Chapter 10: The Map of Fate
804 Words
Evander pov
The campfire crackled low, casting flickering shadows across the clearing. My brothers were asleep—except Kael, who stood watch—but my eyes remained fixed on the object Arin had pulled from her satchel hours earlier.
A scroll.
It had appeared ordinary at first. But once Elara touched it, the parchment glowed with silver lines that pulsed like veins of starlight. Ancient writing bloomed across the surface in a language I didn’t recognize.
We were all thinking the same thing.
This wasn’t just a map.
It was a calling.
Elara sat beside me now, knees pulled up to her chest. Her necklace—gleamed faintly in the firelight. The c***k running through it had grown wider since her outburst in the woods. She hadn’t mentioned it, but I noticed how she touched it more often. Like it was holding something back… or trying to hold her together.
She caught me staring.
“What?” she asked, brows raised, voice soft and sharp all at once.
“You held your own back there,” I said. “You’re stronger than most mages I’ve met. Even the trained ones.”
Her lips twisted into a dry smile. “That’s the thing. I was never trained.”
“Then who gave you the necklace?”
Elara hesitated. “Not sure but i was told it was to keep me safe.”
I nodded, though the answer raised more questions than it solved. I could sense her power crackling beneath the surface—like a storm in waiting.
“And the map?” I gestured toward the scroll now spread out between us on a blanket. “Where did Arin get it?”
“She didn’t. It found her,” Elara said. “Or, maybe it found me. We were in a market outside Raven’s Hollow. She touched it first. Nothing happened. Then I did, and well…”
She trailed off, staring at the glowing script.
Something hummed in the air. Not sound. Not even magic.
Destiny, maybe.
I leaned closer to study the scroll. The glowing lines moved, rearranging themselves with a shimmer. A trail lit up in gold, curving through mountains and rivers I recognized from old maps.
“That’s the Vale of Whispers,” I said. “And there… that’s the Cradle of Winds.”
“Then we’re close,” she murmured.
“To what?”
“The relic,” Elara whispered, as if the word carried weight she didn’t yet understand.
It did.
We had been sent for two things: our sister and the relic that could defeat Morwenna. We hadn’t realized until now that the two were tied together.
Elara leaned forward and pressed her fingertip to a glowing point on the map. The parchment pulsed, and a word appeared beneath it:
Solmiren.
“Solmiren,” she repeated. “The Starfire Heart.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
She blinked. “I don’t. I just… do.”
The wind stirred through the trees as if the forest was listening. My chest tightened.
“Elara,” I said carefully, “you said your parents didn’t know where you came from?”
She nodded. “They said I was abandoned. Left on their doorstep as a baby.”
“You never… wondered?”
“I did,” she said quietly. “Every day. But it never mattered. Mira and Thorn were my family.”
“Still,” I said, “You speak ancient tongue, wield untamed magic, and a map from another age responds to your touch. That doesn’t sound like something ordinary.”
She exhaled slowly. “What are you saying?”
“That you might not be who you think you are.”
Her gaze turned guarded. “And what do you think I am?”
Instead, I said, “I don't know”
She stared at me, like she was looking for a c***k in my armor.
The fire snapped behind us, and Kael approached.
“We move at dawn,” he said. “The map shows a path to Solmiren through the Weeping Hollow. It’ll be dangerous.”
“They always are,” I muttered.
Kael looked at Elara. “We’d welcome your help.”
She met his eyes, then nodded once. “Then I’m in.”
No hesitation.
I admired that.
As Kael walked away, Elara looked at me. “I don’t know where this ends, Evander. I don’t even know who I really am.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said.
She reached out and touched the map again. More glowing lines bloomed across it—this time, faint outlines of seven symbols, circling the central star.
Prophecy.
Power.
Blood.
I didn’t know if she was our sister.
But I knew the prophecy had begun.
And she was the key.
- Writer
