Chapter 1 - The Things We Cannot Explain
■ Remember ■
My dreams had been changing.
Not becoming clearer.
Becoming louder.
For weeks, I had dreamed of the same castle. The same woman. The same child. The same desperate voice.
Every night, the dream ended before I could understand it. Every morning, I woke with the same feeling.
Like I had forgotten something that mattered.
Something I should have remembered long ago.
The dream always began the same way.
Smoke.
Not the thick, black smoke of a fire...but pale smoke that drifted through bright stone hallways like living mist.
The castle was beautiful.
Ancient.
Its walls were almost white, catching the light of hundreds of torches flickering against polished stone.
Somehow, I knew this place.
Not because I had been there.
Because somewhere deep inside me...it already felt like home.
People were running.
Voices echoed through the corridors. Some cried. Some prayed. Others shouted words I couldn't understand.
Then I saw her.
A woman.
She couldn't have been much older than thirty.
Dark hair escaped from the braid that had once been carefully woven down her back. Ash clung to the sleeves of her blue dress.
She held a baby tightly against her chest.
Not protectively.
Desperately.
She looked behind her.
Fear filled her eyes.
Real fear.
The kind that steals your breath before anything has even happened.
Then she saw me.
Not through me.
At me.
As though she had been expecting me all along.
She reached toward me.
Her voice broke as she cried,
"There's no time! They're here!"
The castle shook.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
She tightened her hold on the child.
"Run!"
Her eyes never left mine.
“Whatever happens, don't stop until you reach the Stones.”
Another violent tremor rolled through the castle.
Stone cracked somewhere above us. The torches flickered.
She looked over her shoulder.
Then back at me.
For one impossible moment...
her expression softened.
Not because she wasn't afraid.
Because she loved someone.
The child.
Me.
Maybe both.
Tears filled her eyes.
"The others will meet you there!"
She disappeared through a narrow doorway.
I tried to follow.
My legs wouldn't move.
It was as though the castle itself had rooted me to the floor.
The shouting grew louder.
Closer.
Heavy footsteps thundered through the corridors.
Not running.
Hunting.
The walls trembled again.
A long crack raced across the ceiling.
Stone shattered.
Pieces crashed around me.
I reached toward the doorway.
"Wait!"
The world began to unravel.
The smoke.
The light.
The castle.
Everything dissolved like mist carried away by the wind.
But just before the dream disappeared...everything became perfectly still.
Someone stood behind me.
I couldn't see them.
I only felt them.
Ancient.
Patient.
Waiting.
Then came a whisper.
So soft it was almost carried away before I heard it.
"Remember."
I opened my eyes.
For a moment...
I didn't move.
My heart was racing.
The word still echoed somewhere inside me.
Remember.
Remember what?
I stared at the ceiling.
The dream had faded almost instantly, like it always did.
Only the feelings remained.
Loss.
Longing.
Home.
They made no sense.
None of it did.
Then I felt it.
The gentle vibration beneath me.
The steady hum of an engine.
The smell of leather.
The rhythm of tires rolling across gravel.
Reality returned.
Someone spoke.
"Avelisse."
I blinked.
"Avelisse..."
I turned toward the driver's seat.
My uncle smiled warmly.
"We're here."
