Elara had always believed the world beyond her village was a myth spun by old travelers and mad priests,places where rivers ran backwards and stars spoke in riddles. As a girl, she'd sit near the hearth, wide-eyed as the elders spoke of lands that drifted between day and night, where winged creatures haunted the skies and shadows whispered secrets. But those tales always seemed like smoke,beautiful, strange, and never meant to be held. She never imagined she'd leave home in the company of men who didn't cast shadows.
There had been no warning, no time to gather her thoughts or say a proper farewell. The Ordo Nocturne made no small ceremony of her departure. No prayers. No blessings. No goodbyes. Only the low rumble of hooves against frost-hardened earth and the sound of Ana weeping behind the door. Her foster sister's cry echoed down the narrow stone corridor, muffled by distance and thick wood, yet it clung to Elara's skin like ash.
The world faded behind them, swallowed by winter haze. Calderon rode ahead, silent but watchful, like a sentinel carved from iron and cold air. The other monks trailed behind in a solemn procession, their faces hidden beneath their heavy cowls, their presence more spectral than human. They spoke not a single word, and even their breathing seemed distant, absorbed by the stillness of the morning.
Elara rode a gray mare with silver eyes and a bristled mane that glistened faintly, as though brushed with moonlight. The animal moved with unhurried grace, its gait smooth and soundless, unsettling in its silence. No reins. No saddle. Just her, clinging gently to its coarse mane, as though she were a passenger carried by something older than the road itself. The mare's ears twitched now and then, reacting to things Elara could not see or hear.
"Where are we going?" she asked as they passed the edge of the forest, where the trees grew taller and closer, like sentinels guarding a forgotten realm.
Calderon didn't turn. "To Valea Umbrei."
Elara frowned, her brows knitting together. "That place doesn't exist."
"You've never needed it to," he replied, voice calm as if stating a law of nature.
---
By nightfall, the path had vanished entirely. What had once been a narrow dirt trail grew choked with vines and uneven ground, swallowed by the wild. They traveled now through an ancient forest, thick with black pine and roots like gnarled hands clawing from the soil. The air grew colder, heavier, like a presence watching from all sides. Fog pooled low over the ground, hiding shapes that shifted if she looked too long. Trees twisted in unnatural angles, and moss hung like old flesh from every branch.
More than once, she thought she saw faces,half-formed, peering from the mist. Watching her. Judging.
"You're seeing the Veil," Calderon said without prompting, his voice slicing through the hush like a blade through silk.
"The what?"
"The boundary between waking and dream. This forest runs along its edge."
Elara tightened her grip on the mare's mane. The creature did not flinch. "Is it always like this?"
"Only for those the world wants to forget."
His words settled on her skin like frost. She dared not ask what it meant to be one the world wanted forgotten.
---
They made camp in a clearing of dead grass, ringed by standing stones etched with runes that shimmered faintly in the dark, like embers trapped in stone. The sky above was a black ocean, and the stars flickered faintly behind a gauze of cloud. The air smelled of pine sap and something older, like old parchment and dust-covered tombs.
No fire.
Calderon claimed flame could invite things from the other side.
Instead, they lit nothing. The only light came from the moon, which peeked between drifting clouds, and the faint pulse of the runes that surrounded them like a ward.
Elara curled into her cloak, the fabric thin against the creeping cold. Her breath fogged before her lips as she huddled close to the mare, who stood still beside her like a silent sentinel. She listened to the hush of the trees, the way their branches creaked without wind. Every so often, the sound of distant movement rustled through the underbrush—too soft for an animal, too fluid for man.
Somewhere beyond the circle of stones, a woman's voice cried softly. The sound floated like a feather on the air—a lullaby in a language she didn't know, but somehow… understood.
"Who sings that?" she whispered, afraid to break the fragile spell of the night.
Calderon looked up from where he knelt, hands pressed to one of the stones as though in silent prayer. His expression did not change. "No one."
---
That night, the dream returned.
She stood before a mirror made of black glass, its surface rippling like water. The air around her was dense, perfumed with myrrh and blood. Her reflection stared back—but it wasn't her. The woman in the mirror was older, regal. Her hair fell in midnight waves. Her eyes glowed gold, ancient and knowing. Her lips were bloodstained, as though she had fed… or been kissed by something monstrous.
And behind her, in the mirror's shifting depths, stood the man in red. Tall, pale, with eyes that seemed to burn. He touched her reflection's shoulder, fingers long and elegant, like a prince of old nightmares.
And she smiled.
---
Elara woke gasping.
The forest was still. But the runes around the camp flickered, pulsing softly like a heartbeat, like the stones themselves were breathing with her.
She looked toward Calderon.
He was already awake, watching her.
"You dreamed again," he said.
She nodded. "She looked like me. But not me."
"She was you," he said. "Once."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," he said gently, "that the blood remembers."