A decade later.
The forest of Sylvaris whispered in Maylene Sanchez's sleep.
She tossed restlessly on her straw bed, moonlight pooling through the cracks of her cottage roof. Outside, the wind carried the fragrance of pines and river-mist, but inside her dreams, another world unfurled.
She stood in a field of endless white, the horizon lost to fog. The air shimmered, not with warmth or cold, but with a perfect stillness-as though the world itself held its breath.
At the center of the field floated a jewel. Not a crown, not a weapon-just a shard, pulsing with soft silver light. It spun slowly, each glow shift balancing between dark and bright, chaos and calm.
Maylene felt her heart align with it, as if its rhythm was her own.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The shard did not speak, yet a thousand voices echoed through her. She glimpsed visions—kingdoms burning, rivers dried to dust, a crown shattering into seven flames. She saw warriors unknown to her, faces alight with determination, each marked by a shard of their own.
And then—herself. Standing among them.
The shard drifted toward her, brushing against her fingertips.
"You are Balance," the voices murmured, neither male nor female, but everything at once. "You are the tether between light and dark. Without you, the circle breaks."
Her chest burned as the shard pressed against her. For a moment, it sank into her skin, leaving behind a faint glow that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Wait-!" Maylene cried, reaching out, but the vision shattered.
She woke with a gasp, clutching her chest. The faint glow was gone, but she could still feel it, humming within her.
Her mother's voice called from the next room, warm and unaware of the weight that had just been placed upon her daughter's shoulders. "Maylene! Up now, child. There's work to be done!"
Maylene swallowed hard, pressing a hand to her heart. It wasn't just a dream. She knew it wasn't.
Somewhere in Sylvaris, in the living veins of the forest itself, the shard waited.
And Maylene had already been chosen.