Chapter 17: The Echo Between Us
1015 Words
The wind stirred the tall grass on the hills surrounding Blackthorn. The crescent moon hung low, casting a pale sheen over the terrain like a half-forgotten memory. Within the High Command’s training grounds, Kaelen moved through a silent routine, sword in hand, breath steady, feet rooted to the ground.
He was not at peace.
Each strike of his blade sliced through the air with precision, but his mind was elsewhere. Not even the cold steel could distract him.
He hadn’t dreamed of Aelira in over a week.
And for someone once bound to her scent, her touch, her essence, absence was a scream that echoed through his soul.
She was gone. Still alive, he knew that much. The mate bond had not snapped.
But the silence between them had deepened into something painful.
And then last night, something changed.
A scent.
Faint.
Almost forgotten.
It had brushed past him on the wind, subtle but impossible to mistake.
Aelira.
Only it wasn’t.
Kaelen had followed it for hours, through woods and frost-laced trails, deeper than patrols dared to wander. And then it vanished, like smoke.
He didn’t speak of it to the others. Not to Commander Thorne, not to the council. Not even to himself.
But it left a mark.
Something was wrong.
---
Far beyond the Blackthorn borders, Aelira awoke with her heart pounding.
She sat upright in the cot within their small Elowin inn, the moonlight cutting sharp lines across the wooden walls. Her breathing was shallow, throat dry.
“I felt… him,” she whispered.
Thalia stirred. “What?”
“Kaelen.”
Thalia blinked, now sitting up too. “Did you… dream of him?”
“No. It was more like a pull. A thread stretching.”
She rose, walking to the window. The night smelled of pine and a coming storm.
But another scent lingered too.
She turned slowly.
Sera stood at the far end of the hallway, near the stairwell, half-shadowed in the gloom. She looked as though she'd just come inside.
Aelira's voice was quiet but firm. “Where were you?”
Sera hesitated. “Just… needed air.”
Thalia’s brows furrowed. “At this hour?”
Sera smiled, soft and innocent. “Bad dreams.”
Aelira’s eyes narrowed. She said nothing, but her instincts howled.
---
That same night, in a forest clearing not far from Elowin, Sera knelt by a pool of moonwater. The surface reflected her face, delicate, ethereal, but not hers.
She reached into a pouch and withdrew a folded cloth. Pressed between its folds was a single silver hair and a vial containing the faint trace of Aelira’s blood, lifted from a bandage discarded days ago.
She placed both into the water.
The reflection shimmered.
Her features twisted.
For a brief second, her eyes became Aelira’s.
She smiled.
“Soon.”
---
Back in Blackthorn, Kaelen stood before the council chamber’s moonstone windows, the pale light soaking into his armor.
He turned as the door opened.
Commander Thorne stepped in, his face grim.
“A messenger from Elowin arrived this morning,” Thorne said.
Kaelen turned, hope flashing like fire. “Aelira?”
Thorne hesitated. “They say a girl arrived two nights ago… traveling with two others. A rogue, a healer, and… someone who matches Aelira’s description.”
Kaelen’s chest clenched. “She’s alive.”
“She left this morning, headed west.”
Kaelen didn’t wait for permission.
---
Aelira felt it too.
A pulse in the air.
A familiar pressure, like gravity shifting.
“Kaelen’s coming,” she whispered.
Thalia looked up from the herb pouch she was sorting. “Are you sure?”
Aelira nodded. “I can feel it. The bond is waking up.”
Sera said nothing.
She sat on a log, hands clasped delicately, her eyes lowered.
But inside, panic rose.
She hadn’t planned for this.
Not yet.
---
Two nights later, they made camp in the woods bordering the Silver Hollow. The air was heavy with mist, and their fire crackled low beneath damp branches.
Aelira wandered from the camp, needing distance. Her head ached, her senses tangled.
She hadn’t meant to think of Kaelen again. She hadn’t meant to want to feel him near.
But she did.
And it scared her.
Because despite all the strength she’d found in being alone, the idea of him still reaching for her in silence… it burned.
“You shouldn’t be alone out here.”
She turned.
Sera stood behind her.
Too close.
Aelira’s eyes narrowed. “You followed me.”
“I was worried.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
Sera stepped closer. “I know you don’t trust me. I know I don’t deserve it. But I can be useful. I want to help you.”
Aelira’s arms crossed. “Then stop lying.”
Sera’s breath hitched. “I’m not. . .”
“You smell like me.”
Sera went still.
Aelira’s voice dropped, soft but laced with steel. “That’s not natural. Not by accident. You’ve taken something. You're using something.”
Sera’s mask slipped, just slightly.
Just enough.
Her smile faltered. Her eyes flicked to the side.
And Aelira saw it.
“I don’t know what you want,” Aelira said, stepping forward now, “but I swear on the moon that if you try to hurt him, if you try to use me to reach him, I will end you myself.”
For a moment, their eyes locked.
And something ancient flickered in Sera’s gaze.
Not fear.
Challenge.
Aelira walked away without another word.
Behind her, Sera clenched her fists. Her glamour shimmered faintly, unstable.
The time was running short.
She would need to move soon.
Before Kaelen found the real Aelira.
---
Kaelen pressed his palm to the stone at the edge of the Elowin border, feeling the trail. Faint, but unmistakable. She had passed through.
And someone else had passed with her.
A scent too familiar.
Too wrong.
His heart twisted.
“Hold on,” he murmured. “I’m coming.”
But already, in the darkness ahead, the trap was being laid.
- Writer
