Chapter Nine: Echoes of the Heartwood
Elira dreamed of fire that night.
But it wasn't the destructive kind.
It was gentle—golden flames curling like silk, dancing in the palms of her hands.
She stood in a field of white blossoms, moonlight trickling through the trees, and around her swirled whispers—not terrifying this time, but curious.
"Elira..."
The voice was layered.
Not one voice, but many—woven together like threads in a loom.
It wasn't calling to her like before.
It was remembering her.
She woke with a start.
The journal lay on her chest, still open to the page of the glyph she had copied the night before. Faint silver light pulsed from the ink.
The rune had not faded.
It had grown.
A second glyph now appeared below it—etched faintly as though coaxed from the page by her dream.
She hadn't drawn it.
But it looked like… a key.
A stylized one, tangled in vines.
She whispered the name beneath it.
"Elaran."
At once, the world tilted.
Her chamber shimmered—and melted away.
Elira stumbled as she was pulled into a rush of color and wind and whispers, the journal falling from her hands.
Trees blurred.
Stones crumbled.
Her feet touched ground again—
—only it wasn't the Hollow Court.
It was a battlefield.
A thousand armored knights marched through the Elderwood, torches blazing, swords drawn.
Their banners bore the sun-half-moon crest.
In the center rode a younger man, tall and proud, his silver armor glowing faintly in the dark.
Caelum.
But not as the Beast.
As a man.
He shouted commands.
His voice was strong, noble—but tinged with fear.
The army moved like a storm through the woods, cutting down shadowy creatures that lunged from the trees.
Then, suddenly—a scream.
A woman's.
Elira spun and saw her—dark-haired, cloaked in crimson, standing at the edge of the forest with her hands raised.
Magic pulsed from her fingers.
Trees bent toward her like she was their queen.
Caelum turned to her, anguish in his eyes.
"Selene! Don't—"
The memory snapped.
Elira gasped and fell backward into her cot, the vision vanishing like mist. She clutched her chest, heart pounding, as the journal thudded softly to the floor.
It had shown her a memory.
Not hers.
His.
Someone knocked on her door.
"Elira," Mareel's voice called.
"The Beast summons you."
Still trembling, Elira gathered the journal and stood.
Caelum had a past far deeper—and far more painful—than she imagined. And whoever Selene was… she might have been the reason he stepped into the forest to begin with.
And the reason he had never left.