Page 51

As I drift toward sleep, the storm’s intensity seems to ease slightly. The thunder still rolls, but it sounds more distant now. Through half-closed eyes, I watch Sacha, where he sits near the entrance.

Just before consciousness slips away, something shifts in the firelight. The shadows it casts don’t flicker randomly the way they should. They lean toward him, flowing slowly across the stone, like smoke drawn to gravity. Gathering. Watching.

I blink, trying to focus, but exhaustion claims me before I can determine whether it’s real or simply a trick of the fading firelight.

My dreams are fragmented. Disconnected scenes that shift and change with bewildering speed.

Chicago in winter, snow falling in thick, silent flakes. The tower in the desert, silver surface ablaze beneath a sun that feels too close. Ravencross seen from above, its winding streets crawling with tiny Authority patrols.

Then something new.

A massive stone structure built into a mountainside.

It doesn’t reveal itself easily—its windows and doors hidden in the surrounding rock, visible only to those who know where to look.

Inside, caverns have been carved into halls and rooms. Living quarters.

Armories. Libraries filled with ancient, whispering texts.

People move through the passageways, some lifting their hands to shape wind, stone, flame.

Magic answering like breath to a command.

Then it changes again.

A ruined castle, dark spires twisted like scorched iron.

Beneath it, deep underground, lies a chamber older than the foundations above.

Something pulses there. A presence. Ancient.

Waiting. Not asleep, just still. Listening.

Watching. Its call has no sound, no words, but it knows me. It names me from the inside out.

I wake with a gasp. My heart is hammering against my ribs, skin damp with sweat despite the chill. The fire has burned low, casting a faint, ruddy glow that pools weakly through the shelter. Tisera still sleeps against the far wall, her breathing deep and even.

Sacha is still sitting by the entrance. He hasn’t moved. Or if he has, it’s only to turn his head. His eyes are on me.

“Bad dream?” His voice is hushed.

I shake my head, trying to pull free from the dream’s grip, but the sense of having been summoned won’t fade. It lingers in my chest. A name I don’t remember, spoken in a language that has no sound.

“Just strange. Vivid. Like I was actually there.”

“About what?” There's a new alertness in his posture now, a subtle tension.

“A place.” I close my eyes, reaching for the memory. “A building carved into a mountain. Hidden, with rooms that were caves once. People using magic—manipulating earth, water, even light.”

His stillness becomes even more pronounced. It shouldn’t be possible for a person to go so still. “The stronghold. You were dreaming of Stonehaven.”

“How can I dream about somewhere I’ve never seen?”

“Dreams aren’t always bound by direct experience.” There’s something in his voice that suggests he finds this as unsettling as I do. “Some visions come uninvited.”

“It’s probably because you told me about Stonehaven earlier, then.” I try to dismiss it, but I can see from Sacha’s expression that he doesn’t agree with me. “There was something else. Ruins, with a chamber beneath them. There was something there.”

“Did you see what it was?”

I shake my head. “No. But I felt it. It knew me. ”

Outside, the storm has dropped to a steady rainfall, the thunder and lightning gone.

“If you’re awake enough, we should prepare to move.”

I try to shove away the remnants of the dream, and focus on stretching muscles stiff from cold and strain. My clothes are still damp, but no longer soaked, but the scrapes on my hands feel better after Tisera’s herbal salve.

She stirs as I sit up, blinking herself fully awake. By the time I’ve fastened my boots, she’s already moving, smothering the fire and then handing out more journey bread and water.

“How far to Stonehaven from here?”

“Half a day’s journey under normal conditions. Likely longer given the storm’s effects. We’ll need to tread carefully. Rainfall often triggers slides and washouts in the mountains, as you discovered yesterday,” Sacha says.

I adjust my pack, and nod. The dream hasn’t left me, continuing to pull at my thoughts. The stronghold’s hidden hallways, the strange ruins, the pulse of power deep underground. I’ve had vivid dreams before, but never like this. Not this strong.

“Ellie?” Sacha’s call pulls me back to the present. I blink and refocus, stepping out from the shelter’s protection and into steady rainfall. It’s nothing like the storm from before, but it’s still enough to soak exposed skin, to remind me we’re still not safe.

Tisera leads us along a route that follows higher ground where possible. Several times, she pauses to reassess our direction, scanning ahead for trails that haven’t been washed away.

Sacha brings up the rear. I’ve started to recognize the signs when he’s casting that awareness outward.

The subtle tilt of his head as though he’s listening to something the rest of us can’t hear; the way his eyes lose their whites, and turn black while they focus on nothing visible to ordinary sight.

It doesn’t startle me as much anymore, but it still doesn’t feel normal.

We climb steadily through the morning. The rain thins to a fine mist, and though the clouds still hang low, the mountain begins to reveal itself through the gaps.

Every now and then, we crest a rise and the world opens to show stunning views.

Deep valleys stretching toward the horizon, dense forests blanketing distant slopes, and far beyond, a faint smudge that might be settled lands.

“Stonehaven lies just beyond the next ridge,” Sacha says during a brief stop. He points to the rise directly ahead.

I follow the line of his finger. There’s nothing but jagged stone, fog-wrapped and unremarkable. “I can’t see anything.”

“It wouldn’t be much use if it was in plain sight.” There’s a dry note to his voice that makes me want to roll my eyes.

We resume our climb, and I find myself searching the mountainside for any sign of the fortress I saw in my dream. But nothing appears from this distance, mist and cloud obscuring my sight.

The final ascent is barely more than a track clinging to the mountainside. In places we have to use hands as well as feet, climbing rather than walking. The storm’s aftermath complicates matters further—loose rocks, wet soil, hidden channels where runoff has carved gullies into the path.

Despite the challenges, Tisera guides us with unwavering confidence, selecting routes that balance safety with forward progress. Her knowledge of these mountains seems almost instinctive, as though she can read the landscape in ways that go way beyond simple familiarity.

We reach the top of the rise just as the clouds begin to lift, revealing what lies beyond.

The mountainside drops away more gently on this side, forming a sheltered valley, protected from the worst weather by the surrounding peaks. And there, built directly into the stone face before us, is the stronghold.

I stop. My breath catches. A jolt of recognition goes through me.

It's exactly as I saw in my dream, down to the placement of windows and the way certain stones jut out from the facade.

A huge structure integrated so perfectly with the mountain that it's difficult to determine where nature ends and construction begins. Now that we’ve reached the right angle, doorways and window slits come into view, their design cleverly mimicking the surrounding cliffs so well they would vanish entirely from any lower perspective.

The stronghold isn't just familiar. It feels like I'm remembering somewhere I’ve already visited, rather than seeing it for the first time. A déjà vu so powerful it makes me dizzy.

“I saw it,” I whisper, unable to tear my gaze away. “In my dream. It was exactly like this.” I turn to Sacha, searching his face. “How is that possible? What's happening to me?”

For once, I see something crack in his expression. Fascination, maybe even concern .

“I don't know.” The quiet honesty in his voice, the admission of uncertainty, says more than any explanation could. “But we'll find out.”