Chapter 1
Somehow, I survived.
I saw a fire engulfing; I was surprised that my owners were trying to keep all of us in line. They had no trouble with me though. I obeyed. Although tonight was the only night, I knew I could escape and try to find the family I was taken from. A mother that could sing me to sleep, but I cannot remember her voice any longer. A father that taught me to fight, be forgiving, and never doubt one’s self worth, but I cannot remember his face from the time away from him. And my older sisters- six of them, identical, reflections of myself but so much different than I. They were all torn from me when I was stolen away, left alone in the dark, brutal cold. Were they looking for me? Or had they buried me in their memories like an unmarked grave?
I didn’t know and I may never come to know the answers.
But that didn’t stop me from trying.
Going about my escape had drawn me out of my thoughts I would bury myself in to keep the torment from harming me more than it already had. Looking around the luxurious cage that Eclipse Circus gave me after I gave them such a big audience last year. Leaving my name outside “Ember” a given name by them. I never corrected them after I was with them for three years. I wasn’t chained anymore, because they didn’t want their pretty display of talent to be scared and get questioned by authorities. They knew how to keep slaves a secret and still put on a spectacular show. Looking around, I headed to the door that was always locked at this time, but since I was supposed to go up as the next act, it was unlocked. A quick glance around to see if the Ringmaster’s enforcers were around, which gladly at that moment they weren’t since they were focused on the fire that kept growing rapidly. I finally escaped. I took to the few shadows that were around, hearing the whispers that they spoke only to me. I ignored them as always, knowing it would just draw more attention to myself. I made it to the showroom, and I could see a fight between the other slaves that were rebelling, but no audience. I quickly took to the tightropes, which only I could excel at without dying. I prayed to my god the Raven Queen to guide me to safe passage, but I didn’t believe she wouldn’t hear, not after all these years of me begging her to free me from this torment. Not even an answer. So be it, maybe this time she would. As soon as I got onto the tightrope, I heard them. I heard the Ringmaster first.
“Ember get back down here and help me kill these traitors!” he screamed, but it was useless as soon as he found out that I was heading toward a hole that the fire made in its wake on the tent. He looked to the enforcers and screamed at them, “Get her, and make sure she is secure in her cage. I will deal with her later!”
I didn’t hear if they said anything afterward, but I knew they were too terrified to climb a fifty feet high tightrope. Higher than any tightrope known, but that is what made the best act called “Phantom Flame” so popular amongst the people that come to these circus shows.
When I got close to the end, I took a short moment to see the view in front of me. It was nighttime, the stars were shining so brightly above me. With its beautiful moon so full in its glory urging me forward. I knew I was in a forest outside of the city of Neverwinter. All I knew was the city was north of Waterdeep. I did lose my hope of escape. I lost track of days and times, because it would never come to be advantage, until now.
I saw the flames growing underneath me leaving the enforcers and the Ringmaster to flee in its wake, but they continued to watch me make my last performance. The smoke curled upward, clawing at my lungs as I balanced on the fraying tightrope, No time. No net. No second chances.
I bent my knees, muscles coiled like a loaded spring. I pushed off into the hole. The heat was greedy and wild around me. The rope wobbled from the force of my takeoff, but I was already soaring. Tucking my body tight, I twisted midair, flipping through the smoke-choked sky. Heat licked at my heels, firelight reflecting in the sweat on my skin.
For a breathless moment, the world slowed. I felt so weightless.
Then I shot through the burning gap, twisting just enough to clear the edges of the charred canvas. Cold night air slammed into me as I extended my limbs, angling my descent. The ground rushed up to meet me- too fast, too hard. I reached, grasped- fingers caught the edge of a support beam, jerking my momentum just enough to twist into a roll.
My feet hit dirt. My knees buckled, but I forced myself up, gasping. The shouts behind me were lost in the crackle of flames.
Then I ran.
I ran into the forest as far as I could go, before my lungs gave up on me. I collapsed next to a large tree. Looking behind me with urgency. Hoping for once that I wasn’t followed. Which from the darkness told me no one did.
As I sat down on the ground using the tree as support. I looked up to the night sky through the leaves of trees.
I realized the forest swallowed me whole.
I knew that when my feet came into the forest line, the world shifted, but I didn’t register it until now. The burning circus faded in the distance, its orange glow faded and swallowed by the gnarled limbs above. Darkness pressing against me more than ever- not ordinary kind, but something deeper. Something older. I froze in the moment feeling my hammering pulse with a phantom rhythm of the tightrope beneath my feet. Smoke still clinging to my skin. My limbs ached; my fingers trembled. But I was free.
Or at least, I wanted to believe that.
The shadows still whispered, but it changed. The voices weren’t voices at all, but with something I felt in my bones. The trees were hollow-eyed watchers, their branches curling like skeletal fingers reaching for the sky. A mist slithered low across the ground, coiling around my ankles like a living thing.
I wasn’t alone.
Not in the way of being haunted- at least, not yet- but in the way the dark itself seemed to recognize me. To know me. To welcome me.
A shiver crawled up my spine, though I wasn’t cold.
I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to silence the thoughts clawing at the edge of my mind. The memory of the fire, the scent of burning canvas- they still haunted me. But something else lingered too. Something I couldn’t name.
The circus never let me rest. Not truly.
But tonight, in the arms of the whispering dark, I let my eyes close.
And the shadows sighed with me.
As I sleep, I do not dream.
I fall.
The forest dissolves into a vast, endless void. The air is thick, pressing against my skin like unseen hands. Feathers brush my arms, though I see nothing but shifting black. A distant flutter of wings echoes in the silence, and then- whispers. Thousands of them. Threading through my mind, peeling apart my thoughts like an unraveling thread.
You were taken. You were lost. But you are not forgotten.
The voice is everywhere. Nowhere.
A figure looms before me- shifting, flickering. A woman. A bird. A swirling mass of memories, flickering like candlelight, I try to move, but my body is weightless, untethered from anything real.
Then the visions come.
Six identical faces blurred and distant, their eyes swallowed by shadow. A lock of pale hair slipping through unseen fingers. A key turning in an iron door.
I reach for them, but the images scatter like dead leaves in the wind.
I jolt awake with a gasp, my pulse hammering against my ribs. The forest is still. The darkness gone. But those words- the ones whispered by something far older than me- burn like an ember in my mind.
What did she mean? What was forgotten?
The words cling to me like a curse. I rub my temples, trying to shake them loose, but they’re like a haunting melody that refuses to leave. I can’t remember the last time I felt this... uneasy.
I close my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. The vision. The woman. The bird. The whispers. My fingers twitch, and I can still feel the ghostly sensation of feathers brushing against my skin, like something watched me from the dark. And the faces- six identical faces. My sisters, maybe? But why were they so far away? Why were they hidden in shadow?
My mind races, but it’s all just fragments, pieces of something too large to understand. What did it mean? I don’t even know if I want to know the answer. The silence around me seems to press in closer, suffocating, and I realize I can’t stay here. Not like this. Not while these words keep circling in my head.
I stand, shakily at first, and then I find my feet beneath me. The ground is soft, damp with remnants of rain, and I can feel the weight of the forest around me. The trees seem to watch me, their branches swaying, though there’s no wind. I glance over my shoulder, half-expecting something to be here, but the area is clear.
But the air... the air feels thick. Stifling. As if something- or someone- is waiting. Watching.
My mind drifts to the key from the vision. A key in an iron door. What door? What does it open? The question spins like a storm in my head, and I realize I’m not sure where to go next. The forest feels too quiet, too still. Like something is just out of reach. I can almost feel the pull of the Raven Queen’s presence now, like the darkness itself is calling to me.
I need answers. I don’t know if I’ll find them here, but I can’t stay idle either. Something about the way the vision ended- the faces, the key- tells me I’m supposed to look for something. Something I’ve been missing, something forgotten. And if I don’t, I’m not sure what will happen.
I should find someone who knows more. Someone who can explain this to me. But where? Who? There’s no easy answer to that.
I look down at my hands. They’re trembling, but I force them still. If this vision is a message, then it’s one I need to understand. For some reason, I can’t shake the feeling of the Raven Queen trying to tell me something about my past. About my sisters.
I take a deep breath, my eyes scanning the shadows around me. The whisper still clings to my mind. You are not forgotten.
The words are both a promise and a warning. A promise I can’t ignore.
With that, I step forward, deeper into the forest, my mind racing. There’s something I need to find. Something buried in the darkness. And I’m the only one who can uncover it.
