Bree

My name is a whisper, then a shout, carving through the black velvet of unconsciousness. A hand on my shoulder, shaking—not gentle. I surface like I’m drowning, gasping, my own hand flying to my throbbing head. The world tilts, a nauseating carousel of shattered sky and broken earth. Aunt Mia’s face swims into focus, her eyes wide with a fear she’s trying to swallow. “Slow down, Brielle. Don’t go too fast.” Her voice is a tether, thin but strong.

“What happened?” The words are gravel in my mouth. My body feels like a glass vase that’s been dropped and glued back together, all fragile seams and aching hollows.

“You did it.” Her small, calloused hands frame my face, forcing me to see the wonder breaking through her worry. “You saved the Heartwood. I am so proud of you, my girl.” The pride in her voice is a warm stone placed in my cold chest. Then it sinks, dragging everything down with it. The memory returns not as a thought, but a physical blow—the river’s roar, the cocoon of earth, two figures swept away. My blood turns to ice water. “Where are Kai and James?”

I tell her. The vision spills out of me in ragged, unflinching pieces—the crushing roots, the dark water, the silence after. “I don’t know if they’re alive.” Saying it aloud makes it real, a crack splitting my sternum. I watch her face, desperate for her to call me a fool, to laugh and say they’re already back at the cottage waiting. She doesn’t. She pulls me into her, her arms a fierce, tiny band of iron around my ribs. She smells of pine resin and hearth-smoke, the scent of home, and I shatter against her shoulder.

“We will find them,” she murmurs into my hair, her voice a vow. “It will be okay.” It’s a lie we both need, so I let it wrap around me. When the tremors subside, she pulls back, her hands on my shoulders. The softness is gone, replaced by the practical steel of the Ember who guards the pass. “The mist still covers the valley. What do we do now?”

The answer is already there, etched behind my eyes like the afterimage of a lightning strike. The knowledge the forest gave me as I fell. “The source,” I say, my voice finding its bedrock. “It’s locked away below Temple Mitsumine.” I see the understanding dawn in her blue eyes, followed by a fresh dread. I stand, my legs holding. “Go back to the village. Protect the people. Be ready.” I hug her again, tight, pouring every unsaid thing into the press of my arms. “We will all see each other again.” I make myself believe it. I have to. She nods, a quick, sharp movement, then turns and disappears into the grieving trees, a small figure swallowed by the lingering mist. I am alone. The silence is a living thing. It presses in, and in its hollow, I feel the distant, wrong pulse of the blight, waiting. And I feel something else—a pull, deep and magnetic, from the direction of the mountains. A whisper not of my name, but of my purpose. I start walking.