By the third night, sleep no longer came without consequence.
When I closed my eyes, the world did not fade—it deepened. Darkness peeled back into layers, each one alive with memory and motion. I dreamed of places I had never walked, skies that bent too low, and fire that listened when it was spoken to.
I woke with a name on my lips.
Nyxara.
The word felt older than language, heavier than breath. It followed me through the morning, through the narrow paths and quiet valleys we crossed as if it belonged to me more than my own name ever had.
Elara noticed.
She always did.
"Don't say it," she warned softly when she caught me tracing the sound under my breath.
"Why?" I asked. "Who is she?"
Elara stopped walking.
Rowan continued a few steps ahead before realizing we weren't following. When he turned, his expression hardened—not with anger, but with inevitability.
"You weren't supposed to remember her yet," Elara said.
"Yet," I repeated. "So I was supposed to."
Silence answered me. The kind that confirms instead of denies.
That night, we made camp near the ruins.
They rose from the earth like broken ribs—stone arches split by time, symbols carved deep enough to survive forgetting. I felt drawn to them, my steps slowing as my chest tightened with something dangerously close to grief.
I reached out before anyone could stop me.
The moment my fingers brushed the stone, the world shifted.
The air fractured into heat and shadow, and suddenly I was not standing in ruins—I was standing in firelight.
She stood before me.
Nyxara.
Her hair burned like dusk, her eyes dark and endless. Power moved around her like breath, bending the space between us. She looked at me with neither warmth nor cruelty—only recognition.
"You took your time," she said.
My throat closed. "Are you… me?"
She smiled—not kindly.
"I am what they erased," she answered. "And you are what survived."
The vision shattered.
I collapsed to the ground, gasping, Rowan's hands catching me before I hit the stone. Elara was crying now—silent tears she had held back for years finally breaking free.
"They're coming," Rowan said urgently, eyes scanning the dark beyond the ruins. "She's remembered. That's enough."
"Who?" I demanded, pushing myself upright despite the tremor in my limbs.
Rowan met my gaze. "The ones who ended her."
The ruins pulsed once, faint and alive beneath my feet, as if answering to a long-lost voice.
I didn't feel afraid.
I felt claimed.
Whatever Nyxara was—whatever I was becoming—was no longer buried.