The old woman's hands hovered inches above John's—no, Elio's—wounded side, emanating a gentle blue light that pulsed in rhythm with his ragged breathing. The magic felt like liquid ice seeping through his skin, simultaneously numbing the pain and heightening his awareness of the damage within.
"Hold still, child," she murmured. "Your body remembers even if your mind wavers."
John bit back a cry as the magic probed deeper, seeking out torn vessels and ruptured organs. The sensation was unlike anything he'd ever experienced—intrusive yet intimate, as if someone were rearranging furniture in a house he'd only just discovered he owned.
"Who are you?" he managed through clenched teeth.
The old woman's eyes never left his wound. "Some call me Moira. Others, the Witch of Whispering Pines." Her wrinkled lips curved into a humorless smile. "You once called me Teacher, before the Council forbade it."
Another memory surfaced unbidden—Elio, younger still, sitting cross-legged before this same woman as she taught him to feel the flow of magic around him, to draw it in and release it with purpose rather than the wild bursts that had marked his early childhood.
"I remember," John whispered, though he didn't—not truly. These were Elio's memories, not his own, yet they felt as real as the keyboard beneath his fingers just hours ago. Or had it been hours? It could have been lifetimes.
"Good," Moira nodded. "The bleeding has stopped, but you need rest." She gestured toward a small path barely visible between the ancient trees. "My cottage is not far. Can you walk?"
John nodded, though he wasn't certain. With Moira's help, he staggered to his feet, one arm draped across her surprisingly sturdy shoulders. Each step sent fresh waves of pain through his body, but the agony was duller now, manageable.
The sword—he couldn't leave the sword. Something in him—in Elio—rebelled at the very thought.
"My sword," he gasped, gesturing weakly toward the gleaming blade still resting on the blood-stained grass.
Moira's expression softened with understanding. "Of course." She helped him back down, then retrieved the weapon herself, handling it with reverent caution. "Starsever has protected you well. It would be cruel to abandon it now."
The name sent a shiver through John. Starsever. He knew that name, had typed it countless times in the manuscript he'd been crafting. The legendary blade forged from a fallen star, imbued with the power to cut through magical barriers and enchantments. In his story, it was the only weapon that could harm the Shadow Lord who threatened to engulf the realm in eternal darkness.
But he hadn't finished that part of the story yet. He'd barely begun to explore the prophecy that bound Elio to the blade and to the fate of the kingdom.
With the sword secured at his side, they made their slow, painful journey through the forest. The path, nearly invisible to John's eyes, seemed to reveal itself to Moira with each step. The trees around them creaked and swayed, though there was no wind John could feel. The forest itself seemed alive, watching, judging.
"The trees know you've changed," Moira said, as if reading his thoughts. "They're curious."
"The trees are… sentient?"
She laughed, a sound like autumn leaves crunching underfoot. "Everything in Eldrath has some measure of awareness, child. The trees, the stones, the very air you breathe. It's all woven with magic. That's what makes your gift so precious—and so dangerous."
After what felt like hours but may have been minutes—time seemed to flow differently here, stretching and contracting like a living thing—they emerged into a small clearing. Nestled against the base of an enormous oak stood a cottage that seemed to grow from the earth itself. Its walls were a seamless blend of wood and stone, the thatched roof sprouting small flowers and herbs. Smoke curled from a crooked chimney, and the single window glowed with warm, inviting light.
Inside, the cottage was larger than it appeared from without—a single room with a bed, a hearth, and shelves upon shelves of bottles, herbs, and ancient-looking tomes. The air smelled of sage and something sweeter, something that made John's head swim pleasantly.
"Lie down," Moira instructed, guiding him to the bed. "The healing has only begun."
As John sank into the surprisingly comfortable mattress, filled with what felt like moss and fragrant herbs, exhaustion crashed over him in waves.
"Rest," Moira said, placing a cool cloth on his forehead. "Your body needs to heal, and your spirit needs to settle."
"But I don't belong here," John murmured, his eyes growing heavy. "I'm not him. I'm not Elio."
"Perhaps," she replied, her voice growing distant as sleep pulled at him. "But you're here now, and there must be a reason. The Pattern doesn't make mistakes."
The Pattern. Another term he'd created—the invisible web of fate that connected all living things in Eldrath. In his story, the Pattern was sentient in its own way, gently guiding events toward some cosmic balance. Had it somehow reached beyond the boundaries of fiction to pull him here?
As consciousness slipped away, John's last thought was of his unfinished manuscript, the cursor blinking accusingly at the end of a sentence he might never complete.
---
Dreams and memories tangled together in a kaleidoscope of images and sensations.
John sat at his desk, typing furiously, but the words on the screen transformed into strange runes that crawled across the page like insects. His ex-girlfriend stood behind him, reading over his shoulder, her laughter cutting like glass. "You'll never finish it," she said. "You don't have what it takes."
The scene shifted. A younger Elio stood before a burning village, his small hands outstretched as he tried desperately to contain the magical flames that devoured homes and lives alike. People fled past him, some spitting at his feet, others making warding gestures against evil. A woman clutching a child screamed, "He brought this upon us! The cursed child has doomed us all!"
Another shift. John in a publishing house, receiving his second rejection letter. "While your concept shows promise, the execution lacks emotional depth. Your characters feel hollow, particularly your protagonist."
Then Elio again, this time kneeling beside a fallen soldier in a blood-soaked battlefield. His hands glowed with healing magic as he sought desperately to close the man's wounds. "Please," he begged. "Let me help you." The soldier's eyes, clouded with pain and prejudice, widened in terror. "Get away from me, demon! I'd rather die than be touched by your foul magic!" He spent his last breath on a curse, spitting blood on the boy who only wanted to save him.
John's parents now, their faces distorted with disappointment. "Writing is a hobby, not a career," his father said. "It's time to grow up."
Elio, alone on a mountaintop, screaming his rage and grief into a storm that mirrored his turbulent emotions. Lightning answered his call, striking the ground around him, responding to his anguish. "Why?" he cried to the uncaring sky. "Why give me these powers if I'm only to be hated for them?"
The scenes came faster now, bleeding into one another. John's loneliness in his apartment, staring at a phone that never rang. Elio's isolation as villages barred their gates at his approach. John's desperate need for validation. Elio's desperate need for acceptance.
Two lives, worlds apart, united by a single thread: the ache of being unseen, unheard, misunderstood.
---
John woke with a gasp, his body—Elio's body—drenched in sweat. Sunlight streamed through the cottage window, dappled and green as it filtered through the forest canopy. His side still ached, but the sharp, debilitating pain had subsided to a dull throb.
Moira sat beside the hearth, her gnarled fingers working a mortar and pestle with practiced efficiency. Without looking up, she said, "You were calling out in your sleep. Two names—one yours, one not."
John pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing slightly. "How long was I asleep?"
"A full day and night," she replied. "Your body needed time to knit itself back together." She set down her tools and approached, examining him with critical eyes. "You're healing well. Elio's gifts are still within you, working alongside my magic."
"His gifts," John repeated softly. "What exactly can he—can I—do?"
Moira's eyes narrowed. "You truly don't know?"
John hesitated. How much should he reveal? Would she think him mad if he told her the truth—that he was a failed writer from another world who had somehow been transported into his own creation?
"I know some," he said carefully. "But it's… confused. Fragmented. The memories come and go."
Moira studied him for a long moment before nodding. "Understandable, given your injuries and the… change in you." She returned to the hearth, adding the crushed herbs from the mortar to a steaming pot. "Elio was—is—what the ancients called an Elemental Adept. His magic isn't confined to a single element as most mages' are. He can command fire, water, earth, and air, though not all with equal facility."
She ladled the aromatic brew into a wooden cup and brought it to him. "Drink. It will help restore your strength."
John accepted the cup, breathing in the steam. It smelled earthy and sweet, with an underlying sharpness that made his nose tingle. He took a cautious sip, surprised by the pleasant taste—like honey and cinnamon with something wild beneath.
"But his greatest gift," Moira continued, watching him drink, "is healing. A rare ability, even among the most powerful mages. Yet it's the very thing that marks him as 'unnatural' to those fools in the villages." She spat the last words with sudden venom. "They fear what they don't understand, what they can't possess."
John drank deeply from the cup, feeling warmth spread through his limbs with each swallow. "Why do they hate him so much? Wouldn't they value someone who could heal their sick and wounded?"
Moira's laugh held no humor. "People fear dependence more than death, child. A village with a healer becomes reliant on that healer. And when that healer is a boy with strange eyes who can not only mend wounds but call lightning from clear skies?" She shook her head. "They'd rather suffer than acknowledge their need for something they deem 'unnatural.'"
"That's…" John struggled to find the words. "That's cruel. Irrational."
"That's human," Moira corrected gently. "At least, the worst of humanity. There are good ones too—those who see Elio for what he is: a gift, not a curse."
John finished the herbal brew, feeling strength returning to his limbs. With it came a strange sensation—a tingling awareness of the magic that Moira had described. He could feel it now, pulsing around him like a second heartbeat, in the wood of the cottage, in the earth beneath it, in the very air he breathed.
And within himself, a different kind of power stirred—Elio's power, dormant but present, waiting to be acknowledged and embraced.
"What happens now?" he asked, setting down the empty cup.
Moira considered him thoughtfully. "That depends on you, outsider. On what you choose to do with the life you now inhabit."
"I don't know how to be him," John admitted. "I don't know how to use these… abilities."
"Perhaps that's not what's needed," Moira suggested. "Perhaps what Elio needs isn't someone who knows how to be him, but someone who knows how to be something he never had the chance to become."
Before John could ask what she meant, a sharp rapping came at the door. Moira stiffened, her eyes suddenly alert and wary.
"Stay silent," she whispered, moving swiftly to the door.
John watched as she opened it just enough to see who stood outside. The conversation was brief, hushed, but John caught fragments:
"…searching the forest…"
"…rewards for information…"
"…the demon child must answer for the attack…"
His blood ran cold. They were hunting Elio—hunting him—for something he hadn't done. The familiar pattern of Elio's life continuing, the heroic act of saving the village from wyverns twisted into an accusation that he had summoned them in the first place.
When Moira closed the door and turned back, her face was grim. "The King's Guards are searching the forest. It seems you're now accused of not only bringing the wyverns to Oakenhaven but commanding them to attack." She shook her head in disgust. "The reward for your capture has doubled."
"But he—I—drove them away!" John protested. "Elio was trying to save the village!"
"As he always does," Moira said softly. "And as they always repay him."
She moved to a trunk in the corner, retrieving a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. "You cannot stay here. It won't be long before they think to check my cottage."
"Where will I go?" John asked, panic rising in his throat.
Moira untied the bundle, revealing a set of clean clothes—simple but sturdy traveling garments, a cloak of deep forest green, and boots of soft leather. "North, to the Eldermere Vale. There's a settlement there of those born with gifts like yours. They live apart from the kingdoms of men, in peace with the ancient magics."
"You're sending me away?" The question came out childlike, vulnerable in a way that surprised him.
Moira's expression softened. "I'm giving you a chance, child. A chance Elio never took because he refused to abandon those who scorned him." She placed a weathered hand on his cheek. "Perhaps this is why you're here—to save him from his own stubborn nobility."
As John changed into the fresh clothes, his mind raced. Everything in him—everything that was still John the writer—screamed that this was wrong. Elio was supposed to be the hero of this story, the one who would eventually prove his worth to the world. Running away to hide in a secret settlement wasn't part of the narrative he'd planned.
But as he fastened Starsever to his side, another thought surfaced: Maybe that was precisely the problem. Maybe Elio had been trapped by the story John had written for him—a story of endless suffering and thankless heroism with only the vague promise of eventual redemption.
Maybe the Pattern had brought John here not to follow the story, but to change it.
"The Guards won't reach the eastern edge of the forest until nightfall," Moira said, handing him a small pack filled with provisions. "If you leave now and follow the river north, you'll have a good head start."
John accepted the pack, slinging it over his shoulder. "Will I see you again?"
Moira smiled, a genuine warmth breaking through her usual severity. "The Pattern weaves as it will, child. But I suspect our threads are not done crossing."
She pressed something into his palm—a small stone pendant on a leather cord, carved with symbols he didn't recognize. "When you reach the standing stones at the edge of Whispering Pines, hold this up to the light of the rising moon. It will show you the hidden path to Eldermere."
John slipped the pendant around his neck, tucking it beneath his tunic. "Thank you, Moira. For everything."
She nodded once, then ushered him to the door. "Go now, and remember—trust Elio's instincts, even if you don't understand them. His body knows things his mind never had to learn."
As John stepped outside, the forest seemed to inhale, the trees leaning in slightly as if curious about this changed boy who walked among them. The morning air smelled of pine and possibility, and for a moment, despite the danger and confusion, John felt a flicker of something he hadn't experienced in longer than he could remember: purpose.
With one last glance at the cottage nestled in the great oak's embrace, he turned and began walking north, toward a future neither John nor Elio had ever imagined.