Chapter 14: A Name on the Wind
Errin fell to his knees, clutching his head as waves of memory crashed over him. They came without order, without mercy—faces, places, emotions bleeding into one another, slipping between the cracks of his mind like sand through fingers.
A forgotten war. A lost home. A promise whispered beneath the stars.
And the woman—her.
He had known her. Loved her.
But her name…
It danced on the edge of his tongue, just out of reach.
The valley wavered before him, shifting between past and present. One moment, it was the simple place he had called home—the next, it was something vast, unknowable, stretching beyond the limits of time.
The wind carried a whisper.
"Errin."
His eyes snapped open. The voice was soft, yet it rang with a power that sent shivers down his spine. He turned.
She stood at the edge of the field, half-hidden in the golden light of dusk. Her hair moved like river currents, her eyes holding the weight of countless years.
"You're here," he breathed, his voice raw.
She nodded. "You remember, don't you?"
He tried to speak, but the words tangled in his throat.
What was he remembering? A life before the valley? A life outside of it?
Or had he always been here, lost in a dream of something greater?
The wind carried her name to him.
And as it settled in his heart, the world shifted once more.
He reached for her—
But the moment his fingers brushed hers, the valley vanished.
And Errin awoke to a sky he did not recognize.