Zaryth…
The name escaped her lips before she could stop it.
It lingered in the air, soft yet heavy like the echo of a dream she shouldn't remember.
Something inside her stirred not warmth, not fear, but a strange familiarity that made her chest tighten.
Across from her, Zaryth's lips curved faintly, a look that wasn't quite a smile.
"It seems," he said, voice low and composed, "my name leaves a mark on you."
Lyanna blinked, forcing her thoughts back into place.
"Zaryth… that's your name, right? I'm sorry, but I don't have anything to give you right now. Maybe… someday, if we meet again"
He leaned slightly forward, his gaze sharp, eyes gleaming in shades of bronze and red
a color too human to be real, yet too haunting to ignore.
"Meet again?" he repeated softly. "No, Lyanna. We will meet again."
Before she could speak, he stepped closer.
The air between them grew colder, denser as if the world itself held its breath.
"Why wait for someday," he murmured, "when you can give me what you already hold?"
There was no malice in his tone only certainty.
To escape that gaze, Lyanna led him outside to a small café near the academy.
A quiet, dim place where time seemed slower where no one would notice the unease trembling in her hands.
They sat facing each other. The candle on the table flickered as though it too was afraid.
Without asking, Zaryth called the waiter.
"Two coffees," he said calmly. "One for her, one for me."
Lyanna looked up. "I didn't say I wanted"
"When someone offers," he interrupted softly, "you accept. That's how the world stays polite."
His words carried a weight that felt older than they sounded.
When the cups arrived, Zaryth took a sip of his slow, deliberate.
Lyanna hesitated.
"You haven't touched it," he said after a pause, his gaze never leaving hers.
She finally lifted the cup, but before it reached her lips, his hand brushed hers cold and steady.
"Mine tastes… wrong," he said, eyes fixed on her. "May I try yours?"
She froze.
And before she could reply, he leaned forward and drank from her cup from the exact place her lips had touched moments before.
The world seemed to fall silent.
Only the faint tremor of her heartbeat filled the space between them.
Lyanna slowly placed her cup down and rose to her feet.
"My part's done," she said quietly. "I'll be going."
Zaryth didn't move. He only watched still, unreadable his eyes glowing faintly like embers trapped in shadow.
When she reached home, the house was alive with noise her mother's voice from another room, her brothers laughing somewhere unseen. unaware of what had happened at school. Her father was long gone the weight of that loss still quietly resting in her heart.
Yet all of it felt distant.
No one noticed the weight she carried in silence.
No one saw the shadow she had brought home.
Lyanna shut her door and sat at the edge of her bed, her mind spiraling through the day's fragments
the blackout, the shadow, Vaelith, and now Zaryth.
It couldn't be coincidence.
It was as though every event was a thread pulling her toward something inevitable.
Her eyes drifted toward the window.
The night outside was still, heavy with mist and for a fleeting second, she saw it:
a dark figure reflected in the glass, standing motionless in the pale light.
Watching.
Beyond the curtain, she could make out a faint outline tall, still, almost blending with the darkness
Then, a faint whisper reached her not through sound, but directly inside her mind.
"You said someday… But someday is already here."
Lyanna turned sharply, heart thudding, but before her gaze could fully find the shape
everything shifted.
A rush of wind spiraled through the room, cold yet burning, wrapping around her like smoke alive.
The air rippled, bending light itself, and in that heartbeat, the world changed.
Lyanna tried to scream, but the sound drowned in the roar of unseen flames.
Fire. Smoke. Light. Darkness.
They all merged into one swallowing her whole.
When she opened her eyes again, the silence was unbearable.
She was no longer in her room.
Beneath her lay a narrow, cracked path stretching into endless mist.
Around her countless small chambers floated in the air, each sealed with a glow of different hues.
The walls pulsed faintly, as if alive, and within each room… something moved.
Lyanna stepped closer. Her breath caught in her throat.
Inside one chamber burned a being made entirely of fire, its form shifting and whispering like a forgotten soul.
In another, something encased in shimmering ice stirred its gaze hollow yet aware.
One was cloaked in endless smoke, another dissolved into air itself.
Every figure trapped. Every color alive.
And each one pointed to the same direction.
Lyanna followed their silent gesture, her steps echoing against the cold path.
Her mind whispered a name she hadn't meant to think.
Vaelith…
Was he one of them?
Was he trapped here too?
If so… then what was this place?
And why was she here?