The night pressed against the stones of the guardroom like a living thing — heavy, damp, breathing softly through the cracks. Shadows swayed with the low, uneven flicker of the dying hearth, stretching long across the floorboards and over Zelene's still form.
She had fallen asleep with her head resting on her arm, hair spilling like ink across the worn table. The room smelled faintly of iron and rain — of walls that had seen too much silence. Outside, thunder rolled across the sky, not in fury, but in warning — a slow, distant murmur that never quite reached the heart of the city.
And then the dream began.
She was back in the courtyard of her old estate — though it no longer belonged to her. The air trembled with the crackle of fire. Orange light licked across the cobblestones, swallowing the garden, the stairway, the marble arch that once opened to a world untouched by ruin. Ash fell like snow. The smoke burned her throat, but she couldn't move.
The fire wasn't angry; it was hungry.
From within that endless glow, something stepped forward. A figure — tall, almost formless, carved from both shadow and radiance. A crown of light flickered above its head, too bright to truly see, too divine to name. Its presence rippled through the dream like an echo of a forgotten god.
When it spoke, its voice was not sound but weight.
> "You carry what was lost. The Auryns remember."
Zelene tried to speak, but her body refused her. Her throat strained against invisible air.
The figure drew nearer — and the edges of her vision bled white.
> "The Crown seeks to complete the circle. Find them before he does… before the veil closes."
The flames roared to life, swallowing the world whole. She reached out — and the heat devoured her hand—
She awoke.
A strangled gasp broke the quiet, sharp and sudden. The world snapped back into place — the stone walls, the wavering hearthlight, the slow rhythm of rain against the roof. Her heart pounded as if it had been running for miles. Sweat gathered at her temples, though the air was cold.
For a single heartbeat, the dream clung to her skin like smoke — and she swore her hand was glowing. Faintly, almost imperceptibly, light pulsed beneath her fingertips before fading away, like the last ember of a dying star.
Across the room, Ray slept soundly, his cloak pulled up to his chin, a small sigh escaping his lips. But Finn—
Finn was awake. Of course he was.
He sat crouched by the hearth, poking half-heartedly at a loose brick with a piece of metal, the picture of someone losing an argument with boredom. His hair was wild, his shirt untucked, and he hummed tunelessly to himself until he noticed her stirring.
"You're up," he said without turning. His voice was too casual, too loud for the hour. "You were twitching in your sleep. Thought you were fighting someone in there."
Zelene didn't answer. She was still watching her fingers, flexing them as though expecting the light to return. When it didn't, she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
"Finn," she began softly, "can I ask you something?"
That got his attention. He turned, eyebrows rising in mock drama. "That sounded serious. Should I sit properly?"
She ignored his tone. "The Auryns," she said. "Did Elias ever tell you anything about them? Where to find them… or even what they really are?"
Finn blinked, clearly not expecting that question. "Not much," he admitted. "He said they were older than kingdoms, older than history — relics from before the world remembered itself. He said if the wrong person gathered them, it wouldn't just shift power…" He paused, scratching his chin. "It would rewrite everything. Memory, time, truth. Whatever that means."
Zelene stared at the floorboards, tracing the grain with her gaze. The words from her dream hummed faintly in her mind like a secret she wasn't ready to say aloud.
> Find them before he does.
And yet here she was — locked away in a forgotten guardroom, her purpose suspended in the quiet between duty and fear.
She pushed her palms against the table, grounding herself in its cold solidity. "We can't stay here," she murmured, half to herself. "Being trapped in this room won't bring us any closer to the Auryns. I don't even know where to start… but waiting feels like the slowest kind of dying."
Finn tilted his head, his usual grin flickering back into place. "You planning to waltz past an entire garrison of guards?" he asked. "Because if that's the plan, I'll need at least five minutes to stretch. And maybe a snack."
The corner of her mouth lifted — the smallest, tiredest smile. "Not tonight," she said quietly. "But soon."
The fire crackled once, a soft exhale of sparks.
She looked toward the small window. The storm outside had passed, but the air beyond still shimmered with that electric stillness that follows chaos — as though the world was holding its breath.
In the reflection on the glass, the faintest echo of the crown from her dream shimmered for just a heartbeat — a trick of light, or perhaps a whisper of what was waiting.
Something inside her knew: the dream hadn't been a dream at all.
It was a summon.
A warning.
And maybe, a promise.