Ian's POV
I couldn’t breathe.
I just kept staring, kept blinking, my heart pounding fiercely inside my chest as though I was faced with a ghost.
The f**k!
What was I even saying?!
This was something worse than ghosts. This was more scarier.
The figure hovering above the shimmering pool wasn’t human. She wasn’t even a creature. She was presence. A rippling form suspended in mid-air, not made of flesh or bone, but of liquid light. As if moonbeams had slipped beneath the water and forgotten how to return.
No feet. No solid form. But still - there were eyes. A mouth. A soul.
A voice.
“Welcome to Silwyn Woods,” she whispered.
Her voice struck before my ears could register it. It crawled into my bones like frost, sinking deep into my marrow. Unshakable. My chest tightened, my lungs s
