Chapter 10: Visionfire

The first time it came, I thought it was just a dream.

A flicker behind my eyes, a sharp scent of ash, and the faint sound of whispering like wind brushing against dry leaves. I woke in a cold sweat, heart pounding, only to find my room silent, untouched. The fire had burned low in the hearth, casting trembling shadows across the stone walls. I sat up, my

breath uneven.

But something inside me shifted that night.

The next time, it was worse.

I found myself standing in a forest shrouded in mist, trees stretching far beyond sight. The air pulsed with an unnatural stillness, thick and electric. In the center of a glade stood a ruin, its tower fractured, leaning as if exhausted by time. I took a step closer, the moss damp beneath my bare feet, and a sudden flame erupted from a circle of ancient stones. In the heart of the fire, something floated. A scroll, glowing gold, ink etched in symbols I didn't understand. I reached for it and then I heard a voice:

"The fire remembers.

You are the spark and the silence."

I jolted awake, my hands trembling. Three nights in a row, the vision returned. Each time, the scroll became clearer, the voice louder. I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know this world's magic or its rules but something was drawing me deeper.

And it scared the hell out of me.

—

I didn't tell anyone. Not yet.

Not the guards who watched me like a thief. Not the maids who'd delivered my meals in silence. Certainly not Prince Eryndor. There was no reason to trust any of them.

I tried pushing the visions away, buried myself in quiet corners of the castle, read anything I could get my hands on, walked the garden paths hoping the cold air would clear my thoughts.

But the visions didn't stop. They grew more intense.

One night, I swear I could still smell smoke hours after waking. Another morning, I found ash beneath my fingernails, though I hadn't touched a fire. I'm sure it wasn't just in my head. It was real. I just didn't know how.

But I had to find out.

—

Rumors flow faster than river water in a place like Eldrath. Just like a typical kingdom in novels.

It didn't take much effort to overhear fragments, servants whispering in corridors, young scribes talking too loudly in the library, a dropped line here and there from an elder scholar who thought I wasn't listening.

That's how I learned about the Quiet Vault.

Hidden beneath the royal archives, sealed to the public. It is said to hold records dating back to the founding of the kingdom and information too sacred or too dangerous for common eyes.

Exactly the kind of place that might explain why I was having visions of ancient ruins and glowing scrolls. I watched the routines of the guards. Marked the change in shifts.

On the fifth night, when the castle fell into its hush of velvet silence and frost settled over the windows, I left my chamber. I wrapped myself in a plain cloak, one I'd borrowed from the linen stores, and crept down the servant passages. My heart pounded louder than my footsteps.

The archives were empty. Candlelight flickered low in wall lanterns. The scent of wax and paper wrapped around me. I passed through corridors lined with shelves, scrolls tucked into stone niches, cabinets with gilded locks. Time had thickened here.

At the far end, I found it, the narrow door tucked behind a tapestry of the founding kings. Unmarked, nearly hidden. I pushed it open. Cold air rushed out. A stairwell spiraled down into darkness.

—

The Quiet Vault was unlike anything I'd seen. No books. Just scrolls, sealed boxes, and tall iron racks carved with runes that glowed faintly in the dark. The only light came from a lantern someone had left on a stone pedestal at the center of the room. Someone has been here recently. And resting atop the pedestal was the scroll from my dreams. The same seal. The same dark ribbon.

I stepped closer. My hand hovered above the parchment.

"Don't touch that."

I paused. There's only one voice I've heard with such authority.

Prince Eryndor stood at the threshold, cloaked in black, the flickering lantern casting harsh angles across his face. His eyes fixed on me not with surprise, but with annoyance.

My stomach dropped.

"You followed me?"

"I don't need to follow you," he said. "You're as quiet as a thunderclap."

Of course what did I expect. I clenched my jaw. "Then why are you here?"

"This vault is warded. Every step you took echoed across the watchstones. I came to see what fool was tampering with sacred ground."

I turned back toward the scroll, annoyed myself. "I'm not trying to tamper. I just…I've been having these...dreams."

He raised an eyebrow. "Dreams?"

"Yeah. But more than dreams." I faced him again. "And that scroll, that scroll is in them. Every time."

He didn't move. Just stared at me. "You think this world plays by your rules?" he asked finally.

"I don't know what rules it plays by," I admitted. "But something's happening to me. And I need to understand it."

His voice turned quieter, but sharper. "People who seek forbidden knowledge often find ruin."

"I didn't come here to destroy anything."

"No," he said. "But that doesn't mean you won't."

Ugh. This again. What's wrong with people in this place.

He stepped forward, slowly, like a predator gauging the distance.

"Do you even know what that scroll is?"

"No," I said. "But I've seen it in my dreams."

He scoffed.

We stared at each other. And for a second, just one, there was something beneath the hardness in his eyes. I couldn't tell.

I stepped back. "Fine. I'll leave." I started toward the exit, the stone floor cold beneath my boots.

"Wait."

Eryndor's gaze hadn't softened, but it wasn't purely hostile anymore.

"You said you saw this scroll in your visions," he said carefully. "Describe them."

I hesitated.

The scroll. The tower. The voice.

"I saw a ruin," I said slowly. "A tower, cracked down the middle. Fire in the center. This scroll floating above it, glowing. A voice says things I don't understand."

"What does it say?"

I swallowed. "The fire remembers. You are the spark and the silence."

His brow furrowed.

"That phrase," he muttered, "doesn't exist in any public records."

"So you've heard it before?" I asked.

He didn't answer. Instead, he looked past me to the scroll. Then back.

"You need to forget this," he said sharply.

"You know I can't."

His jaw clenched.

"You're not from Elyndra," he said. "Whatever magic you've stumbled into, it's not yours. It could destroy you. Or worse, us."

I didn't look away. "Maybe I didn't choose this. But now that I'm here, might as well figure out what the hell I'm tangled up with."

He stepped closer. Close enough that I could see how tense his shoulders were. How tired his eyes looked, despite all the coldness. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something else but stopped. Then, without another word, he turned and left, his footsteps echoing up the stone stairwell.

—

Back in my room, I couldn't sleep. The vision returned again, stronger. This time the tower burned. I saw a figure standing in the flames.

And this time...the eyes staring back at me were not mine. But I knew them now. They were his.

And as the fire grew around him, the voice whispered again, urgent, louder than ever:

"The crown will fall in silence if the spark is lost." I woke gasping. And I knew…

This was only the beginning.