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Darkness seeps in, thick and suffocating. My body feels heavy like sludge, numb and unresponsive. I can’t move my arms. I can’t feel my fingers. The grass beneath me and the sun’s warmth have vanished, slipping beyond my reach.

“Daeroal?”

“What is it, siliari?” My light . Aeralon and Keelan only ever called me that when it was serious. Like the time I hit my head and Aeralon carried me home.

Daeroal leans in, and his blond hair falls like a curtain over my face.

His forehead is wrinkled, his brow furrowed.

He’s so close, yet he feels distant and blurry, as though I’m peering at him through frosted glass.

I can’t hear his breaths or the steady rhythm of his heart.

I can’t feel his exhalations, which should be brushing against my skin.

I can’t even catch his scent. Everything is muted, dulled, as if the world is holding its breath, ready to drag me back into the white void of sleep.

“Save Naeva and Havourel,” I plead.

“Don’t talk like that.” He scratches his cheek, his tone soft but firm. “You’re going to survive. For Aeralon. For Keelan.”

“Save Naeva. Please.” It takes everything in me to say please .

“You can do it yourself, with me and the others by your side.”

“For fire’s sake, promise me!”

“I can’t.”

“Daeroal!”

And then he’s gone. Vanished.

No! I must make him promise. Why couldn’t he say yes? Why couldn’t he grant me this one final wish?

I can’t breathe. My chest tightens.

The air won’t come.

I’m slipping away.

Again.

Once again, everything is white. White as only clouds can be, or the sky on the brightest winter’s day.

It burns my eyes, piercing and relentless.

I float, fall, fly, drift. I exist—only that.

My body unravels, limbs dissolving into nothingness.

I’m the wind, the earth, the mountains. I’m everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

Sparks, songs, and days pass, blurring into sun cycles and solar storms. Or perhaps time itself has frozen, suspended in this endless expanse.

I simply… exist.

The black threads are everywhere, invading my domain.

They coil and slither through the titan-white void, clawing at my mind with an unbearable presence.

The stench of decay and death seeps into me, filling my nostrils, stinging my eyes, and coating my tongue.

It overtakes me, leaving a bitter void—a taste of evil.

But how can I smell or taste without a physical body?

The stench intensifies, each wave more putrid and excruciating than the last. It suffocates me, or the part of me that feels like it’s breathing. I want to run, to escape it and erase the rancid sensation clinging to my existence.

And then I hear sounds, strange and foreign, yet hauntingly familiar. It feels like a lifetime since I last heard anything.

Slowly, the haze begins to lift, the nothingness giving way to clarity. But I keep my eyes tightly shut, unwilling to face whatever waits on the other side.

Where am I?

Who am I?

The stench is gone. Perhaps days, maybe even a mooncrescent, have passed.

I have no way of knowing. The air is damp now, carrying a musty scent that feels cool and soothing against my skin.

Whatever I’m lying on is firm yet slightly pliable, creaking faintly beneath me.

Too soft to be stone, too rigid to be moss.

The air is still—no wind, rustling leaves, or sounds of nature. I must be indoors.

I try to move the fingers of my right hand. I stretch them, curl them into a fist, and then rotate my wrist in slow, deliberate circles, round and round. The motion is fluid, effortless, and painless. I test my legs, wiggle my toes, roll my neck, and shift my shoulders.

The pain is gone. The piercing white light and the suffocating black threads are gone, too.

The ones that have lurked beneath my eyelids for as long as I can remember.

Now there’s only black. Simple, unbroken black.

Deep as a chasm, calm and still. Red specks of light streak past, but they feel familiar.

For the first time, I’m truly alone. No threads twisting. No worms crawling.

Muffled voices murmur in the background, too distant to make out. My hearing, though sharp, has its limits. Perhaps the elves are in another room. Beyond the voices is a faint, steady hum, mechanical, low, almost undetectable.

It’s time.

I open my eyes and stare up at the ash-gray steel ceiling. It’s grimy and ancient, looking as though it’s ready to collapse. Strange symbols are etched into its surface, harsh, angular markings with jagged edges, as though carved by an unsteady hand.

I sit up, pressing my back against the cold wall.

My head spins, my vision blurs, and I blink hard to steady myself.

Dim light trickles from elongated pillars along the walls, encased torches within pipes.

The room is small, barely enough to hold a few elves.

It feels rigid and dull gray. Boxlike with sharp edges.

My body is dressed in a delicate, yellow linen garment that falls to my toes. I unbutton the tiny buttons, my fingers moving slowly as I try to get used to using them again and to regain their dexterity.

I glance down at my stomach and see the wound, now just a pink scar, faintly raised and spreading slightly at the edges. I run my fingers over it. The skin feels soft and strange—different. There’s no pain. I button the garment back up and lean against the wall.

How have I healed so quickly?

How much time has passed?

I place my hand on the hollow of my throat. It’s empty. So are my neck and shoulders.

Where is it? The necklace?

I try to stand but stop myself; footsteps are close by. I pull my legs under the fabric of the garment and lie down.

Too slow. The elf entering the room spots me, screams, stumbles, and presses her hand against the wall.

She’s tall and regal, a striking elven woman with two horns protruding from her forehead. Her thin lips are parted, and her wide eyes are locked on me. Her skin is matte, her hair long and white, her ears jutting out too far, too sharp, too pointed.

She’s a star elf.