The first thing Elias felt was pain.

  A deep, gnawing ache in his ribs, sharp and raw, as if something had splintered inside him.

  Then came the cold.

  A biting wind curled through the valley, carrying the stench of burning wood and blood. It crept under his skin, chilling him to the bone. He stirred, his fingers pressing into the damp, muddy earth beneath him.

  Something wet clung to his face.

  His vision blurred, shapes and shadows twisting together as he tried to lift his head. The world tilted, swimming before his eyes, and for a moment, he thought he was still dreaming.

  Then he saw the first body.

  A woman. Face-down in the dirt, her hair matted with blood, her dress charred at the edges.

  His breath hitched.

  Not a dream.

  A memory.

  It came crashing back—the fire. The screams. The blade at Elara’s throat.

  Elias’s pulse roared in his ears as he pushed himself upright, his muscles screaming in protest. He swayed, blinking against the fog in his mind, his hand instinctively going to his side.

  His fingers came away wet and sticky.

  Blood. His own.

  Not deep enough to kill him. Just deep enough to remind him he should be dead.

  But he wasn’t.

  Why?

  His eyes lifted, taking in the ruins of Oakhaven.

  And for the first time, he wished he had died with them.

  The streets were gone.

  What had once been cobbled paths winding between thatched-roof cottages were now piles of smoldering rubble. The air was thick with ash and soot, the sky above grey and bloated with storm clouds.

  Somewhere, a beam collapsed, sending a fresh plume of smoke curling into the wind.

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  Bodies littered the ground.

  Some still clutching each other.

  Some half-burned.

  Some with throats cut cleanly, their blood staining the dirt.

  Elias’s stomach lurched.

  This had not been an attack.

  This had been a purge.

  A butcher’s work.

  He staggered forward, each step unsteady. The pain in his side flared, but he welcomed it. It kept him moving. It kept him from collapsing beside the dead.

  Something crunched underfoot.

  He looked down.

  A wooden horse.

  A child’s toy. Snapped in half.

  Elias exhaled through clenched teeth, forcing himself to look away.

  He had to find her.

  His home was nothing but charred bones.

  The roof had collapsed inward, the walls blackened and scorched. The door hung crookedly from its hinges, its frame cracked in two.

  The inside was worse.

  The wooden table where they had shared their last meal was shattered, pieces of it scattered across the floor. The hearth had gone cold, its embers long since burned out. The shelves had been torn down, their contents—**herbs, dried fruit, old books—**now just rubble and ruin.

  And then—

  His breath hitched.

  At the center of it all, half-buried beneath the wreckage—

  Elara.

  Elias’s body locked in place.

  She lay curled on her side, her golden hair tangled and streaked with soot. Her hands were clutching something against her chest.

  He moved before he realized it, dropping to his knees beside her, his hands trembling as he touched her shoulder.

  "Elara…"

  His voice cracked.

  She didn’t move.

  Didn’t breathe.

  Didn’t wake up.

  His fingers curled against her sleeve.

  No.

  Not like this.

  His hand drifted lower, closing over her wrist.

  She was cold.

  Too cold.

  The kind of cold that doesn’t go away.

  Elias clenched his teeth, something sharp and ragged tearing through his chest.

  He had known.

  From the moment he saw the village burning, he had known.

  But knowing did not prepare him for this.

  The silence was unbearable.

  He wanted her to stir. To sigh in her sleep and roll toward him, murmuring complaints about the cold.

  She didn’t.

  She never would again.

  His fingers shook as he reached for what she had been clutching.

  Her locket.

  It had been her mother’s. A small, silver thing, its chain tangled around her fingers, the clasp broken.

  She had been holding onto it when she died.

  Elias bowed his head, pressing it against her shoulder.

  Something in him fractured.

  He did not cry.

  The grief was too sharp. Too deep.

  It did not come in waves.

  It came in a void.

  A yawning, hollow abyss, swallowing everything in its path.

  Something dark and quiet settled inside him.

  And for the first time in his life, Elias felt truly alone.

  The wind shifted.

  And for the first time, Elias realized—

  It was too quiet.

  The fires still burned. Smoke still curled into the sky.

  But there was no sound.

  No more screams.

  No more cries.

  Even the wind itself felt muffled.

  Then—

  A whisper.

  "She didn’t have to die."

  Elias’s breath caught.

  The voice had not come from behind him.

  It had not come from anywhere.

  It had slithered into his mind.

  A cold, smooth thing.

  A presence.

  And then—another whisper.

  "We can make them pay."

  Elias’s fingers tightened around the locket.

  It wasn’t real.

  It couldn’t be real.

  He was losing his mind.

  And yet…

  A pulse crawled through his veins, slow and rhythmic. A sensation he had never felt before.

  Something was watching him.

  Something was waiting.

  The silence stretched.

  Then, softer this time—

  "Come find us."

  A single thought slipped into Elias’s mind.

  He was not alone after all.