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Part 4: The man with no shadows…
He didn't move.
The man in black stood like he had been carved there, at the edge of the forest where the frost turned thick and the pines grew too dense to see through.
Aria stared from behind the crooked tree, her breath caught in her throat. The wind pressed against her back, urging her to move, but her body refused. Something about the man felt… *off*. Like he wasn't part of this world at all, but something borrowed and placed here by mistake.
He wore a long coat. Simple. Dark. No crest. No insignia. Nothing to show who he was.
But the strangest part—the part that made her legs tremble—was what *wasn't* there.
He had no shadow.
Even with the pale winter sun above him, casting lines across the trees and snow, he stood untouched by light. The ground around his feet was blank. Empty. As if he didn't belong to the laws of the world.
Aria slowly stepped back.
A twig snapped.
---
The man's head turned.
Not fast. Not suddenly. Just… deliberately. Like he already knew she was there and had simply decided it was time to look.
His eyes met hers.
They weren't white. They weren't black. They weren't even eyes. Just orbs of lightless silver—still and unblinking.
Aria bolted.
---
She didn't look back.
The woods blurred past her in streaks of white and brown. Her basket of berries tumbled out of her hands, forgotten. All she could think about was home. Her mother. Warmth. Safety.
The whispers returned as she ran. Not from the trees this time. From *within*.
> "You are seen."
> "You are known."
> "You are marked."
The mark.
Her hand ached again, the same place that had burned when she touched the ring in the stream. Only now, the ache pulsed in rhythm—like a second heartbeat.
She stumbled through the snow, breath heaving, and finally reached the cottage.
---
"Aelira!" she shouted, slamming the door behind her.
Her mother was already waiting.
Standing in the center of the room, eyes wide, a blade in one hand, a bundle of satchels in the other. She didn't ask what had happened.
She already knew.
"How long did he look at you?" Aelira demanded.
Aria blinked. "I—what?"
"How long, Aria?"
"I don't know—just a second—he didn't say anything—"
"Then we have time."
---
Aelira crossed the room in three strides. She threw open the old trunk by the hearth—one Aria had never been allowed to touch—and pulled out an old, worn map. Not of their valley. Of the entire realm.
Mountains. Dead rivers. Places marked in ink that shimmered when the firelight touched them. Places Aria had never heard of.
"Get your coat. Pack only what you need. Food. Warmth. Nothing more."
"Mother—"
"We're leaving. Tonight."
---
Aria's head spun. "Who *was* that? What's going on?!"
Aelira paused. She looked at her daughter for a long time—really looked at her. Then slowly, she knelt, took Aria's hand, and unwrapped the old cloth glove she always wore.
The mark was glowing.
Not bright, but enough. Enough to see.
Aelira pressed her forehead to Aria's hand, and her voice trembled.
> "I thought I had more time. I thought I could keep you hidden until it passed."
> "But the stars don't wait. And neither will he."
---
"Who?" Aria whispered. "Who is he?"
Aelira looked up.
"The one who doesn't cast a shadow?" she said bitterly. "That wasn't a man. That was a *Seeker*."
"Seeker?"
"One of Xandros' Eyes. He sends them to places where the star once burned. Where magic hasn't died. Where *fragments* might lie buried."
Aria's blood turned to ice.
"Fragments?"
Her mother didn't answer directly. Instead, she turned back to the map and placed her hand on a symbol drawn near the southern range—a sun broken into seven shards.
"The Echoes of Eternity," she said. "They're real. And if Xandros gathers all of them… he'll remake the world in his own image."
Aria's pulse pounded. "What does that have to do with me?"
Aelira looked at her then, eyes glassy, voice soft. Not fearful. Just tired.
"Because the prophecy was right," she said. "You weren't just born when the King Star rose, Aria. You *are* its flame."
---
Outside, the wind howled.
Inside, the mark on Aria's hand pulsed brighter.
And in the forest beyond the pines, the Seeker stood motionless—waiting.
He didn't knock. He didn't move.
He simply whispered to the frost.
> "We've found the key."
---
Part 5: — Snowlight Vale*
The snow fell heavier that night.
Not the usual soft dusting that painted the rooftops and blanketed the pine branches like icing sugar. This was different. Each flake was thick, slow, and eerily silent—drifting sideways instead of down, like the world had lost its sense of direction.
Aelira and Aria moved through it like ghosts.
They didn't speak.
There was no time.
Behind them, the tiny village of Ternhollow faded into shadow, smothered beneath the storm. No lights. No voices. Not even the usual flicker of hearth-fires in the distant windows. As if the place had been swallowed whole.
As if it never existed.
---
They followed an old path—one Aelira had clearly memorized long ago. It wasn't marked on any map. The road wound deep into the pines, veering south, then east, then back again in jagged twists that made no sense. Aria didn't ask questions. She didn't have to.
Her mother's knuckles were white on the hilt of her blade.
Something was following them.
She could feel it.
---
Aria's breath came in short bursts as she stumbled through the snow. The deeper they went, the more her surroundings seemed to shift. Trees leaned where they shouldn't. The snow glowed faintly in places, dim pulses of blue and violet light hiding just beneath the surface. Shapes moved at the edges of her vision—but never when she looked straight at them.
Time stuttered.
The wind would pause, mid-gust, then resume.
A branch that should have been above her suddenly lay broken at her feet.
It was as though the world itself was *fracturing* around them.
And in the back of her mind, a single phrase repeated, again and again, in a voice that wasn't her own:
> "You are seen."
> "You are known."
> "You are marked."
---
"Where are we going?" she finally asked.
Aelira didn't slow. Her boots crunched through a crust of half-frozen moss, and she yanked Aria's hand forward with sudden urgency.
"There's a place," her mother said. "A veil in the forest. If we cross it, the Seeker won't follow. He can't."
"Why?"
"Because something older than him lives beyond it. And even Xandros… fears what sleeps there."
Aria swallowed hard. "Then why are *we* going?"
Aelira stopped. Just for a moment.
She looked down at her daughter—really looked. The candlelight eyes. The mark glowing faintly on her palm. And beneath that, something rising. Something ancient.
"You'll understand," she whispered. "Not now. But soon."
---
They reached the vale an hour before dawn.
The trees opened into a basin of silver and frost, where the snow didn't fall. It hovered—frozen in midair like a thousand tiny stars suspended in time. The ground was untouched, the ice like glass beneath their boots. No sound. No birds. No breath.
The air changed.
It no longer tasted of snow and pine, but of *memory*. Old things. Distant voices. A hum in the marrow of her bones.
Aria's vision blurred.
She saw a girl—not herself—running across the same field, barefoot and laughing, trailing ribbons of golden light. She saw a tower made of bone and ash. A war between fire and glass. And a man standing in the dark, holding something that bled stars.
Then the images were gone.
She gasped.
Her knees buckled, but Aelira caught her.
"You felt it, didn't you?" her mother asked softly.
Aria nodded.
"What was that?"
Aelira didn't answer. Instead, she knelt and pressed her palm to the ground. The ice shimmered beneath her touch, then cracked open—not violently, but like a flower blooming.
A soft circle of warm earth appeared beneath them, and within it: a rune. Etched in silver. Pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Get inside," Aelira said. "Quickly."
---
Aria stepped into the circle.
The moment she crossed the edge, her breath caught. The cold vanished. The wind stopped. Even the whispering voices in her head dimmed.
It was quiet. Real quiet.
Not silence.
*Stillness*.
Aelira joined her. Together they stood, shoulder to shoulder, within the warded circle as the Seeker arrived.
---
He didn't walk.
He *glided*.
His feet left no imprint. His presence made no sound. But the forest bent around him, branches bowing, frost crawling backward to avoid his touch.
He stopped just before the circle's edge.
And waited.
---
For a long time, nothing happened.
The Seeker stared. Aria stared back.
Then he lifted one hand—slowly—and pointed straight at her.
His voice echoed, not through the air, but through her skull. Her teeth hurt. Her eyes watered.
> "She bears the mark."
Aelira stepped forward, blade drawn. "You won't touch her."
The Seeker tilted his head, like a curious bird. "Your ward is old. Flawed. She is seen. She is marked."
"She is under protection."
> "Not for long."
Then he was gone.
No flicker. No flash.
Just… gone.
---
Aria collapsed to her knees.
Her body shook. Her mouth tasted like copper. The mark on her palm burned with a searing cold.
Her mother didn't speak. She only crouched beside her and held her, gently, as the last of the stars overhead began to fade into dawn.
---
They camped there for the rest of the morning, within the circle of stillness.
Aelira lit a fire with flint and whispered words Aria had never heard before. The flame obeyed too quickly—like it knew her voice. Magic, Aria realized.
Real magic.
The kind no one used anymore.
Her mother sat across from her, the firelight dancing in her worn face.
"I should've told you sooner," Aelira said. "But I wanted you to have a childhood. Just a little time before the truth found you."
"What truth?"
Aelira exhaled.
"The King Star didn't just mark you," she said. "It *chose* you."
Aria blinked.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're more than just a child of prophecy. You're a vessel. A key. And the Echoes of Eternity—they're calling to you now."
---
Aria stared at the fire.
She remembered the dream. The spinning ring. The voice that whispered through bone. The images in the snowlight vale.
Everything felt too big. Too unreal.
But she couldn't deny what she'd seen.
What she'd *felt*.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"We find the first Echo," Aelira said. "Before Xandros does. Before he gets stronger."
"And then?"
Aelira's gaze darkened.
"Then you learn who you really are."
---
That night, Aria couldn't sleep.
She stood at the edge of the protective circle, staring out into the woods where the Seeker had vanished. The snow was falling again—but only outside the ward.
Beyond the trees, far to the east, something flickered in the dark.
A campfire.
She wasn't sure how she saw it. It was impossibly far. But somehow her eyes *knew* where to look. And beside that flame sat a boy. Alone. Sword on his lap. Staring up at the sky.
He looked poor. Ragged. Too young to carry a blade like that.
But even at this distance, Aria felt the same thing she felt when she touched the ring in the stream.
A pull.
A tether.
---
She didn't know his name.
Not yet.
But one day she would.
And together, they would set the world on fire.
---