"The hardest thing about the truth… is that it doesn't care if you're ready."
---
That night, I dreamed.
I was standing in my old room, sunlight slipping through the curtains, the faint smell of my mother's stew drifting in from the kitchen.
"Amara, dinner's ready!" she called.
It was comforting — safe — the kind of moment you think will last forever.
Until I opened the door....and stepped into a forest instead of the hallway.
The air was cool, damp with the scent of moss. Tall trees rose above me, their leaves whispering in a language too soft to catch.
Red threads stretched between the trunks like spiderwebs. They glowed faintly, each one with a name written across it in curling script I couldn't read.
Except one.
Nysa.
I reached for it — but before my fingers touched, it snapped, and the sound was so sharp it felt like it tore through me.
I woke up gasping.
---
I found Nysa at the edge of the village, kneeling by a flat stone, sharpening two short blades. Sparks jumped from the steel in quick, bright flashes. She didn't look up.
"Did you come to yell at me again?" she asked.
"I'm not here to fight."
"Good," she said.
"Because you'd lose."
I smirked despite myself. "I probably would."
She handed me one of the blades.
"What's this?"
"Lesson one. If you're staying here, you train. No exceptions."
I raised a brow. "What makes you think I'm staying?"
She shrugged, eyes still on her blade. "You're still here, aren't you?"
I didn't answer.
---
We trained in silence.
I was bad at it — clumsy with my stance, too tense in my grip. The blade felt foreign in my hands, heavier than I expected.
Nysa didn't laugh or roll her eyes. She moved behind me, adjusting my elbows, nudging my shoulders. Her voice was steady, unhurried.
"You're too stiff," she said. "You're holding everything in. Let go."
I gritted my teeth. "That's easy for you to say. You know who you are."
She paused, studying my face.
"You think I always did?"
"You act like it."
"That's because I already broke," she said quietly. "And when you break, there's no more hiding."
The words landed heavy, like stones in water.
"What broke you?" I asked.
She looked away, her jaw tight. "Another time."
---
Later, I sat by the stream that cut through the village. The water was so clear it reflected the sky in perfect detail — pale clouds drifting, edges tinged with gold.
I stared at my reflection, but it wasn't my face that unsettled me.
It was how much I'd started to care.
About this place.
About Nysa.
That scared me more than anything.
I thought of Ebuka — the boy my mother wanted me to marry. His kindness. His easy laugh.
But I'd never felt anything for him. Not like this.
And in the quiet, a thought whispered — one I wasn't ready to let out loud:
Maybe I never would.
Not for him. Not for any man.
---
As the sky shifted to pink and gold, Nysa joined me on the bank.
"You're quiet," she said.
"I'm thinking."
"Dangerous habit," she teased.
I gave a small smile. "You said the mirror doesn't make mistakes."
"It doesn't."
"So why me?"
She hesitated — the kind of pause that means the answer matters.
When she spoke, her voice was softer.
"Because even the lost deserve to be found."
A beat passed.
"Especially you."
---
I didn't answer.
But when I went back to the temple, I found the red ribbon again — the one I'd dropped before.
I tied it around my wrist.
Not because I understood everything.
But because… part of me wanted to.