“Ellie…” A voice, soft as smoke, drifted through the dark. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Lira or Maela. It was… ancient.
I stirred beneath the thin blanket, dream-dark eyes rolling. “No,” I whispered, voice thick as chains.
“You cannot hide,” she breathed, and the air shifted. A silver light trembled in the distance, shifting into shapes older than memory.
I sat up, every nerve alive. The world around me felt dream-soft, distant, but charged.
A burning tree loomed in my vision: massive, its trunk blackened stone; its branches ablaze with silver fire. Leaves whispered in tongues I almost understood. Silver embers drifted in spirals.
The voice came again but clearer now:
“The truth will claw its way out.”
My breath hitched. The words burned like prophecy.
Then she stepped forward.
A figur
