they couldn’t kill. And they think bloodlines can’t rise from graves.”
She leaned closer. Her breath was warm, her words soft and sharp.
“You are not just my daughter.
You are the promise they tried to erase.
One day, you will stand in the very hall where they damned me.
And you will make them remember.”
Liora trembled.
She remembered crying then, not understanding the weight her mother placed on her shoulders.
But now—now she felt every shard of it.
“Will you be with me?” young Liora whispered.
Her mother’s smile broke.
Tears shimmered in her eyes.
“No, little flame,” she said. “But I’ll be beneath your skin. In your blood. In the fire you wield.”
She leaned in and pressed a kiss to Liora’s brow.
“When the world tries to silence you,
Burn louder.”
The dream dissolved like mist.
Liora gasped awake, a tear drying on her cheek.
The roots above her trembled slightly. The forest had grown colder.
Cael crouched beside her. “You were murmuring in your sleep.”
She blinked, dazed. “What did I say?”
He hesitated. “You said… burn louder.”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
Then stood.
When she opened them again, something inside her had settled. Not peace. Not fury.
Purpose.
The mark on her shoulder still burned.
But now, she knew what it meant.
It wasn’t a curse.
It was a warning.
To the Queen. To the court. To everyone who thought the Vale name had died.
She was coming back to finish what her mother started.
Not as a ghost.
But as fire reborn.
- Writer
