The dream came without warning.
No slow drift. No trembling premonition. Just a clean break between breath and silence.
One moment, I sat beneath the old hearth, I could feel the firelight soft on my face. The next, she stood barefoot in a silver field, the sky above her vast and colorless, not dark, not light, but still. Clouded.
I was alone in what was an endless expanse of level plain field. I was scared. I could feel the chill grip of cold on my skin.
Am I alone?
I looked around for something that stood out from the environment, and in the distance, beneath the reach of a towering black tree, a figure knelt.
The sight drew me forward. Not in fear. Not in recognition. But as one pulled by gravity toward something they had never known, but had always longed for.
The figure wore robes white as frost. Not glowing, yet somehow untouched by the dust of the earth. Her hair was long, flowing like quiet water, and her posture was one of reverence, as if listening to a voice I could not yet hear.
I stopped a few paces away.
The woman raised her head and looked to me.
Her face bore no features of divinity. No crown. No fire. No weapon. Yet in her stillness was a power that I could not explain, a kind of peace that made the very air feel sacred...and she looked exactly like me.
"I have been set before you," the woman said softly.
The words landed like a melody on my chest, unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.
The woman stood.
"You are not yet me," she said, "but I am what awaits you, if you walk the road."
My voice came out hollow. "What road?"
The tree's roots stirred beneath them, slow and deep, like veins in the soil.
"The road through sorrow. Through trial. Through the silence of shame and the weight of things not forgotten. Through the long suffering of grace."
"I don't understand."
"You will in time."
I felt fear, not terror, but reverent fear. The kind that came not from threat, but from the presence of something holy. Her presence was greater than anything I could imagine myself have and yet I felt that power was not all of it. That it was more than I could ever ask or think. Like Lucien's.
The woman reached out.
Her hand gesture touched my soul. Deep, invisible. The woman before me is by all means seated with Lucien in power by the looks of it, and her gesture made me remember the grand ball in Artherion.
"You are not chosen because of who you are," her voice whispered. "You are chosen because of where you are and what love has prepared for you."
The wind blew swaying her hair to the side.
The woman smiled, not in joy, but in certainty.
"There is glory ahead," she said.
And then she vanished.
Mirelleth gasped.
And awoke.
The basin by her bedside trembled.
She sat upright, breath shallow, hands gripping the thin blanket. Her skin was damp with sweat. But her heart, it pulsed differently now. Not in fear, but in ache.
She looked toward the rose still tucked behind her comb. It had once been dry.
Now its petals were soft again. Breathing, somehow.
She reached for it slowly. Held it in her hands.
It glowed faintly. Just enough to see.
Mirelleth didn't smile.
She didn't weep.
She only closed her eyes and held the rose tighter.
---
Last night's dream wouldn't leave me. It hovered in my chest like the aftertaste of a song, something between fear and expectation. Who was she? Why did she feel like me, only brighter, better, steadier?
I couldn't dwell on it. Not now.
The castle didn't care what I dreamed.
I sat up, folded my blanket quickly, and dipped my hands in the basin before the water could go still. The chill bit my skin. I dressed in silence, the plain gray uniform as dull as always, the sleeves tight from months of mending and re-mending. My hands trembled slightly as I pinned my hair, and the old comb snagged. I tugged once, winced, and let it go. I tucked the rose behind my ear last. It was softer now, somehow. Warmer.
I didn't have time to question it.
The second bell had already rung.
I hurried through the servant hall, past two girls who stopped talking the moment they saw me. Their eyes slid to the rose, then to my face, and then away. They didn't greet me. I didn't expect them to.
The corridor to Vaeloria's chambers was colder than usual. My steps echoed. I hated that sound. It made me feel exposed, like every footfall reminded them I was still here.
I knocked twice on the princess's door, then entered as expected.
She was still in bed, wrapped in silk. Her curtains were drawn halfway, softening the morning light into something gentle. That was a lie, she hated gentle. She only kept the light dim so the servants would have to squint and stumble.
"Took you long enough," she said before I could speak.
I curtsied quickly. "Forgive me, my lady."
"Bring the mirror."
I moved toward the vanity, my fingers brushing against the cool edge of the silver-framed glass. I carried it slowly, carefully. She watched me like a hawk.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked, her tone honeyed.
"I did," I replied.
"Pity," she said, and yawned. "I was hoping your dreams would be loud enough to keep the rest of us up. Since you seem to think they're worth carrying around like medals."
I said nothing.
She sat up, letting the sheet fall from her shoulder. She didn't reach for a robe.
"What did you see this time?" she asked. "A crown? A sword? A throne? Did the prince visit you in golden robes to confess his undying regret?"
"No, my lady."
She laughed, not joyfully, but cruelly. "Good. Even your fantasies should know their place."
I handed her the mirror, careful not to look at her eyes too long. She glanced at the glass, then at me, then back at the glass.
"Did you polish this?"
"Yes, my lady."
She ran a finger across its edge and lifted it into the light. A thin smudge. Maybe from my own hand.
She set the mirror down, not hard, but with a sound that still made me flinch.
"You're sloppy when you think too much. That rose must be sucking all the sense out of your head."
She stood and stepped closer, inspecting me like one might inspect a cracked goblet.
"Take it off," she said.
"My lady?"
"The rose. Take it off. Now."
I hesitated for a breath. Maybe two.
Her slap came fast, sharp. Not hard enough to leave a bruise, just enough to remind me of where I stood.
I reached up and pulled the rose from behind my ear. It pulsed once in my palm. She didn't see.
"I don't want to see it again," she said, returning to her mirror. "Or I'll burn it myself."
I nodded. "Yes, my lady."
She didn't look at me again.
I placed the rose gently in my apron pocket as I turned to leave.
It was warm.
Alive.
And though my cheek stung, though the shame sat like salt on my skin, I walked from her chamber without tears.
Because I had seen something she hadn't.
And deep down, I believed, maybe just barely, that the woman in white was real.
And the woman had not scorned me. Infact, she was me.