The vision did not give me time to breathe.
One blink, and I stood somewhere else. Snow swirled around my ankles. The sky overhead was pale and washed out, like dawn had given up on rising entirely. A stone arch rose in front of me, carved with symbols I almost recognised but could not place. The air hummed with power. Old power. Wrong power. It wrapped around me like a whisper meant for someone else, something ancient that should have stayed buried.
And then I saw them.
My mother.
Alive. Younger. Her hair braided back, cheeks flushed from the cold, breath unsteady like she had been running for a long time. She knelt in the snow, hands trembling as she pressed them to a rune carved deep into the ground. Tiny cracks of light pulsed beneath her palms, reacting to her touch.
And beside h
