Prologue
Prologue
It arrived before the bell rang, before the lamps were lit, before the town settled into its evening quietly. It arrived from the sea withoutsound or warning, spilling through the narrow streets and curling around doorways like it. By morning no one ever spoke or talked of it. They called it weather. Habit. A coastal inconvenience.
But the mist remembered.
It remembered the cathedral long after the town had learned to forget.
Stone by stone, it had watched the great structure rise. It’s spires sharp against the sky.
Waiting…
Time pass differently around the cathedral years folded in on themselves. Names were lost. Stories blurred . What remained was not faith but something unfinished.
On certain nights, when veil between what was and what should never be, grew then the mist stirred with purpose.
It searched
Tonight,it had found her.
Eira Veyne walked to the edge of the townwith her head down and her sketchbook press to her chest, unaware of thedanger. Whispers… Each one drawing her nearer to the place everyone avoided.She felt it before. She saw it the shift in the air, the heaviness.
Silence…Tonight, it tugged harder.
Eira stopped.
Her heart beat faster, instinct warning her to run. Sensible people did not come here. But she had never been sensible when it comes to the things no one else could hear.
The mist, thick curling around her with cold familiarity. Lines formedin her mind, shapes she did not recognizing, but felt compelled to trace.
Somewhere deep within the cathedral, something stayed. For the first time in years uncounted, awareness sharpened.
She was close so close
The veil thin as breath, fragile as memory-trembled.
She stepped forward to a faith that had been waiting for her long before she was born. By the time the bell would have rung, had they still existed, theworld would already be changed.
And somewhere between shadow andsilence, eyes long closed would finally OPEN.
