The forest dream did not end when she opened her eyes.
Aira woke to the sound of her own heartbeat fast, uneven, too loud in the silence. The trees leaned close, their branches curving inward like ribs. Mist drifted low over the ground, thick enough to blur her hands. Her fire had gone cold. Only the faint glow beneath her skin remained, pulsing like an echo she couldn't silence.
Something was wrong.
She could feel Kieran again. Not near but present, like a shadow brushing the edge of her thoughts. His voice whispered faintly between the rustle of leaves, calling her name as if it belonged to him.
"Aira… why do you keep running?"
Her breath caught. It wasn't real. It couldn't be.She pressed her palms to her ears, but the voice slipped through anyway, soft and poisonous.
"You burn, and they fear you. I burn, and they worship me. Tell me, sister who's really cursed?"
The forest stirred. Every root seemed to hum with his words. Her fire flickered in answer, unwanted, wild.
Aira stumbled backward, tripping over a fallen branch. The mist thickened around her, shapes forming in the white hands, faces, moments she'd tried to forget. The villagers' eyes. Her mother's scream. The flash of Kieran's hand reaching out before the shadows claimed him.
"No," she whispered. "You're not here."
"I am everywhere you buried me."
A shiver crawled down her spine. The ground beneath her trembled ,not from steps, but from breath. The earth exhaled through cracks between roots.
Aira's pulse thundered. "Show yourself!"
The mist thinned.
And there he was or something that looked like him. A figure of shifting smoke and ember, face half lit, half lost. His eyes burned silver where hers glowed gold. He smiled with something almost gentle.
"I didn't come to hurt you," he said. "I came to remind you what you are."
Her chest clenched. "You're not my brother."
"I was," he said softly. "Before you let them turn you into their weapon."
The air crackled. Trees bent inward, creaking like doors pulled from their hinges. The forest seemed to listen.
Aira's throat ached. "You chose the darkness, Kieran. You let it in."
"And you think you didn't?" His voice sharpened. "You burned them, Aira. You let the light take you. You enjoyed it."
She stumbled back, shaking her head. "That's not true."
"Then why do you remember it?"
The world spun. For an instant, she was back in the square the villagers screaming, the fire bursting from her skin, Tomas's eyes wide with shock. Her hands glowing, her wrists smoking, the smell of ash and fear.
Her knees buckled.
The vision shattered as quickly as it came. When she looked again, Kieran was gone or perhaps he had never been there at all. The mist hung heavy and cold, the silence deafening.
Aira pressed a trembling hand to her chest. "You're not me," she whispered. "You're not."
But the forest whispered back not in Kieran's voice this time, but in its own. Deep, low, old.
All light casts shadow.
She turned, heart racing, and saw movement between the trees faint, flickering. Not human. Not beast, Something older, Watching, Waiting.
Aira staggered to her feet. The roots around her shifted like serpents, curling and uncoiling. She ran but the forest moved with her. The mist followed, swallowing her trail, erasing her path.
Every step drew her deeper. Every breath felt stolen.
And somewhere behind her, faint but clear, came Kieran's voice again closer this time, almost tender.
"You can't run from what we are, Aira. You can only choose which half to keep."
The forest swallowed her answer.
The mist turned gold, then black.
And the whisper of her brother lingered long after the silence fell.