The Awakening - part I:
The dream came for Elaria again, as it always did not gently, not quietly, but like a door to another life being forced open.
Fire rose around her in a great spiraling hall where the walls were carved from blackened stone. The banners overhead hung in tatters, their edges burned as if a forgotten war had reached this place long before her time. Heat rolled through the air, soft at first, then tightening like a hand closing around her ribs.
And through the blaze, a man stepped forward.
He moved with a steady, controlled grace, each footfall turning the fire aside as if the flames themselves bowed to him. His eyes glowed molten gold bright enough to rival the inferno, yet laced with sorrow so old it felt carved into his very bones. Shadows wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak of half-remembered night, but the faint gold threads embroidered into it flickered as though alive.
Elaria didn't know him.
But her soul did.
He lifted his hand, not in command, but in longing quiet, hesitant, as if afraid she would vanish if he reached too quickly. She raised her own hand without meaning to. A pressure built in the air between them, heat and memory folding together like threads being pulled taut.
Their fingers almost met
A second figure stirred in the fire behind him.
A silhouette of smoke and ember-red eyes a presence that felt wrong, cold, and hungry. Its outline flickered like something trapped between forms. The heat vanished, replaced with a suffocating chill. The fire roared
And the dream shattered.
Elaria tore awake with a gasp.
Her breath came ragged and uneven, the remnants of heat still clinging to her skin. Her small chamber was dim, its hearth reduced to cooling ash. Pale morning light slipped through thin curtains, turning the frost on the window into a dull silver.
Her chest ached.
She pulled aside her nightgown.
The crescent moon-mark glowed faintly on her collarbone silver, delicate, and wrapped in thorned patterns that pulsed softly like a second heartbeat. The warmth faded slowly, leaving behind a lingering vibration beneath the skin.
Outside, in the distant forest, a wolf howled.
The sound sliced through the morning stillness, lonely and long.
Elaria closed her eyes. "Not again…"
But the mark warmed once, answering gently.
A knock sounded on the door.
"Awake, child?" Lady Maelin's voice carried the weight of someone who had long expected the worst.
Elaria pulled on her cloak. "Come in."
Maelin entered with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her expression a careful blend of concern and suspicion. Her sharp gaze swept over Elaria before settling on the fading glow beneath her collarbone.
"The dream returned," Maelin said softly.
Elaria nodded. "And it wasn't the same this time."
"The man again?"
"Yes," Elaria whispered. "Closer. Clearer. And… something else behind him."
Maelin's lips thinned.
"The blood remembers what the mind tries to forget. Dreams that grow stronger are not dreams at all they are warnings."
"Warnings of what?"
"That is what we must learn," Maelin murmured.
"And quickly before your mark remembers too much."
•••
Outside, Caer Thorne was slowly waking. The village sat cradled in a cradle of pinewood and fog, its cottages built of stone that still held the chill of late winter. Elaria walked through the courtyard, boots crunching lightly on frost as the distant forge crackled to life.
Kael Avenhart stood there, sleeves pushed back, sparks dancing around him as he hammered a fresh blade. He looked up when she approached, brushing soot from his brow.
"You're awake early," he said. "Or did you not sleep again?"
"The second one," she admitted.
"Same dream?"
She hesitated. Elaria trusted Kael his steadiness, his quiet concern but there were parts of the dream that refused to leave her lips.
"Fire," she said simply. "And a man I've never met."
Kael's expression shifted, just slightly. "Then keep your distance from my forge. We've enough flames without dreaming of more."
He tried to smile, but his eyes searched hers with deeper worry.
Elaria looked away. "I think the fire is already too close."
For a moment, the world seemed to pause the hiss of metal, the glow of forge-light, the faint throb beneath her collarbone.
Then the moment broke, and Kael returned to his work, though he glanced at her more than once.
•••
Dreadmoor Hold : Where Stormlight Presses Against Stone
Thunder rolled across the mountains like the growl of a wounded beast. Dreadmoor Hold loomed against the storm, its blackstone towers carved into the mountainside, each crack and scar hinting at battles long buried in the kingdom's forgotten history.
Ashar Ravaryn stood near the great hearth of his chamber, breath fogging in the cold air. The fire inside the grate had been reduced to embers, but the warmth beneath his palm burned hotter than any flame.
His hand rested over his left chest.
The sun-mark pulsed beneath his skin golden lines radiating outward like fractured rays of dawn. Each beat sent a faint shimmer up the side of his neck, as though light yearned to escape him.
It didn't hurt.
It never hurt.
It remembered.
And today, it remembered too much.
He shut his eyes as warmth spread through him in a slow, deliberate wave. The world seemed to tilt, and suddenly he wasn't in Dreadmoor anymore.
He was standing in a hall of fire the same hall the woman in his dreams stood within.
Her silver eyes.
The heat between their reaching hands.
The way her breath trembled like she recognized him.
He saw her again.
Closer than the night before.
Her whisper brushed the inside of his mind like a hand passing over heated glass.
Find me.
Ashar opened his eyes sharply, breath unsteady.
He was shaking.
Not from fear
but from certainty.
Someone was calling him through dreams woven into his bones.
Footsteps echoed in the doorway.
Theron leaned against the frame, arms crossed, the stormlight catching on the scar running down his jaw. "You're awake early. Again."
"You sound surprised," Ashar said.
"I'm not. But Father is." Theron stepped in, lowering his voice. "He says the mark hasn't burned like that in generations. If it's doing this to you… he's afraid of what it means."
Ashar looked back at the dying embers. "Do you fear it too?"
Theron hesitated only a heartbeat, but enough. "I fear what it asks of you."
Ashar's jaw tightened. "The mark doesn't ask."
"Then what does it do?"
Ashar stared at the storm beyond the window.
"It remembers," he whispered.
But the memory wasn't his.
It belonged to someone who moved through fire as though it bowed.
Someone who reached for him through a lifetime he could not name.
•••
The Lord of Dreadmoor
The great hall was quiet when Ashar entered. Rain thundered against the windows, lightning illuminating the old Ravaryn banners faded by time, their once-bright sun emblem cracked down the center.
Lord Kaelen stood near the long table, hands braced on its surface. His hair had grayed early, streaked with white like a man who had seen too many storms.
The moment he saw Ashar, his gaze dropped to the faint gold glow beneath his son's shirt.
"It burns again," he said, voice low.
Ashar nodded. "Yes."
Kaelen's throat worked. "Your great-grandfather wrote of it. He said the mark was tied to the kingdom we lost the one swallowed by fire when the old magic broke."
Drelaveth.
The ruined kingdom.
The one no one visited.
The one every Ravaryn in history feared.
Ashar swallowed. "Should I fear it?"
Kaelen didn't answer immediately. He looked toward the storm.
"No Ravaryn who bore the mark lived an ordinary life," he said. "Some were blessed. Some were ruined. And one…" He hesitated. "One nearly burned the world down with him."
Ashar absorbed the words quietly.
"Father," he said at last, "I saw someone."
Kaelen's eyes flicked sharply toward him. "Who?"
"A woman… with silver eyes."
He didn't mention the fire. Or her voice. Not yet.
"She felt… familiar. As though I was supposed to know her."
Kaelen's expression darkened with something that wasn't quite fear more like recognition he didn't want to name. "Dreams are rarely what they seem. Be cautious, Ashar."
Ashar looked down at his hands.
It didn't feel like a dream.
It felt like a promise returning.
•••
The Call of the Mountains
As he stepped out into the courtyard, the storm clouds began to break, revealing a sliver of dawn. Wind cut across the stones, sharp and cold.
Then he heard it.
A cry piercing, fierce carried by the wind.
Ashar looked up.
A hawk streaked across the sky, golden feathers catching the morning light. It circled over the courtyard once, twice then descended with a precision that made Ashar's breath still.
Solryn.
The hawk landed on the battlement with a metallic clatter of talons, fixing Ashar with brilliant amber eyes. Stormlight shimmered across its wings, turning its feathers into flickers of gold.
Ashar stepped closer.
Solryn did not move away.
For a long moment, hawk and man simply regarded one another.
The mark beneath Ashar's skin pulsed in answer.
A soft vibration filled the air too deliberate to be wind.
A whisper brushed his consciousness.
South.
Ashar stiffened.
South.
Toward Caer Thorne.
Toward the valley he had dreamed of as a child without knowing why.
Toward her.
He exhaled shakily.
I hear you, he thought.
And far beyond the mountains, Elaria paused mid-step, her hand flying to her chest as if she'd heard the same whisper.
•••
Caer Thorne : When the Valley Holds Its Breath
The mist that clung to Caer Thorne that morning did not behave as mist should. It did not drift or scatter or rise with the warming air. It lingered low, coiling in delicate silver strands that moved like a living thing.
Elaria felt it before she saw it.
A subtle shift in the air.
A pull beneath her ribs.
A tightening in the mark over her collarbone, as if something far away had stirred in answer.
She paused in the courtyard and pressed her palm against the mark. It pulsed once warm, steady, and deliberate.
The warmth wasn't frightening.
It was familiar.
Kael noticed her stillness. "Again?" he asked, lowering his hammer.
"Yes," Elaria murmured. "Stronger."
"Is it dangerous?"
"No," she whispered though she wasn't certain. "It feels like… someone is reaching for me."
Kael stiffened, concern cutting across his face. But before he could question her further, a faint tremor quivered beneath the cobblestones. It was so light she wouldn't have noticed it if her mark hadn't answered instantly with a flare of heat.
Elaria sucked in a breath, shaken.
Maelin, who had quietly approached, caught the movement. "The mark reacts only when its counterpart reacts," she said grimly. "Whatever stirs beyond the mountains is no longer sleeping."
"What's beyond the mountains?" Kael asked.
Maelin's eyes darkened. "Ruins best left in ash."
Elaria swallowed.
But something inside her something instinctive and unexplainable pulled her attention toward the distant ridge. She felt as if a thread had been looped around her heart and tugged, gently at first, then with unmistakable insistence.
Her breathing faltered.
The pull was not pain.
It was recognition.
A memory without form, a name without sound, a presence without face
and yet she knew with perfect certainty that someone far away was searching for her with equal urgency.
Her fingers tightened on her cloak.
Who are you?
The question lived in her bones, heavy and ancient.
Maelin's voice softened as she approached. "Child… you look pale."
"There's a… feeling," Elaria whispered. "Like the world is watching. Like something is calling."
"Or someone," Maelin corrected quietly.
Elaria's pulse lurched.
Before she could respond, a sharp bark echoed from the forest. She turned and her breath caught.
From the shadows emerged a small wolf pup, its fur a shimmering silver-gray that reflected the mist like moonlight made flesh. Its steps were cautious but direct, each one placed with unearthly grace.
The pup stopped only a few steps away and lifted its head.
Elaria froze.
Its eyes
gods, its eyes
They were not the eyes of a creature that had lived only weeks. They were deep, old, and bright with recognition. They regarded her with an intelligence that made her tremble.
Kael tensed beside her. "A wolf? At this hour?"
"That is no ordinary wolf," Maelin whispered. "Spirit-touched… perhaps spirit-born."
The pup stepped closer.
Elaria's mark flared.
Lyrian walked straight to her, ignoring Kael and Maelin, and pressed his forehead gently against her knee.
A warmth spread through her body as soft as moonlight, as steady as breath.
Elaria knelt.
The wolf put his paw on her hand.
And in that instant, something opened inside her a feeling deep and vast, like a door she had never known existed had been pushed ajar.
She saw flashes
not clear, but powerful.
A forest at night, illuminated by a full moon.
A woman's voice calling a name she didn't recognize.
A pair of golden eyes she did.
Fire curling around a stone archway.
A shadow watching from behind it.
Elaria jerked back, breath shuddering.
Kael reached for her shoulder. "Elaria what did you see?"
"A memory," she whispered. "But not mine."
Maelin knelt beside Lyrian, her expression a mix of awe and fear. "The spirit-wolves choose only those who carry fated marks. This is bond, not coincidence."
Lyrian nudged Elaria's hand again gentle, guiding and looked toward the forest, ears pricked forward.
"He wants you to follow," Kael said.
"No," Maelin corrected softly, "he wants you to remember."
Elaria swallowed hard.
"I don't know if I can."
"You can," Maelin murmured. "Because whatever is calling you… has already begun to find you."
The wind shifted.
And Elaria swore she felt the faintest whisper brush her mind warm, steady, familiar.
A voice she knew only from dreams.
…I'm coming…
She gasped and clutched her mark.
Maelin's eyes widened. "What did you hear?"
Elaria trembled. "A voice… but far away. Like an echo carried on the wind."
Kael looked between them, unsettled. "Whose voice?"
"I don't know," Elaria whispered.
But she felt it down to her bones.
She did know.
She always had.
Golden eyes.
Firelight.
A hand reaching for hers.
Someone she had never met
and yet felt impossibly bound to.
The valley fell silent around her.
Something had awakened tonight.
And it was coming for her.
•••
Dreadmoor : Where Storm and Fire Collide
Ashar did not return indoors.
Something in him refused the shelter of stone, as though the walls of Dreadmoor Hold had become too narrow for the fire growing inside his chest. He walked into the storm-hushed courtyard, boots splashing through shallow puddles as lightning rippled across the sky.
Solryn spiraled above him, wings slicing the air in smooth, deliberate arcs.
Ashar lifted his face toward the wind.
The storm had a taste tonight cold, metallic, ancient as if the sky itself were remembering.
His mark pulsed again.
Not in warning.
In recognition.
Heat rippled through him in waves, curling beneath his ribs, climbing up his spine. He grasped the front of his cloak, fingers digging into the fabric as the golden lines beneath his skin brightened.
A vision struck him without mercy.
Silver eyes.
A wolf pup at someone's feet.
Mist curling around moonlit stone.
A voice soft, startled, trembling with familiarity.
…Who are you?
He staggered, gripping the battlements for support.
"Enough," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Show me clearly."
The mark responded.
Fire roared behind his eyes...
and suddenly he was no longer standing in Dreadmoor.
He was standing in a forest of moonlit mist, a breath away from a woman whose presence pulled at him like an anchor thrown across lifetimes. Her cloak rippled in the wind, her hair caught the silver light, and her hand slender, trembling reached out as though she had been searching for him for years.
Their marks blazed.
Her moon.
His sun.
Two halves of a broken celestial emblem burning back into existence.
Ashar felt his knees weaken.
She was real.
Not a dream.
Not a memory.
A presence.
The bond between their marks tightened a thread pulled taut across mountains, forests, and fate.
Her voice brushed his mind again.
…Find me...
This time, it was not a plea.
It was a command.
And Ashar answered without hesitation.
"I will."
The vision shattered not slowly, but violently, like a mirror struck by lightning.
Ashar gasped for breath as reality snapped back around him. His palms burned. The storm had stilled. Even the wind seemed frozen.
Solryn landed on his shoulder, feathers glowing faintly.
The hawk tilted his head.
A single word echoed in Ashar's mind, unmistakable:
South.
Ashar steadied himself.
He did not know who she was.
He did not know why their marks resonated.
He did not know what waited beyond the mountain pass.
But he knew one truth with frightening clarity:
Someone with silver eyes was calling him and he had already begun answering.
•••
Caer Thorne : The Valley That Listens
Elaria felt the connection break like a sudden tear in the air. She stumbled, hand flying to her heart, gripping the mark as warmth radiated across her collarbone.
Her breath shook.
She had seen him
not in a dream,
not in a vision,
but in a place between waking and memory.
Golden eyes.
The heat of fire.
A presence that felt like a vow returning to her through time.
Lyrian pressed against her leg, whining softly.
Maelin steadied her shoulders.
"What happened?" Maelin whispered.
Elaria swallowed hard. "I saw him."
Kael stiffened. "Again?"
"No," she whispered, voice trembling. "Not like before. It wasn't a dream. It felt… real. As if he was standing right in front of me."
Maelin exhaled slowly, her expression shifting from concern to dread. "Then the bond between your marks has awakened fully."
Elaria's heart hammered.
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Maelin said, "whatever has slept beneath the mountain is stirring. And the one who carries the sun-mark moves toward you."
Lyrian lifted his head and howled
a clear, uncanny sound that echoed across the valley and up toward the mountains, carrying a warning or perhaps a welcome.
Elaria whispered into the cold air:
"Why do I feel like I've known him forever?"
Maelin's eyes softened with a sorrow Elaria did not understand. "Because some bonds are older than memory, child."
The sky grew unbearably still.
The mist tightened around the valley like a held breath.
And far beyond the mountains, Ashar stood poised at the threshold of destiny
his next step already guiding him toward her.
***