Eira's boots crunched over ash, a sound like grinding bones that had become the only music of her world. She knelt in the charred remains of the Eastern Woods, the fine, grey powder puffing up to coat her worn trousers and cling to the damp wool of her cloak. It was a desolate altar, this place where life had been sacrificed to a cold, hungry fire.
Three moons. An eternity measured in heartbeats, each one a painful echo of the life she had lost. It had been three moons since the Wraiths—pale, silent shapes moving with the chilling purpose of a winter gale—had descended upon Bramble's End. The memory was a shard of ice in her chest. Huddled in the root cellar, the scent of damp earth and potatoes thick in her nostrils, she had bitten her own knuckles raw to keep silent. But nothing could block out the sound that would forever be carved into her soul: her sister Lila's scream—not of fear, but of defiance—cutting through the night, only to be severed with an abruptness that was more terrifying than the sound itself. When she had finally clawed her way out, the dawn light had revealed a world reduced to embers and silence. Her parents lay cold beneath the splintered beams of their home, and Lila was simply… gone. Not among the dead, but taken, the hollow-eyed survivors whispered, pulled into the unnatural mist that now clung to the woods, the place where the Veil between worlds was thinnest.
Now, Eira was a ghost haunting the corpse of her own past. She had fled Bramble's End with only the essentials of survival: a forager's pouch, now perpetually stained with soot, a tattered cloak that smelled of smoke and loneliness, and a single, sharp knife that felt heavy at her hip. She slept in the hollow bellies of lightning-struck oaks, her dreams filled with the scent of baking bread and Lila's laughter, only to wake to the taste of ash. She ate the bitter berries and stringy roots she had learned to identify as a child, each meal a testament to a knowledge that now served a solitary, desperate purpose. She was not merely wandering. She was a needle drawn across the scorched tapestry of the Eastern Woods, seeking a single, lost thread. She was looking for Lila. Or, if not Lila, then at least a reason, a sign, a whisper of why.
The air was a foul cocktail of burnt pine and ozone, undercut by something sharper, metallic—the scent of magic, faint but clinging, like the echo of a song long forgotten. Eira's fingers, calloused and scarred, brushed through the dirt, her touch as practiced as a scribe's. These hands had become her greatest allies; they had dug sustenance from the poisoned earth, stitched her skin and her clothes back together, and held the knife steady against the things that now prowled the shadows. But today, as her palm scraped against a half-buried stone, her movements stilled.
Beneath the gritty layer of cinders, something smooth and unnaturally cold pressed against her skin.
Her breath hitched. With a reverence she hadn't felt in months, Eira carefully brushed the ash away. It was a locket, small enough to be cradled in her palm, its surface wrought from blackened iron twisted into a perfect, cruel circlet of thorns. As she lifted it, the iron points pricked her thumb, drawing a single, dark bead of blood. The pain was sharp, clean. And then, as if tasting her blood, recognizing some essential part of her, the metal seemed to sigh, the pricking sensation fading into a dull, cool pressure. She turned it over. Beneath the grime, the locket's center was not glass, but a shard of amber, cloudy and dormant. Then, as if stirred by her gaze, it flared to life. A honeyed, internal light bloomed within, painting the grotesque shadows of the blackened trees in a warm, golden hue that felt like a blasphemy in this place of death.
The light did not just illuminate; it seeped. A tendril of warmth flowed from the amber into the cut on her palm, spreading up her arm like a slow, comforting tide. It was then that the voice came—not a sound that traveled through the air to her ears, but a vibration that resonated directly in her marrow, deep and resonant, like the rumble of a distant storm gathering on the horizon: Guard it. The last embers of the Lightweavers must not fall to the Shadowspire.
Eira recoiled, the locket falling from her grasp as if it were a white-hot coal. She scrambled backward, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs, her breath sawing in her throat. Lightweavers. The word was a relic from her childhood, stories spun by her grandmother by the fireside. Beings of legend who could weave sunlight into cloth and spin memories into tangible things, guardians of Aetheris who had vanished into the mists of time, defeated by the Nether. But legends did not glow with captured sunlight. Myths did not speak in the language of one's very bones.
Hesitantly, her pulse still thundering, she crept forward again. Her trembling fingers closed around the locket. The amber was warm now, a gentle, pulsing heat that beat in a slow, steady rhythm, like a sleeping heart. Driven by an instinct deeper than fear, she pressed it to her chest, just over her own heart. And there it was—a second, fainter heartbeat, a syncopated rhythm answering her own.
"Who are you?" she whispered into the oppressive silence, her voice hoarse from disuse.
The burnt woods offered no answer, save for the mournful wind combing through the skeletal branches. But as Eira tucked the locket safely into her tunic, where it rested against her skin, a profound shift occurred. The leaden weight of despair that had anchored her for three moons seemed to lighten, if only by a fraction. The air, once thick with grief, felt merely cold. The ash beneath her boots was just ash, not the dust of her former life. She was no longer a ghost, aimlessly haunting a graveyard. She was a seeker. And for the first time, she had found something real to seek.Eira's boots crunched over ash, a sound like grinding bones that had become the only music of her world. She knelt in the charred remains of the Eastern Woods, the fine, grey powder puffing up to coat her worn trousers and cling to the damp wool of her cloak. It was a desolate altar, this place where life had been sacrificed to a cold, hungry fire.
Three moons. An eternity measured in heartbeats, each one a painful echo of the life she had lost. It had been three moons since the Wraiths—pale, silent shapes moving with the chilling purpose of a winter gale—had descended upon Bramble's End. The memory was a shard of ice in her chest. Huddled in the root cellar, the scent of damp earth and potatoes thick in her nostrils, she had bitten her own knuckles raw to keep silent. But nothing could block out the sound that would forever be carved into her soul: her sister Lila's scream—not of fear, but of defiance—cutting through the night, only to be severed with an abruptness that was more terrifying than the sound itself. When she had finally clawed her way out, the dawn light had revealed a world reduced to embers and silence. Her parents lay cold beneath the splintered beams of their home, and Lila was simply… gone. Not among the dead, but taken, the hollow-eyed survivors whispered, pulled into the unnatural mist that now clung to the woods, the place where the Veil between worlds was thinnest.
Now, Eira was a ghost haunting the corpse of her own past. She had fled Bramble's End with only the essentials of survival: a forager's pouch, now perpetually stained with soot, a tattered cloak that smelled of smoke and loneliness, and a single, sharp knife that felt heavy at her hip. She slept in the hollow bellies of lightning-struck oaks, her dreams filled with the scent of baking bread and Lila's laughter, only to wake to the taste of ash. She ate the bitter berries and stringy roots she had learned to identify as a child, each meal a testament to a knowledge that now served a solitary, desperate purpose. She was not merely wandering. She was a needle drawn across the scorched tapestry of the Eastern Woods, seeking a single, lost thread. She was looking for Lila. Or, if not Lila, then at least a reason, a sign, a whisper of why.
The air was a foul cocktail of burnt pine and ozone, undercut by something sharper, metallic—the scent of magic, faint but clinging, like the echo of a song long forgotten. Eira's fingers, calloused and scarred, brushed through the dirt, her touch as practiced as a scribe's. These hands had become her greatest allies; they had dug sustenance from the poisoned earth, stitched her skin and her clothes back together, and held the knife steady against the things that now prowled the shadows. But today, as her palm scraped against a half-buried stone, her movements stilled.
Beneath the gritty layer of cinders, something smooth and unnaturally cold pressed against her skin.
Her breath hitched. With a reverence she hadn't felt in months, Eira carefully brushed the ash away. It was a locket, small enough to be cradled in her palm, its surface wrought from blackened iron twisted into a perfect, cruel circlet of thorns. As she lifted it, the iron points pricked her thumb, drawing a single, dark bead of blood. The pain was sharp, clean. And then, as if tasting her blood, recognizing some essential part of her, the metal seemed to sigh, the pricking sensation fading into a dull, cool pressure. She turned it over. Beneath the grime, the locket's center was not glass, but a shard of amber, cloudy and dormant. Then, as if stirred by her gaze, it flared to life. A honeyed, internal light bloomed within, painting the grotesque shadows of the blackened trees in a warm, golden hue that felt like a blasphemy in this place of death.
The light did not just illuminate; it seeped. A tendril of warmth flowed from the amber into the cut on her palm, spreading up her arm like a slow, comforting tide. It was then that the voice came—not a sound that traveled through the air to her ears, but a vibration that resonated directly in her marrow, deep and resonant, like the rumble of a distant storm gathering on the horizon: Guard it. The last embers of the Lightweavers must not fall to the Shadowspire.
Eira recoiled, the locket falling from her grasp as if it were a white-hot coal. She scrambled backward, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs, her breath sawing in her throat. Lightweavers. The word was a relic from her childhood, stories spun by her grandmother by the fireside. Beings of legend who could weave sunlight into cloth and spin memories into tangible things, guardians of Aetheris who had vanished into the mists of time, defeated by the Nether. But legends did not glow with captured sunlight. Myths did not speak in the language of one's very bones.
Hesitantly, her pulse still thundering, she crept forward again. Her trembling fingers closed around the locket. The amber was warm now, a gentle, pulsing heat that beat in a slow, steady rhythm, like a sleeping heart. Driven by an instinct deeper than fear, she pressed it to her chest, just over her own heart. And there it was—a second, fainter heartbeat, a syncopated rhythm answering her own.
"Who are you?" she whispered into the oppressive silence, her voice hoarse from disuse.
The burnt woods offered no answer, save for the mournful wind combing through the skeletal branches. But as Eira tucked the locket safely into her tunic, where it rested against her skin, a profound shift occurred. The leaden weight of despair that had anchored her for three moons seemed to lighten, if only by a fraction. The air, once thick with grief, felt merely cold. The ash beneath her boots was just ash, not the dust of her former life. She was no longer a ghost, aimlessly haunting a graveyard. She was a seeker. And for the first time, she had found something real to seek.