Chapter Two: The Black–Robed Men
518 Words
Elara had always believed the world beyond her village was a myth spun by old travelers and mad priests—places where rivers ran backwards and stars spoke in riddles. She never imagined she’d leave home in the company of men who didn’t cast shadows.
The Ordo Nocturne made no small ceremony of her departure. No prayers. No warnings. No goodbyes. Only the low rumble of hooves against frost-hardened earth and the sound of Ana weeping behind the door.
Calderon rode ahead, silent but watchful. The other monks trailed behind, saying nothing, their faces hidden beneath their cowls.
Elara rode a gray mare with silver eyes and a bristled mane. The animal seemed calm, almost eerily so. No reins. No saddle. Just a deep sense of purpose, like it, too, had been called to this journey.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they passed the edge of the forest.
Calderon didn’t turn. “To Valea Umbrei.”
Elara frowned. “That place doesn’t exist.”
“You’ve never needed it to,” he replied.
---
By nightfall, the path had vanished entirely.
They traveled now through an ancient forest, thick with black pine and roots like gnarled hands clawing from the soil. Fog pooled low over the ground, hiding shapes that shifted if she looked too long. More than once, she thought she saw faces—half-formed, watching.
“You’re seeing the Veil,” Calderon said without prompting.
“The what?”
“The boundary between waking and dream. This forest runs along its edge.”
Elara tightened her grip on the mare’s mane. “Is it always like this?”
“Only for those the world wants to forget.”
---
They made camp in a clearing of dead grass, ringed by standing stones etched with runes that shimmered faintly in the dark.
No fire.
Calderon claimed flame could invite things from the other side.
Elara curled into her cloak, shivering, listening to the hush of the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a woman’s voice cried softly. A lullaby in a language she didn’t know—but understood.
“Who sings that?” she whispered.
Calderon looked up from where he knelt, hands pressed to a stone. “No one.”
---
That night, the dream returned.
She stood before a mirror made of black glass, its surface rippling like water. Her reflection stared back—but it wasn’t her. The woman in the mirror was older, regal. Her eyes glowed gold. Her lips were bloodstained.
And behind her, in the mirror’s shifting depths, stood the man in red.
He touched her reflection’s shoulder.
And she smiled.
---
Elara woke gasping.
The forest was still. But the runes around the camp flickered, pulsing softly like a heartbeat.
She looked toward Calderon.
He was already awake, watching her.
“You dreamed again,” he said.
She nodded. “She looked like me. But not me.”
“She was you,” he said. “Once.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said gently, “that the blood remembers.”
- Writer
