Allora dreamed.
But it wasn't memory.
It wasn't a nightmare.
It was something… older.
Something that felt like it had always been waiting for her.
She stood barefoot in a field of black soil beneath a dead-white sky. The ground pulsed faintly, warm and wrong—like it was breathing. Like she was being breathed through.
Far ahead, a figure moved.
Not a man.
Not quite.
A child.
A small boy, no more than six, stood where the earth cracked and steamed. He had platinum white hair, long and too wild for a child, and his eyes—
Those rare pale tan eyes—too bright, too knowing.
He didn't speak.
He simply watched her.
Then he began to walk.
His little feet made no sound. But the world bent around him, grass wilting, the soil turning ashen in his path.
Allora stepped back instinctively.
The child reached out—not in anger. Not in threat.
But in something worse.
In longing.
She didn't want to be touched.
She turned and ran.
But the dream bent around her like smoke, pulling her deeper.
She tried to scream, but no sound came.
Behind her, she heard him running now—his bare feet slapping the ground.
And then, just ahead—
A flash of silver light.
It hovered before her like a floating ember, flickering with an otherworldly glow. It wasn't cold. It wasn't warm. It just… was.
Allora skidded to a stop. The boy stopped too.
And for the first time, he looked afraid.
The silver light pulsed once—softly—then burst into brightness like a flare.
The child screamed.
Not like Malec.
Not like a person.
Like a creature being burned alive from the inside.
He fell to his knees, clutching his face. His body began to melt, fold inward, and disintegrate into ash. The earth trembled beneath him.
Allora stood frozen, gasping.
But then—
The silver light floated toward her.
She raised her hand slowly.
It hesitated… then drew back.
And with a final blink, it darted straight into her abdomen.
Allora gasped and clutched her stomach—just as a sound echoed through her mind:
"Momma!"
Allora jolted awake, sweat slicked on her forehead, hair clinging to her cheeks. Her breath came in short, shallow bursts.
Kalemon was already at her side, firm hands on her shoulders.
"Hey—hey, it's alright," Kalemon said quickly, shaking her gently. "You're okay. It was just a dream."
Allora blinked, chest heaving, her hands still covering her stomach.
"It… it talked to me," she whispered.
"What?"
Allora shook her head, still breathless. "It wasn't him. Not really. It was something else. It was trying to… merge with me. Become part of me."
Kalemon's face tightened.
"The blood," she murmured.
Allora nodded slowly.
"But something else stopped it."
She looked up into Kalemon's gray eyes.
"There's something else inside me too."
"The baby?"
"Maybe." She swallowed hard. "Maybe something more."
___________________________________________________________________________
The night was still.
Snow blanketed the hills outside camp, silent and suffocating, curling over tents and horses like a shroud. Most of the soldiers were asleep, the fires long reduced to low, flickering coals. Only a few guards remained awake, murmuring quietly in the dark.
In the center of the camp, inside a canvas pavilion lined with thick furs and war maps—
Malec woke up gasping.
His body jolted upright, drenched in sweat despite the bitter cold. His breath tore from his lungs, ragged and fast, like he'd been drowning.
"No—" he choked, clutching his chest. "No, no, no—"
His hands trembled. He couldn't think.
His heart felt wrong. Not in pain—but hollow.
Like something had been torn out of him.
He staggered out of his bedroll and stumbled barefoot across the floor, one hand grasping the edge of the table for balance. The maps scattered beneath his touch.
His sword, untouched at the side of the tent, watched like an old companion now foreign to him.
"What just happened…?" he breathed.
His thoughts spun. He couldn't feel her anymore—not like before. He had always felt her—distant, yes, but there. Her fire, her pain, her defiance, singing low in his blood like an ember buried under skin.
But now?
There was smoke where the flame had been.
A part of her had been cut off from him. Not physically—something deeper.
Emotionally. Spiritually. Biologically.
And worse—he felt something else too.
A sensation he hadn't known in years.
Fear.
He threw open the tent flap.
The icy air hit him like a blade, but he didn't care.
The guards straightened immediately.
"Commander—?"
"Get Luko," he growled. "Now."
One guard ran.
Malec stepped out, the wind snapping his loose shirt around him, his silver hair wild and tangled, eyes bloodshot and staring eastward.
"She's changing," he whispered to the cold.
"She's becoming something I can't touch anymore."
He didn't know what had happened—whether someone had interfered, or if Allora herself had broken the bond they shared.
Luko appeared moments later, still bleary-eyed, boots half-fastened.
"Malec, what the hell—?"
"I need you to run the blood again," Malec said, pacing. "Compare it to the last sample you took after her last seizure. Measure for drop-off. Recalibrate."
"There's no sample," Luko said, frustrated. "We haven't seen her in weeks. We don't have anything new to test."
Malec turned on him like a blade unsheathed.
"Then find something. Because something inside her just rejected me. Or fought me. Or worse—replaced me."
Luko's face twisted. "You're talking like she's your vessel."
"She is mine."
"She's not. She never was."
"Then why do I feel like part of me just died?" Malec snapped, slamming a fist against the tent post.
The metal hook holding his cloak rattled violently.
"Something touched her," he whispered. "Something powerful."
And for the first time in his life, Malec wasn't sure if he could get her back.
Because it wasn't just her body that was changing anymore.
It was her soul.
And someone—or something—was protecting it from him.