The forest changed with the dawn.
Where moonlight had once cast eerie shadows, morning brought a heavy, silver mist that hung low like a shroud. Aelira moved silently through the undergrowth, cloak damp with dew, breath visible in the cold. The sigil on her chest pulsed with heat under the fabric, like a warning.
Or a countdown.
She didn't know where she was going — not truly — but something inside her did. Each step felt predestined, guided by instinct more than memory. Her dreams were feverish now, filled with whispers and names she didn't recognize. Faces blurred by time. Blood soaking altar stones.
And always fire.
She remembered the fire most of all.
Aelira paused at a ridge, brushing aside a branch to gaze down into a narrow valley. A stream coiled through the center like a silver thread, but what caught her breath was the sight of stone ruins nestled along its banks. Crumbled towers. Moss-eaten arches. A shattered gate, long since overtaken by ivy.
She felt the tug — subtle, undeniable.
This was it.
She descended slowly, boots crunching softly on the frost-hardened earth. As she crossed under what remained of the gate, a strange calm settled over her. It was quiet. Too quiet.
Even the birds refused to sing here.
She passed through the hollow remains of what once may have been a temple — its ceiling caved in, its altar toppled. But something in the stones hummed. Faint magic still clung to the ruins, like an echo of prayers long forgotten.
Then she heard it.
A whisper.
"Come…"
Her pulse jumped. She spun — no one. Just the wind curling through cracks in the rock.
"Flame-born…"
It wasn't the wind.
She turned slowly — and there, standing between two ancient columns, was a figure in a torn black cloak. Hood up. Face hidden. But the voice was feminine, layered — like several souls speaking through one throat.
"Who are you?" Aelira asked, tensing.
The figure stepped forward. "A herald of what's to come."
"You're not real."
"I am every bit as real as your curse," the figure said. "And your trials begin now."
Aelira's jaw clenched. "What trials?"
The hooded figure raised a hand — pale, long-fingered, trembling with age or power. "Blood. Bone. Betrayal. They come in order. Each one carves deeper. Each one demands sacrifice."
"I've given enough."
The figure tilted her head. "Not yet."
Aelira took a step forward. "If this is the first trial, I'm ready."
"You say that now," the figure said, and then reached into the folds of her robe — pulling forth a small, jagged dagger. The hilt was bone, the blade obsidian.
Aelira instinctively stepped back. "What is that?"
"Your key. Your test. A blade forged from the spine of a fallen witch. It cannot be wielded unless it draws willing blood."
Aelira's heart pounded. "Willing?"
The figure nodded. "You must offer a part of yourself. Pain alone is not enough. You must give."
Aelira's mind reeled. "Give what?"
"Your trust. Your name. Your fear. Choose one. Carve it into the stone."
A stone rose between them — low, flat, like a sacrificial altar. Its surface bore hundreds of marks, carved by those who came before. Names. Symbols. Blood-stains turned black with age.
"What happens if I don't choose?" Aelira asked quietly.
The figure didn't answer.
The silence screamed.
Aelira's hands trembled as she took the dagger. Its weight was wrong — too heavy, too knowing. As if it could feel her hesitation.
"My name is Aelira," she said. "But you already know that."
"I know the name they gave you," the figure said. "Not the one you carry in your bones."
Aelira closed her eyes. The whispers were rising again — memories that weren't hers. Lives she hadn't lived. A mother's voice. A firelit cave. The name sung like a prayer:
"Saelwyn."
Her eyes flew open.
The figure stepped back. "So. You remember."
It wasn't just a name. It was her soul's name. The one buried under centuries. The one reborn with her.
She pressed the tip of the blade to her palm — hesitated — then dragged it across the skin. Pain flared sharp and clean. Blood welled, warm and bright.
She knelt and scrawled the name on the stone:
Saelwyn.
The stone drank the blood. The name glowed — then vanished.
The figure nodded. "The first offering is made."
The dagger melted in her hand, dissolving into ash that vanished into the wind.
Aelira gasped as a new sigil burned across her ribs — not painful, but heavy. A second mark. A second weight.
"What now?" she asked, voice ragged.
The figure was already retreating, her form flickering like candlelight.
"Now," she said, "the shadows will come for you."
"Wait—what shadows?!"
But the figure was gone.
Aelira staggered back, heart racing. The ruins had changed — darker now, colder. The mist had thickened. And somewhere, just beyond sight, something moved.
She didn't wait to see what it was.
She ran.
Through stone arches, over roots and shattered relics, into the fog-drenched trees. Branches tore at her cloak. Her pulse thundered in her ears. The sigils on her skin burned hot — guiding, warning, perhaps even protecting.
But behind her, the shadows followed.
Not just mist or memory.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.