Rain had begun sometime after midnight, one of those thin, needling drizzles that barely sounded like rain at all, only a persistent tapping on the thatched roof and the occasional hiss as droplets slid down warped window glass. Kaelan lay awake long before he realized the sound was what had pulled him from sleep. His eyes were open, unfocused, pinned to the darkness overhead.
He had not dreamt, not exactly, but something had risen from the empty space between sleep and waking, a sensation that left him winded, as though struck. A name, maybe. A feeling. Something he almost grasped.
He turned onto his side, restless.
The room was cold. A low fire glowed on the hearth wall, reaching only faintly toward him. Shadows consumed most of the space, creeping into the corners like watchful things. His breath fogged faintly in the air, each exhale another reminder that he was awake, still awake when he should not have been.
He shut his eyes again.
And she rose in his thoughts.
Not her face, he had not looked at her long enough for memory to sculpt her fully—but the impression she had left on him, like heat lingering after one pulls back from a flame. The girl on the bridge. The way she had looked at him not with fear, nor with intrigue, but with a kind of quiet recognition. As though they had once stood in a place like that before, looking at each other the same way.
The thought unsettled him.
He pushed upright, running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. His chest felt too tight. The air too thin. He pulled in a breath, only for something deeper to coil and twist within him, a pull, sharp and inexplicable, as though some unseen thread tugged at the center of him.
Ridiculous, he whispered into the empty room.
But his voice sounded unsteady. He pressed his palms to his knees, grounding himself.
He should not have lingered on the bridge earlier. He should not have looked back. And he should not, should not be sitting here hours later, heart unspooling at the memory of her eyes.
Outside, the wind shifted, pushing against the shutters with a long, low moan. It carried the scent of wet earth and something colder beneath it, something that made the hairs along Kaelan's arms rise.
Restless, he rose.
The floorboards complained softly beneath his bare feet as he crossed to the window. He pushed the shutter open a crack. The night met him like a held breath, dark fields. A faint silvered line of the river. Mist dragging along the ground like a living thing. It was still raining, though so lightly he could not see it, only feel droplets on his skin.
He should have closed the shutter.
Instead, he stood there, staring out into the quiet—feeling watched, as though the night was leaning closer.
A tremor worked its way through him. Not from cold.
From knowing.
Knowing something was shifting beneath the surface of his life, just out of sight. As though some current was pulling him toward a place he had been before but could not remember.
He exhaled shakily and pressed his forehead to the wooden frame. His eyes stung with exhaustion he could not ease.
He had always been steady. Reserved. His emotions arranged like disciplined soldiers. But tonight, tonight they fractured, spilling into him in ways he could not sort or understand. A strange melancholy clung to him. A strange anticipation. And a strange fear, but it was not fear of her.
It was fear of what she awakened.
He shut the window abruptly.
The latch clicked with a sharp finality, but the sensation did not fade. If anything, it grew stronger, swelling in his chest like a storm building beneath his ribs.
Enough, he whispered, though he did not know to whom.
He returned to the bed but did not lie down. He sat at its edge, elbows braced on his thighs, head bowed as though in prayer. The fire crackled weakly behind him.
Minutes passed. Then an hour.And still, his thoughts circled her.
Not her features. Not her voice.But the soul-deep familiarity that should not exist.
A memory that was not a memory.A longing that was not earned.
By the time dawn began creeping toward the horizon, Kaelan had not slept again. The embers had long gone cold. The house was silent.
But inside him, something had awakened, something he could no longer ignore.