Fatigue was more serious than the night’s chill. The mental training had left Elara’s mind feeling both fortified and raw, like a muscle pushed past its limit. The haunting image of the intelligent Soul-Eater and its chilling prophecy swirled in the quiet pool of her newfound stillness, a dark sediment she couldn’t dissolve.
She fell into a sleep that was less rest and more a surrender.
And she dreamed.
But it was not her dream.
She stood on a windswept plateau under a sky blazing with unfamiliar constellations. The air smelled of ozone, petrichor, and something metallic blood, but older, more potent. Moon-blood. She was Elara, and yet she was not. Her consciousness was a passenger, looking out through eyes that were not her own.
Kael’s eyes.
But not the Kael she knew. This was a mem
