Aria
Aria woke before dawn.
For a moment she did not know what had stirred her. The room was silent, the curtains swaying gently with the early morning draft, the lights dim. Luca lay beside her, his arm draped around her waist, his breath steady against the back of her neck. He looked peaceful, but Aria knew better. His sleep the past few nights had been shallow and fractured, his mind always alert, always listening for danger.
She gently shifted, careful not to wake him.
Her body felt heavy with fatigue, but her mind was restless, buzzing with threads of dreams she could not fully remember. Images. Sounds. A woman's voice. A child crying. A symbol carved into stone.
The same symbol Luca had hidden in his pocket last night. She did not need to see it to know. She had felt it in her bones when he returned to the bedroom. Something old had brushed against them. Something that had no right to exist in their world.
