The silence pressed in.
It's too much.
I hadn't said it out loud. I hadn't said anything for a while now. Just the steady rhythm of breath, the faint ache in my shoulders from holding myself too long, too straight. The weight of the robe clinging to my frame like it belonged to someone else.
I let myself lean back against the wall, then slid down to the floor, knees tucked in loosely, head resting against cold stone.
Just a moment. Just to breathe.
Everything spun beneath the surface—names, titles, the polished dance of politics I didn't understand. Faces I didn't recognize, but who seemed to know me. Like I'd walked into a play already halfway through, handed a script with most of the pages missing.
Elyssia. Daughter of Sythriss.
Princess
And Elias?
I didn't know.
I just need a minute.
The stone was cool beneath me. Comforting in a way. Real. Unmoving. Something I could lean against without it leaning back.
My eyes slipped shut.
I wasn't going to fall asleep. I just—
Darkness didn't crash in. It crept, slow and quiet. Like the world exhaled, and I sank with it.
There was no dream. No memory. Just a thick, muted stillness. Like being buried beneath warm snow, too tired to dig free.
Then a pulse.
Hunger.
Small at first. Then sharper. Sharper still.
I stirred.
The ache behind my ribs stretched like claws. My body remembered before I did—tight muscles, stiff joints, the rough rub of cloth against skin. My robe had loosened while I'd slumped sideways. A fold bunched awkwardly beneath me, caught under my hip.
I blinked.
The light had shifted. Softer now, creeping in through narrow windows carved high into the wall. The shadows had moved.
How long had I been out?
I didn't rise right away. Just sat there, heavy and stiff, rubbing sleep from my eyes with the heel of one hand. My other hand reached up without thinking—pushing back strands of pale hair that had fallen forward across my face.
I exhaled through my nose and pushed to my feet.
Hunger gnawed at the edges of my thoughts now familiar. It wasn't just an emptiness in my stomach. It was deeper than that. Hotter. Like something curling awake inside my chest.
She is stirring again. I was hungry but I must've been asleep longer than I thought.
I dragged a hand down my face.
How long? I didn't know. I felt hollow. Like my body had burned through everything it had left and was starting to fray.
I crossed the chamber, barefoot. The chill of the floor crept up through the fabric, too thin to stop it.
That's right. The double doors. Lirian. My sister. The party
The warded door stood where I'd left it. Still glowing faintly. Still locked. My gaze caught on the runes this time. Layered. Clever. Meant to hold someone like me in. I stepped closer and ran my fingers across the etched lines, letting my fingertips hover over the threads of magic coiled underneath.
I could break these.
It wouldn't be graceful. It wouldn't be subtle. But I could do it. I could reach for those runes I wasn't supposed to know. The ones buried deep beneath this place. The ones Lirian taught me.
I shouldn't.
But the thought stayed with me. It had merit. However, a part of me believes it may be best not to play my hand so soon.
After a flicker of thought my hand balled into a fist and slammed once against the door.
"Bring some food," I growled. "Or I start carving through your fancy wards."
No answer. Of course not.
The chamber stayed still.
Silent.
I turned away from the door, pacing slow circles across the stone, trying not to let the hunger crawl higher.
Just when I was about to slam my fist again, the runes shifted—just slightly. A shimmer, soft and deliberate, ran through the script.
Then the door creaked open.
No fanfare. No guards.
Just one figure.
They stepped inside, careful and silent, robes draped in muted grays. Slender frame. Tail flicking behind them in measured movements.
a Ka'tari?
I froze.
I'd heard them before—tavern tales, battlefield rumors. Mercenaries always talked about the strange ones: the scaled, the horned, the vanished. The Ka'tari were somewhere in the middle. Catlike. Elusive. Said to be from far southern lands or deep, warded forests. No one agreed on where.
But I'd never seen one.
This one moved like she weighed nothing at all—barely a whisper of motion. Her steps made no sound, not even the faintest scuff. The air seemed to part around her. Fine fur, pale and patterned, covered her visible skin. Her face was feline and unreadable, eyes slitted and downcast. She didn't look at me. Not directly. Her arms were wrapped around a bundle of dark cloth.
I caught her scent.
Warm. Earthy. Alive.
My stomach twisted. A sharp ache rolled through me.
I took half a step forward—then stopped.
No. Breathe. In through the nose. Hold. Out.
I exhaled slowly. Old training.
Back when I still remembered which blade belonged in which hand.
Back when hunger just meant a missed meal—not this.
I couldn't remember who taught me the trick. Some veteran? Alaric? I wasn't sure. But the rhythm worked. The hunger backed off. A little.
The Ka'tari never paused. She moved to the long desk in the corner, set the bundle down with quiet care, and without a word—or even a glance—turned and walked back out.
The door closed behind her with a soft hiss of magic.
Gone.
I waited a beat. Two. Just in case she came back.
She didn't.
My feet moved on their own. Slow. Controlled.
The bundle was plain. Dark cloth wrapped tight, tied once with a thin strip of braided twine.
I undid it carefully.
Inside was a familiar weight.
The pendant.
And the book.
I picked up the pendant first. Disc-shaped. Cool to the touch. Faintly metallic, but the edges were etched—no, carved. Intricately. Tiny shapes twisted in a pattern I didn't recognize, but it felt deliberate. Intentional. The kind of thing someone made with meaning.
I ran my thumb along the center groove. There were runes hidden in the design—subtle, hard to read.
It meant something.
But not right now.
I set the pendant aside and picked up the book.
No title. Just worn leather and a single stitched spine.
I cracked it open.
Not a ledger. Not arcane notes. A journal.
The first page was dated years ago.
Observation: The hatchling speaks. Fluently. Her voice carries weight, though her words are clipped and deliberate. A remnant of the old life, I suspect. She remembers enough to talk. But how much else?
I blinked.
The next few entries were short. Sparse. Almost clinical. Notes on my behavior. Reactions. Magic flares.
Unstable core. Surges under stress. Emotion seems tied to fluctuations—especially fear and frustration. Strong memory of combat stances. Weak memory of names. Curious.
The pages turned easier the longer I read. His tone began to shift—less cold. Less... observing. More engaged.
She asked me today if dragons dream. I didn't know how to answer. She seemed disappointed when I said I wasn't sure.
I didn't remember that.
I tried to picture it. Tried to hear my voice in the question.
Nothing.
I let the pages slip between my fingers, not reading in order—just skimming, stopping here and there.
Most were the same. Descriptions. Patterns. My temper. My magic. The way I reacted to pressure or pain. They read like field reports, until—
Entry: Cycle 8 Day 324
She asked me what happened to my people. I deflected. Told her it was complicated. She didn't press. Just nodded like she understood something she couldn't explain.
Ten minutes later, she turned it around on me. Asked if I thought she had anyone left.
I said I didn't know. Asked what she remembered.
She hesitated.
Eventually said, "I think… I had a sister."
No name. No image. Just that. I waited, hoping something else might rise. She stayed quiet.
A few hours after that, she spoke a single word: "Virelle."
She didn't know what it meant. Said it like someone pulling a thread and finding only dust.
A city, maybe. A home? Her memory is beginning to fade in and out the more time goes on.
She never brought it up again.
My thumb lingered on the edge of the page.
Virelle.
I mouthed it.
It didn't stir anything. No memory. No image. Just another hollow space in a growing field of them.
What else have I forgotten?
I didn't remember asking those questions. I didn't remember the conversation at all.
My chest tightened as I stared down at the page. The words were real. Too specific to be imagined. And Lirian—he wouldn't have invented this.
The words on the page blurred.
What else is gone?
The journal lay open in my lap, but I barely saw it anymore. My hands had gone cold. Not shaking—just still.
Something inside was coming undone.
Not fear. Not quite. But close.
I asked him that. I said those things. But there was nothing—no flicker of memory, no echo in the back of my mind. Just a void. A sister…?
I closed my eyes and tried. Reached for something—anything—but there was nothing there.
The hollow ache behind my ribs dulled, settling into something quieter. Not gone. But... less sharp. Like it, too, was holding its breath.
What else will I forget?
I didn't know if I was still Elias. I didn't know if I was fully Elyssia. But the idea of forgetting either terrified me. Of being caught in between, fading piece by piece until there was nothing left but silence and instinct.
He wrote it down because I didn't. Because I wouldn't remember.
The hunger in my chest quieted further—not satisfied, but subdued. Like a beast waiting to see which part of me would take the next step.
I glanced down again at the open page. I wanted to keep reading, to chase down whatever scraps Lirian had managed to preserve. Maybe somewhere in here was the truth of what I'd lost. A name. A place. Something solid to stand on.
But before I could turn another page, a sound cut through the stillness.
Click.
Soft. Precise.
The door.
I knew who it was. The air itself seemed to bend, the way heat warps stone. My pulse didn't race. It slowed. Not in calm—just bracing for something too large to stop.
I didn't turn. I didn't need to.
The presence that entered wasn't subtle. It rolled into the room like smoke and pressure—thick enough to choke on. The weight of it pressed against my shoulders, my back, the inside of my lungs.
Magic and power and certainty, wrapped in one shape.
I let out a slow breath.
"I'm still hungry," I muttered, barely loud enough to hear.
Then, louder. Flat. Tired.
"Mother."