33 lines
No EOL
2.1 KiB
Markdown
33 lines
No EOL
2.1 KiB
Markdown
That night, after the stories faded and the last embers of the fire collapsed into quiet ash, the wind shifted.
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Alisha could not sleep.
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She lay beside the others in the shrinehall, wrapped in furs that smelled of old cedar and waxed hide, the ceiling above marked with soot from generations of sacred smoke. Outside, the snow murmured against stone, soft and unceasing.
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But it wasn’t the cold that held her awake. It was the voices.
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They began low, threading through the cracks in the wood and between the heavy stones—like sighs passed from one century to another. She thought, at first, it was the breath of the sleeping. But the tone was wrong. Too rhythmic. Too purposeful.
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She rose quietly, stepping into her boots, and pushed open the door just enough to slip into the snow-washed courtyard.
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The Veyari village slept beneath the stars—slumped roofs and half-buried paths, all cast in silver by the moon. Smoke from sacred chimneys curled like thin braids. Yet the air trembled, as if expecting something.
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And the wind spoke.
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Not in a tongue she knew, but in the weight of words left unsaid. In syllables that itched at the corners of memory. Sharp consonants. Fluid vowels. A regal cadence, distant and solemn. The Queen’s tongue, though no one named her.
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Alisha turned toward the shrine and saw the outline of something—no, someone—standing in the treeline. A woman-shaped absence in the snow, robed in veils that moved with no breeze. Her crown seemed made of shadow and frost and antlers. Her face, hidden, yet watched.
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Alisha’s breath caught.
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She didn’t step forward. Didn’t run. Only listened.
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The words passed through her, not into her. Not meant for mortals, but remembered all the same.
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She whispered into the cold: “Is it you?”
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The wind changed. The figure was gone.
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Only the night remained, and the hush of those still sleeping within. But when Alisha stepped back into the shrine, she looked once toward Ryn—still curled by the hearth, brow furrowed in sleep.
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She lay back down, but did not close her eyes. The Queen was not finished speaking. |