The smell of campfire smoke curled through the clearing, warm and familiar, but it only deepened the hollow in my chest. My heart thudded in my ears as I walked into the clearing, and my head felt light. I had to go back to Paesuna, back home.
I missed my parents. I knew they would welcome me home without question. It was the knowing that I could not stay, that my duty to Kathera was not finished, that hurt the most.
I tugged at the gloves on my hands. Trying to ignore the ridged bumps on my palms. I couldn’t think of that now.
Briar and Castor stood near the fire, speaking in low voices. Sahora stepped outside the tent where Oliver had been resting. Elyon hummed softly, cross‑legged in the dirt, their eyes half‑closed as if listening to something beneath the earth.
I cleared my throat. “We need to go to Paesuna. Calin specifically.”
Castor straightened. “How do you know?”
“Because I can feel it.” I lifted my chin, though my hands trembled at my sides.
Sahora crossed the clearing toward me. “Once Oliver can stand and walk steadily, we will go to Paesuna. If you feel pulled there, it must be connected to the shards and the essences.”
Her certainty steadied something in me I hadn't realized was shaking. The fire cracked, sending a spray of sparks into the night air. For a heartbeat, they looked like new stars trying to rise.
“I do not know what waits for us there,” I admitted. “Only that the pull is stronger today than it has ever been.”
Elyon’s humming shifted, turning sharper. “Calin remembers you,” they murmured.
A chill slid down my spine. “I wish it did not.”
Briar stepped closer, her expression soft. “Ami, you do not have to carry this alone.”
A thin, humorless laugh almost escaped me. “I have been carrying this since I was ten. I do not know how to put it down.”
Sahora’s stormhound rose, padded over, and pressed its head against my knee. Warm. Solid. Grounding. Sahora watched, unreadable.
“Then we will carry it with you,” she said.
The words struck harder than any prophecy ever had.
My throat tightened. “Calin is dangerous now.”
“We can handle it,” Sahora replied.
Something flickered behind her eyes. She did not look away.
Castor exhaled slowly. “If Calin is calling, then we go. But we go prepared.”
Prepared. As if preparation could soften what waited for me there.
I brushed ash from my cloak and looked out into the night sky.
The pull in my chest tightened as the words echoed inside me. “You are stronger than stone, fluid as water, powerful as fire, and sharp as the wind.”
And for the first time in years, the world seemed to agree.