The air was colder on the other side of the portal.
It wasn't just the temperature—it was something deeper, something that clung to the bones and whispered against the skin like lost memories. Elyra shivered despite the thick cloak Kael had lent her, its fur-lined edges doing little to stave off the chill of this strange new world.
She stood at the edge of a forest unlike any she had ever seen. The trees were skeletal, their bark a silvery black that reflected moonlight as if they were polished obsidian. The sky overhead held three moons, each a different hue—crimson, ivory, and sapphire. They bathed the land in an eerie kaleidoscope of color.
"We call it the Ashen Wood," Kael said, his voice quieter than usual. "It used to be beautiful. Before the corruption."
"Corruption?" Elyra asked, glancing up at him.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he crouched beside a low shrub and touched its leaves, which crumbled to dust at his fingertips.
"This world has been dying for a long time," he said finally. "Long before you came here. The portals… they're connected to something older than even the Watchers understand."
Elyra stared at the crumbling foliage, a cold realization tightening in her chest. This wasn't just about her anymore. Whatever she had stepped into was bigger—deeper—than she could yet comprehend.
Kael rose to his feet, his silver eyes glinting in the moonlight. "Come. We need to reach the Whispering Vale before dawn."
"And if we don't?" she asked.
He hesitated again. "Then we won't hear the names."
She frowned. "What names?"
Kael didn't explain. Instead, he began walking, and Elyra followed, careful to keep her footsteps light as they made their way through the brittle underbrush. Strange sounds echoed through the trees—low moans, distant sobs, something that sounded almost like laughter but broken, wrong.
Elyra didn't ask more questions. Not yet.
They traveled for hours, the path winding and narrow, cutting through shadows that seemed to move when she wasn't looking. Once, she thought she saw a figure between the trees—a child with hollow eyes and a mouth sewn shut. But when she turned, it vanished.
By the time they reached the vale, Elyra was sweating beneath her cloak, not from exertion, but from tension. The Whispering Vale was a clearing surrounded by crooked stones etched with runes that pulsed with faint light. In its center stood a solitary tree—dead, twisted, and hollow.
Kael knelt at its roots, bowing his head.
Elyra stood beside him, unsure of what to do. "What is this place?"
"This is where memories speak," he said. "Where names that were lost can be heard again."
He removed a small vial from his coat—glass filled with swirling black mist—and poured it onto the ground at the tree's base. The earth shivered. The air thickened.
Then the whispering began.
It came from everywhere and nowhere—a thousand voices murmuring in languages Elyra couldn't understand. She pressed her hands to her ears, but the sounds didn't stop. They weren't heard with ears—they were felt, inside the mind, brushing against old wounds and half-remembered dreams.
Suddenly, a word surged forward from the tide of whispers—a name.
"Alarieth."
Elyra's heart nearly stopped. The name resonated deep within her, as if it had once been hers. Or someone she had known long ago.
She turned to Kael. "Did you hear that?"
He nodded slowly. "It called you."
"But I don't recognize it," she whispered.
"You wouldn't. The corruption eats names. Erases identities. What you knew as Elyra may only be the surface."
Her knees buckled slightly. Kael caught her, steadying her with one hand on her shoulder.
"What does it mean?" she asked, staring into the hollow of the dead tree. For a moment, she thought she saw something move within its bark—a flicker of silver, a glint of a face.
"It means your past isn't just forgotten—it was stolen."
Elyra's mind reeled. The dreams, the pain in her chest, the sense of displacement—it all began to coalesce into something sharper. Had she truly lived another life before this one? Was Elyra just a mask?
"Why me?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
Kael stood, his expression unreadable. "Because you're not just the girl who crossed into our world. You're the key to saving it—or destroying it."
His words struck like thunder, but before Elyra could ask more, the tree screamed.
It was a sound like wood splitting and wind howling and bones cracking all at once. The whispers turned to shrieks. The air turned to knives. Kael shoved Elyra behind him as shadows spilled from the hollow trunk, swirling into a vaguely humanoid shape with glowing violet eyes.
"Another fragment awakens," the creature hissed, its voice layered with dozens of others. "The weaver unravels. The seal weakens."
Elyra felt something inside her pulse—an echo of that voice, familiar and terrifying. Her knees buckled again, and this time, Kael couldn't catch her.
The world tilted.
And she fell into memory.
She was standing on a battlefield.
A different version of herself—taller, older, armored in starlight—stood at the head of an army of faceless warriors. Across from her, a figure cloaked in shadows wielded a blade that bled light.
The two clashed, magic exploding in waves that turned mountains to dust and rivers to fire. Above them, the sky shattered like glass.
"Alarieth," the shadow hissed. "You cannot unmake what has already begun."
And she—Alarieth—replied, "Then I'll end everything before it does."
Elyra snapped back to the present with a scream.
Kael was shouting, sword drawn, fighting the shadow-thing as it lunged at them with tendrils of darkness. Elyra stumbled backward, hands shaking, heart pounding.
But then something inside her changed.
Her fingers curled into fists. Her breath slowed.
And when the shadow turned to strike again—she raised her hand.
The air shimmered.
Light erupted.
The shadow screeched and recoiled, parts of its form burning away like mist in sunlight. Kael stared at her, eyes wide with both awe and terror.
"What… did you just do?" he breathed.
"I don't know," Elyra replied, trembling. "But I think… I think I've done it before."
The shadow fled into the woods, vanishing into the dark.
Silence returned to the vale.
Kael approached slowly, sheathing his blade. "You remembered something."
"Yes," she said. "A battle. A war. And… a name. Alarieth."
He nodded. "Then the seal is breaking faster than we thought."
She looked up at him. "Seal?"
"There are memories hidden inside you," Kael said grimly. "Locked away. Not by accident, but by force. If the seal breaks too quickly, it could destroy you—or unleash something even worse."
Elyra felt the weight of those words settle into her bones.
She wasn't just a girl from another world. She wasn't even sure she was truly Elyra anymore.
But one thing was becoming terrifyingly clear:
She had once been Alarieth—and that name still echoed with power.