The night did not bring rest.
It brought memories.
Nyra's body lay tangled beneath her sheets, chest rising and falling, but her mind had been claimed by something far older than sleep. It pulled her down — deeper, deeper — past the darkness of her eyelids, past the steady hum of her heartbeat, until the world around her dissolved into a haze of crimson and silver.
At first, it was only sound.
A heartbeat — not her own. Slower. Louder. Ancient.
Then came the whispers.
> "Protect her…"
"The blood must be hidden…"
"They cannot know…"
The voices swirled around her like a storm, overlapping, desperate, breaking into sobs and prayers she didn't understand. Nyra clutched her head and stumbled through the void, but there was no ground beneath her feet — only mist, shifting and alive.
Shapes began to form. Shadows, flickering like old film, sharpening into the image of a forest drenched in moonlight. The trees were black and skeletal, their roots gnarled like hands trying to claw their way out of the earth. And beneath one — an oak older than memory — a woman knelt in a pool of silver water.
Her mother.
Younger, but still unmistakable. Tears streaked her face as she cradled a baby wrapped in a blood-red cloth. The baby was wailing — high, piercing cries that shattered the silence — and though Nyra had no memory of it, some part of her knew that cry. She had made it once.
> "Forgive me," her mother whispered to the night. "I never wanted this for you…"
The wind shifted. The scene fractured — as if the memory itself were resisting her intrusion — and when it reformed, everything was burning.
The same forest. The same moon. But now flames licked the edges of the trees, and figures in dark cloaks moved through the inferno like ghosts. They were chanting in a language Nyra didn't understand — harsh and beautiful, every syllable heavy with power.
> "Noctari… Sanguis… Primaris…"
The words thrummed through her bones, awakening something buried deep beneath her skin. Her veins pulsed with light — faint and red, like embers under flesh — and her breath hitched. The baby in the vision had stopped crying. Its eyes, her eyes, were glowing faintly in the dark.
Suddenly, the ground cracked open beneath her.
Nyra fell.
The forest vanished, replaced by a circular chamber carved of obsidian stone. Symbols glowed on the floor — runes spiraling inward toward a single raised platform at the center. And there, chained in place, was a figure cloaked in silver chains and darkness.
Its head rose.
Eyes like liquid gold stared straight into Nyra's soul.
> "Little blood-born…" the figure hissed, voice like a serpent sliding across glass. "You walk the dreams of the dead. You should not be here."
Nyra stumbled backward, heart pounding. "Who—who are you?"
> "A memory. A prophecy. A warning."
"And if you wish to live, you must wake up."
The chamber trembled. Chains rattled. The runes burned brighter and brighter until they consumed everything, until the light was all that remained.
-
She gasped and sat bolt upright.
Her room.
Her bed.
Sweat clinging to her skin, heart racing like it was trying to tear its way out of her chest.
The phantom heartbeat was gone.
But the words lingered.
Blood-born. Prophecy. Warning.
Nyra pressed trembling hands to her face. This wasn't a nightmare. It felt too real — like a memory that wasn't entirely hers. Like a story whispered through her blood.
Something deep inside her had begun to stir, and she knew — with a certainty that made her bones ache — that she couldn't ignore it anymore.
If her mother had answers, she was going to find them.
-
The next morning, the world looked the same — sunlight spilling through her curtains, birds chirping on the windowsill — but Nyra felt different. The dream had planted something heavy in her chest, a need that refused to be silenced.
She barely touched her breakfast. Every glance at her mother was a question she didn't know how to ask.
"Nyra?" Her mother's voice was soft but searching. "You look pale. Did you sleep at all?"
Nyra swallowed hard. "I… I had a dream. About… before. About me."
Her mother froze — just for a second — before forcing a small, practiced smile. "Dreams are strange things, darling. They rarely mean anything."
But Nyra wasn't fooled. She saw the way her mother's hands tightened around her teacup. She heard the slight quiver in her voice.
> She's lying.
And for the first time, Nyra felt something sharper than fear twist inside her: determination.
-
She spent the rest of the day quietly observing. Watching the way her mother avoided certain questions. Noticing how quickly she changed the subject when Nyra mentioned the past. Every piece of the puzzle, every detail she'd ignored before, now felt like part of a larger design.
By nightfall, she had made up her mind.
If her mother wouldn't tell her the truth…
She would find it herself.