The world was silent when Elara opened her eyes. Not quiet silent. The kind of silence that felt pressed against the inside of her skull, humming behind her eyes.
She lay on her back, staring at a sky that wasn't quite gray or blue or black a color that shifted when she blinked. There were no clouds, no sun, no sense of time. Only light that seemed to exist without direction.
She sat up slowly, her joints aching, her breath leaving pale trails in the air.
The forest was gone.
In its place stood the outline of a village small cottages, fences, a crooked path winding between them. Everything was familiar yet impossibly wrong. The air carried the scent of burnt wood and something sweet, like rotting flowers.
She rose unsteadily to her feet. Her coat was dry, though she remembered the rain. The mud had vanished from her boots. Her hands, however, were still streaked in dirt and red.
Not blood. Not fresh. Just stains, dark and dry, that wouldn't wash away when she rubbed them on her coat.
"Elara."
Her name came from somewhere behind her. She turned fast heart lurching but there was no one. Just the echo of the word itself, bouncing back to her like her own voice answering.
She took a cautious step forward. The ground crunched under her boots, brittle like frost, though there was no snow. Each cottage she passed looked half-built, half-broken, as if someone had tried to remember what they looked like but forgotten midway. Windows showed the hint of furniture a chair, a frame, a cup but when she looked directly at them, they dissolved into shadow.
The air pulsed once, faintly.
She turned down another lane, following a trail of ravens that perched silently on the roofs above. Their eyes tracked her but they didn't caw. They didn't move at all.
At the far end of the village stood a manor.
Her breath caught. It was hers or what was left of it. The same gabled roof, the same arched windows but the walls flickered, fading in and out like a mirage.
She approached slowly. "Agnes?"
The name fell flat. No echo this time.
She stepped through the gate. The iron felt solid under her hand, but when she looked down, her fingers passed through it as though it were smoke. Her pulse quickened. She crossed the threshold anyway.
Inside, the air was heavy. The manor's grand hall was both there and not the chandelier hung suspended but flickering, sometimes whole, sometimes only a cage of shadow. The staircase curved upward, its railing melting into mist.
"Elara."
The voice came again closer now. It was Agnes's voice, unmistakable, though thinner, as if carried through water.
Elara turned toward the sound.
At the base of the stairs stood Agnes. Or what was left of her.
Her body was translucent, her eyes pale. Her hands were clasped before her like a penitent. The shape of her mouth trembled when she spoke. "You shouldn't have crossed."
Elara's voice cracked. "Crossed what?"
Agnes lifted a shaking hand. "The Veil. You were never meant to see this side."
Elara stepped closer, her boots sinking into the hazy floor. "You lied to me. You knew this would happen."
"I warned you."
"You chained me to that house. To that curse!"
Agnes's expression broke. "To keep you alive."
The silence that followed was suffocating. The air buzzed faintly, like static.
Elara swallowed hard. "What is this place?"
Agnes's figure flickered. "The echo of blood. The place where the curse remembers."
"I don't understand."
Agnes looked past her then, her voice dropping to a whisper. "It's not watching yet. You have to go."
"Go where?"
Agnes's form wavered again, then solidified briefly. Her eyes locked on Elara's. "To the roots. Find the child. Before the curse takes your name."
Elara took another step forward. "Agnes..."
The air split with a sharp crack, like a tree snapping in half. The manor shuddered. Agnes's figure blurred, her mouth opening in silent panic.
Then she was gone.
The world shifted. The floor beneath Elara's feet rippled like water. She stumbled backward, clutching at nothing, and the manor dissolved around her, its walls bleeding into the gray air.
When the light steadied again, she was standing in a corridor narrow, endless, lit by candles that burned without flames.
A whisper echoed through the hall.
"You can't run from what you've inherited."
She spun. The man was there again, his hat shadowing his face.
"You," she breathed.
He stepped closer, his boots leaving no sound. "The Veil doesn't forgive trespassers."
Elara's jaw tightened. "Then tell me how to leave."
He smiled faintly. "You can't leave something that lives in you."
Her pulse spiked. "Why me? Why my blood?"
"Because you were born in the manor. Because she...." He paused. "...tried to bind what can't be bound."
"Elara," the child's voice whispered from somewhere beyond him. "Come find me."
The man turned his head toward the sound, then back to her. "You have little time. When the ravens call again, the path will close."
And then he was gone.
Elara's breath came ragged. She looked down the corridor. The air at the far end shimmered faintly a doorway, or maybe a tear in the world itself. She took one step, then another. The whispering grew louder with each footfall hundreds of voices, all saying her name.
The hall stretched impossibly long, the walls narrowing until she had to turn sideways to keep moving. Her palms brushed the cold surface smooth as glass, pulsing faintly beneath her touch.
At last she reached the light.
A single door stood before her. It was wooden, old, carved with symbols she half-recognized from the manor's library marks of binding, of blood, of silence.
The whispers stopped.
Her hand hovered over the handle. For a moment, she hesitated. Then she pushed.
The door opened with a low groan.
On the other side was the forest again but darker, deeper. The trees glowed faintly from within, veins of red running through their bark. The ground pulsed beneath her feet like the beat of a slow, living heart.
And at the center of it, standing beside another gravestone, was the child.
The girl turned to face her. Her eyes gleamed crimson.
"You found me," she said softly.
Elara's voice shook. "Where are we?"
The girl smiled a small, cold thing. "Home."
The sky split open. A thousand ravens poured out, their wings blotting out the light. The air filled with their cries, deafening, suffocating. Elara dropped to her knees, covering her ears.
When she looked up again, the girl was gone.
Only the gravestone remained but this time, it bore a new name.
E. Veyne.
Her own.