Chapter 1 - The Name
The Name
The sound of steel colliding with steel tore through the night.
Edward ducked just as a sword swung past his face.
He stumbled backward, his boots sinking into blood-soaked earth. Smoke hung heavily in the air, mixing with the metallic scent of blood and the sharp stench of sweat.
All around him, men fought beneath a sky darkened by war.
Horses screamed.
Soldiers shouted.
Blades crashed against shields.
Bodies piled up around him.
Edward barely noticed.
He was looking for someone.
His chest heaved as he pushed through the chaos, his amber-glazed sword clenched tightly in his hand.
“Edward!”
He froze.
That voice.
He turned.
Nothing.
Only smoke.
“Edward!”
There it was again.
Closer this time.
Edward spun around.
Through the thick grey smoke stood a woman in the distance.
A red-haired woman.
His heart slammed against his chest.
“Elena…”
He didn’t know how he knew her name.
He simply did.
He started walking.
Then his pace increased.
The battlefield around him began to change.
The screams grew distant.
The clash of swords faded into silence.
A faint lavender mist began creeping across the ground, curling around his boots and slowly swallowing everything around him.
Edward’s eyes remained fixed on the woman.
“Elena!”
She lifted her hand toward him.
He reached for her.
Their fingers were almost touching—
And the world disappeared.
“ELENA!”
Edward shot upright.
His breath came in sharp, ragged gasps.
For several seconds, he had no idea where he was.
Then reality returned.
His college dorm room.
His bed.
The faint hum of the air conditioner.
His laptop glowing on the desk.
A pile of clothes thrown over a chair.
And his roommate staring at him from across the room.
“Dude.”
Edward didn’t answer.
His eyes were fixed on the space directly in front of him.
Something was there.
A faint lavender haze hovered in the air.
Edward stared.
It was almost transparent, like smoke caught beneath a beam of moonlight.
“What…”
He slowly lifted his hand.
The haze began to disappear.
It vanished before his eyes.
Edward blinked.
He waved his hand through the empty air.
Nothing.
He frowned.
What was that?
Mist?
Smoke?
There was nothing in the room that could have produced it.
Then he smelled it.
Lavender.
Sweet.
Faint.
Unmistakable.
Edward’s expression changed.
He took another breath.
The scent was still there.
“What the hell…”
“Are you okay?”
His roommate’s voice pulled him back.
Edward looked at him.
“Yeah.”
“You were screaming.”
Edward swallowed.
“I had a nightmare.”
“About?”
Edward hesitated.
His eyes drifted toward the empty space where the lavender haze had been.
“I… don’t know.”
But he did.
He had been on a battlefield.
He had been holding a sword.
There had been a woman.
A red-haired woman.
And he had called her—
“Elena.”
The name slipped from his lips.
His roommate frowned.
“Who?”
Edward stared at him.
For the first time, the question bothered him too.
Who was Elena?
He had never heard that name before.
At least…
He didn’t think he had.
Edward eventually made his way to the bathroom.
He turned on the tap and splashed cold water over his face.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
He gripped the edge of the sink and stared down at it.
“It’s just a dream.”
He whispered the words to himself.
He lifted his head.
And froze.
His reflection stared back at him.
Behind it—
A faint lavender haze.
Edward stopped breathing.
Slowly, he turned around.
Nothing.
Just the empty bathroom.
He turned back toward the mirror.
The haze was still there.
It moved slowly behind his reflection, curling around the edges of the glass.
Edward stepped closer.
His eyes narrowed.
“What are you?”
The haze disappeared.
Edward stared at himself.
Nothing.
Only his reflection.
And the lingering scent of lavender.
By morning, Edward had convinced himself it was nothing.
A nightmare.
Stress.
An overactive imagination.
Anything but what his instincts were telling him.
He went to class.
He drank coffee.
He laughed with his friends.
He tried to be normal.
But the name wouldn’t leave him.
Elena.
He found himself writing it absentmindedly in the corner of his notebook.
He stared at the word.
He didn’t know why he’d written it.
He didn’t know who she was.
Yet seeing the name made something inside his chest ache.
As though he had forgotten something important.
Something he wasn’t supposed to forget.
That evening, Edward crossed the campus courtyard alone.
The sky above him was heavy with dark clouds, as though the rain had been waiting all day to fall.
The campus was unusually quiet.
Edward walked slowly, his hands buried in his pockets.
Then he stopped.
Across the courtyard stood a girl.
A red-haired girl.
Edward stared at her.
His heart suddenly began pounding.
He didn’t know her.
He had never seen her before.
Yet the moment their eyes met, something inside him broke open.
“Elena…”
The name escaped his lips.
Edward suddenly closed his eyes.
The world around him disappeared.
Clank.
A sword striking another sword.
Clank.
Another.
His breath shuddered.
The battlefield returned in flashes.
Blood.
Smoke.
A red-haired woman.
Lavender mist.
And then—
Her voice.
Soft.
Familiar.
Desperate.
“Find me.”
Edward’s eyes remained closed.
The voice came again.
“Look for me.”
His breath caught.
Edward snapped out of it.
The empty campus lawn stretched before him.
The girl was gone.
And then the sky wept.
Rain poured over him, soaking through his clothes as he stood completely still.
Over his memory.
Over the Elena his heart refused to forget.
Edward’s lips trembled.
“Elena…”
A tear slipped down his cheek, indistinguishable from the rain.
He didn’t know why he was crying.
He didn’t know who she was.
But somewhere deep inside him—
he remembered.
