The scent of crushed thyme and iron hung heavy in the air.
Kaelen ground the mortar harder than she needed to, letting the stone bite into the dried root. Her fingers were stained green from mossleaf and burned raw from vine acid. The apothecary's workshop was dim and cramped — but it was the only place she had ever known.
"Not so much pressure, girl," came the rasp from behind the shelves. Master Evron shuffled forward, his long grey robes trailing like smoke. "You're bruising the essence out."
Kaelen muttered an apology and eased her hand. Her thoughts weren't in the room. Not really. They were still in the dream.
In it, she stood on the edge of a great cliff, staring at a city carved into the stone itself. It pulsed with light. Blue banners with a sigil — spiral wrapped in flame — flew over its towers. The name had burned on her tongue when she woke.
Valenstrad.
But when she said it aloud at breakfast, Evron had looked at her like she'd spoken in tongues.
"That place doesn't exist," he'd said flatly. "And it never has."
Yet she knew it had. She remembered the feel of its stone steps. The warmth of its lanterns. The scent of its rain.
That was what terrified her most.
—
That night, after Evron retired to his chambers, Kaelen slipped out the back door into the courtyard. The moon was a pale eye behind thin clouds. She knelt in the dirt and let her fingers trace the shape again, like in the dream.
A spiral.
Then the flame.
As her fingers completed the mark, the soil hissed. Golden light welled up from the grooves like blood from a wound. The air thickened.
From the alley, a whisper rose.
"Found you."
She turned.
A man stood there — or something shaped like a man. Cloaked in air, skin flickering like broken memory. Eyes blank.
With a soundless step, he moved.
Kaelen backed away, stumbling.
Suddenly, a flash — steel, then fire. The figure screamed, unraveling into strands of color.
Behind it, a tall man stood, sword raised.
On his forearm: the same sigil. Burned deep, glowing faintly in the dark.
"You're not crazy, girl," he said gruffly. "You're Remembered."
Kaelen stared at him, shaking.
"And now they're hunting you too."