The forest outside was alive in ways Elara still couldn't explain. Birds darted between the trees, yet none sang. Leaves rustled with a hush that felt almost deliberate. Even the sunlight seemed to pause in the mist, brushing her skin with a soft, lingering warmth.
She sat at the edge of the hearth, spoon idle in her hand. The bread and stew lay mostly untouched. Her thoughts were tangled, a quiet storm that refused to settle.
Why does it feel like I've been here before? she wondered. Like the forest… the town… Rowan… they belong to me somehow.
She shook her head, frustrated. "It doesn't make sense. I've never been here. None of this should feel familiar, and yet—" Her fingers grazed the wood of the table, and a shiver ran through her. Something hummed faintly beneath her skin. Warm. Electric.
Rowan, across the room, noticed the subtle change in her posture, the way her eyes lingered on the shadows outside. He had seen many travelers frightened by Thalorien's forest, but there was something different here—something in the rhythm of her breathing, the pulse of her heartbeat, even in the stillness of her hands.
He stepped closer, quiet, careful not to startle her. "Elara," he said softly. "Do you feel the forest… differently than before?"
She blinked at him, startled by the directness of the question. "I… I think so," she admitted, voice trembling. "It's like it's alive… like it's watching me. And somehow… I feel… like I belong here, even though I shouldn't."
Rowan's gaze sharpened slightly. Not just fear… he thought. She resonates with it. Something in her is awake, even if she does not know it.
He sat beside her, careful to give her space. "The forest reacts to many things," he said gently. "Travelers. Animals. Creatures that walk unseen. And sometimes… people who carry something old, something that echoes through the land."
Elara looked at him, frowning. "I don't understand."
"You need not," he said calmly. "Not yet. But know this: the forest notices you. It has always noticed those who do not fully belong to it, yet feel as though they should."
Her heart thumped in a way that was more than fear. Something deep inside her seemed to stir, something ancient and unnameable. She pressed her hands to her chest, trying to slow her racing thoughts.
Rowan studied her silently. His instincts told him that she was not an ordinary human, though outwardly she appeared so. There was a faint pull in the air around her—a resonance he could feel but could not yet define. The threads of the old world… he thought. She touches them without knowing.
Elara finally spoke, voice barely a whisper: "I've read stories… legends… things about forests and creatures and powers. I always thought they were just… stories. But now…" Her gaze drifted toward the window, where sunlight mingled with mist. "Now it feels like some of it… maybe it's real."
Rowan's lips curved faintly, almost imperceptibly. "It is real," he said. "And the more you feel it, the more you will understand who you truly are."
Elara pressed her palms to her face, unsure whether to cry or shiver. "I don't even know what that means," she murmured.
"Not yet," he said softly. "But you will."
And for the first time since she awoke in Thalorien, she allowed herself a flicker of something she hadn't felt in hours: hope.
The forest outside shifted slightly, the mist curling tighter around the trees as though acknowledging her awareness. And somewhere, far below, in the shadowed depths where light had not touched for centuries, the first threads of a long-sealed darkness began to pulse awake—subtle, patient, and waiting.