The morning I left the village, it felt like the trees themselves were mourning.
Mist drifted between the trunks like slow smoke. Birdsong had vanished. Even the wind usually so persistent in the high boughs was silent.
Seren stood at the edge of the path, wrapped in his green mantle. He handed me a cloth-wrapped satchel, heavy with dried roots, smoked meat, and a small wooden vial.
"For clarity of mind," he said. "Drink it before the gates."
I hesitated. "Is it poison?"
He almost smiled. "You'd know by now if I meant you harm."
I took the satchel, slipping it over my shoulder.
"I don't know what to say," I admitted. "Thank you isn't enough."
"Then don't say anything," he replied softly.
"Just remember who you are. Even when others try to tell you otherwise."
—
They were waiting at the forest's edge. Three figures mounted on dark antlered steeds. Two wore high-collared cloaks bearing the seal of the Crown: a crescent sun surrounded by thorns. The third was younger, dressed plainer, with a satchel of scrolls and ink dangling from his hip.
"I'm Cael," he said, voice clipped and professional. "Court archivist. I'll be documenting your journey."
"Documenting?"
He nodded. "Dreamers don't walk freely in Aurenholt. Especially not those tied to prophecy."
I blinked. "So I'm a case file now."
"You're a disruption," he replied, mounting with ease. "The court likes to keep those close."
—
The journey began beneath a pale sky. Elyndra's sun didn't blaze like Earth's; it filtered through layers of atmosphere and magic, casting everything in a glow that was both warm and haunting. Birds with glass-feathered wings passed overhead. Trees shifted colors with the hours.
We rode in silence for a long time.
I didn't realize how far the village had been from the world until the forest gave way to plains and wildflower fields. Towering stones jutted from the earth like the bones of ancient beasts, carved with old symbols that shimmered faintly.
"They're wards," Cael explained. "From before the Accord. Meant to keep out things that crossed the Veil."
"The Veil?" I asked.
"You passed through it, didn't you?"
That shut me up.
—
We camped that night beneath a half-moon sky. The stars were wrong, too many, too bright. Some even moved.
Cael set up his writing tools, dipping a quill into silver ink that smelled faintly of mint and iron.
"What happens if I go back?" I asked suddenly.
He looked up. "To where?"
"My world."
He didn't answer right away. Then: "Most dreamers don't ask that. They're too fascinated. Or too afraid."
"I'm both."
"Well, no one's gone back yet. Not alive."
—
By the second day, we passed a withered orchard. Trees blackened to ash. Soil dry and cracked despite the flowing river nearby.
One of the guards muttered a prayer.
"What happened here?" I asked.
"Rot," Cael replied. "But not the natural kind. Magic that eats from the roots upward."
"Someone cursed it?"
"Or something woke beneath it."
He didn't elaborate.
—
By twilight, the outline of Eldrath rose like a dream against the horizon.
Built into the side of a high ridge, the capital shimmered. Towers twisted upward like frozen lightning. Waterfalls spilled from behind the fortress walls, feeding silver rivers that ran through the lower city.
And at its center, a massive fortress of obsidian and gold loomed over everything: Caelion Keep.
Even from a distance, I could feel the weight of it pressing down.
That night, we made camp near a moon-well, a perfectly round spring with water as still as polished stone.
"They say it reflects the truth of one's soul," Cael murmured as we sat beside it.
I knelt to look into it.
My reflection was there… but it didn't feel like me.
The eyes were the same shape. The face unchanged. But behind it, something stirred. Like a second presence, quiet, watching.
I backed away.
"You saw it?" Cael asked, his voice almost gentle.
"I don't know what I saw."
"That's how you know it's real."
—
We entered Eldrath on the third day.
Guards met us at the outer wall, stern, suspicious, and far better armed than the ones back in the village. They studied me like I was a riddle they hadn't been warned about.
"Identification?" one asked.
Cael stepped forward. "He travels under Crown sanction. Marked by the disc, bearer of prophetic dream."
The moment the word 'prophetic' left his mouth, the atmosphere changed. People stepped back. A few made signs over their hearts.
We were waved through in silence.
—
The capital was overwhelming.
The air shimmered faintly with the residue of magic, subtle, but present in everything. Buildings were carved into layered stone with glowing script inlaid around windows. Vendors floated wares with enchantments. A man walked past, trailed by petals that never touched the ground.
Everything was beautiful.
And everything was watching me.
Cael said nothing as we crossed a wide marble bridge that led toward the castle proper. Above us, banners rippled, deep indigo with a golden sun breaking from behind thorned arches.
"Welcome to Vaedran Keep," he said as we approached the great gates.
"Where the prophesy lives?"
"No," he replied. "Where it might end."