Sleep set Elira down in a place that felt like silence made visible—white ground, white sky, no wind. She knew at once it wasn't emptiness. It was a room the world had cleaned for a conversation.
Light gathered ahead of her as if it had been asked, not ordered. It folded once, and a woman stepped out of it: gold hair like morning, a bearing that made the air behave, eyes that were less a color than a certainty. She did not glow. She occupied the light already present and taught it its place.
Elira's hand was already at her collarbone. In the dream, the pendant was there too—cool, familiar, waiting.
"You came," Elira said.
"We speak here," the woman answered, soft and clear. "For now, only here."
"Are you the one who steadied me?" Elira asked. "In the field. When everything was about to break."
"Yes."
"Then… what are you to me?"
"I am your contract spirit," the woman said without flourish. "Entrusted to you. Not a rider, not a leash. A companion whose hand is yours when both of yours are full."
The words landed like something that had been true for a very long time and had finally been said aloud. Elira let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "Who asked you to come to me?"
"Your father," the woman said. The room remembered the smell of warm iron. "He placed me in the shape you wear—this pendant—to anchor and conceal me. He set the time by intent: I would answer when you asked for help and could bear the answer."
Elira's throat tightened. "Then tell me—who was he? What did he do? What is that crest on the back of the pendant supposed to mean?"
Something in the woman's voice faltered for the first time. She touched two fingers lightly to the hollow of her throat, as if steadying a string that had snagged. "He bound me with a forgetting geas. I remember him. I am forbidden to hand you his name, his station, or the crest's full meaning. If I force the border—"
Her next word fractured into silence, as if the dream itself had swallowed it. The brightness around her shivered and then held.
Elira flinched. "Stop. I understand." The not-knowing hurt, but not as much as watching the answer injure the one who held it. "If you can't tell me, then tell me what you can."
"I can tell you what must be guarded." The woman's gaze fixed gently, immovably, on Elira. "The world has seen wind in your hands, and water, and grass, and light. That is not the whole of you. There is dark."
The word was a weight and a blade together.
"It sleeps," the woman went on, unblinking. "It stirs when pressure goes wrong—when the air turns cold and heavy at the edges. You have felt that seam. It is not accident. It is you. And in this age, if the wrong eyes see it, they will call you a disease, a danger, a thing to be purified. Some survive by force and reputation—Blacken Fire burns a path where policy pretends to be prudence. You are not there. Not yet."
Elira's mouth had gone dry. She found a voice anyway. "Then how do I live with it?"
"You protect yourself so you can protect others," the woman said. "You tell no one. Not Mira. Not Kael. Not a priest. Not a kindly aunt with a kitchen and opinions. You do not test it alone. If, under strain, it leaks into your casting, you do four things in four breaths: draw light—make a boundary for everything to stay inside. Send water—let the force change shape. Lift wind—hold the space so it doesn't buckle. Set grass—anchor your feet and your thought. Then you call me."
"How?"
"Asking is enough. Put your hand where you wear me. Soften. Do not push. Ask."
Elira nodded, because she could do those things. She could do them even when afraid. "All right."
"Understand this too," the woman said. "You do not owe anyone the risk of telling them. If someone suffers because you kept this secret, the fault lies with those who built a world that hunts the living for being what they are. Not with you."
Elira inhaled once, slow and steady. The air in the white place seemed to learn her rhythm and fall into it. "Nakea said I was a descendant of—something. She stepped around the name like it was a trap. It felt like she was trying not to harm me."
"She was," the woman said. "She has lived long enough to know how rules break bodies. She and your father hold knowledge that touches the same threshold. She may not cross it for you. I may not push you across it. But I can walk beside you until you are ready to step."
Elira managed a crooked smile. "And Vaelis?"
"Not ignorant," the woman said. "Invested. He met with Nakea and then told you nothing happened. He will wait for you to give him a reason to stop waiting. Do not offer him one. Leave with permission, leave without permission—leave with a purpose. Ask your questions where doors are not watched."
"We will," Elira said. "Tomorrow. We filed a request—two weeks. But today I need to prepare. And I'm going to Rionne. To see Rho." Saying the name steadied her more than any officer's speech ever had. "It's half a day down the east road if I don't dawdle."
The woman's eyes softened in a way that felt like approval rather than pity. "Good. Make your pack honest. Make your story simple. Keep your circle small. Your friends will forgive you later for what you cannot tell them now."
Elira glanced at the pendant in the dream—plain, dark, exact. "If you can't give me your name yet, can you at least tell me what you are when you're not… this?"
"A blade," the woman said. "A longsword. Two-natured. Light to draw a border, to meet force and make it visible. Dark to cut confusion, to move unseen when warning would kill you. They do not cancel. One is the scabbard the other deserves. They answer to intention, not appetite."
Elira's breath hitched. A picture came unbidden: a line of light laid on the floor like chalk; a soft, cold edge slipping along it and cutting only what needed to be cut. "Will you show yourself like that?"
"Not where it would write your death," the woman said. "In battle, if need presses and the field is blind, I can take a fraction of that form without shouting who I am. Until you are stronger, we will prefer not to tempt the crowd to think they understand."
Elira wanted to reach out. She didn't. "Then tell me what I should call you when I ask."
"Call me with need," the woman said. "Words are doors. You will open the right one when you're ready. Until then, a knock is enough."
Elira huffed a small laugh. "I can knock."
"You already did," the woman said, almost amused. Then, serious again: "Three facts to carry out of this room: I am yours by your father's will. I am bound from naming him and the crest. And you are dark as well as wind, water, grass, and light—an element that must not be seen."
Elira repeated them in her head until they sat where they belonged. "Understood."
"Good." The woman's light folded as if gathering a cloak. "Prepare today. Meet your sister. Leave tomorrow with your friends. When the edge goes wrong—light, water, wind, grass. Then ask."
"Ask," Elira echoed.
The white place thinned at the edges. The woman inclined her head in a farewell that made Elira feel saluted rather than dismissed. Light went back to being light.
Elira woke with her hand at her throat.
The room was dim blue with the hour before dawn. The pendant lay warm against her skin—not hot, not shining, just present. She sat up and let the quiet settle around her like a cloak she had finally earned.
Pack honest. Story simple. Circle small.
She moved through the room in soft steps: folded cloak, mended shirt, spare bandage roll; flint and steel, whetstone, water skin. She laid her sword across the blanket and watched it catch the first pale line of morning. Longsword. The word fit her hand and the space behind her ribs.
A knock tapped the door—two short, one long. Mira's pattern, too early for chatter.
Elira crossed the room and called, "Give me an hour. I'm heading down to Rionne. I'll be gone today—back by tomorrow at first light."
"Copy," Mira's muffled voice replied. "File a route slip so the desk doesn't start asking. And don't get followed."
Elira smiled. "Noted."
Kael's low rumble came through the wood: "Travel light. Keep to the east switchbacks past Stone Gate."
"I will," Elira said, tightening the strap on her pack.
She slung the pack over one shoulder, then paused. She touched the pendant with two fingers, not pressing, not pleading—just acknowledging.
"I heard," the memory of a voice said without sound.
Elira smiled to herself, small and fierce. She pulled on her boots, set her blade, and stepped into the corridor where the Sanctum's banners hung still as held breath.
Half a day down the east road. Rionne by noon if the weather held and the mountain kept its feet under her. Rho's voice, Rho's quick hands, Rho's questions. Answers would have to be chosen with care, but Elira carried something that made careful feel less like fear and more like craft.
She crossed the courtyard as the first birds lifted their heads. The wind came down to meet her and did not push. It accompanied.
"Light," she murmured, feeling the invisible ring it could draw around a person she loved. "Water, wind, grass."
And when the edge went wrong—she would ask.