Chapter 25
Elara’s steps were slow, dragging, her mind miles away while her body moved on its own.
The path stretched in front of her—dark, endless, with a light barely visible at the very end.
Hazy, yet… it pulled. Far and faint, but calling all the same.
And then, another light bloomed, nearer this time, brighter, like a star flaring into existence.
She stilled. This was wrong. This place was wrong. She should be in her cell, bound by stone and iron, not here, wherever here was.
Yet the lights… they sang to her, each note wrapping around her, pulling her deeper. The far light whispered, a soft, lilting melody that thrummed through her veins, while the nearer one tightened in her chest like a rope yanked taut.
Both were calling, but the closer one... it demanded.
Elara turned—not by choice, but by force deeper than will. The path bent beneath her feet, drawing her toward the glowing heart. It pulsed in time with her own, faster, closer—until she passed through its shimmering veil.
The light didn’t just surround her—it poured into her.
Her skin prickled as if touched by static, the hair on her arms lifting.
Elara squinted as she surveyed the barren landscape stretching endlessly before her.
There was not a tree in sight, not a shadow to speak of.
Only the sun, an indifferent eye overhead, searing the terrain into a bleached bone of a world.
And the air—it was still, stagnant, like it hadn’t moved in centuries.
Could I be dead? The thought brushed her mind as her steps stirred dust, motes glittering before settling back into obscurity. Everything felt too real to dismiss. The ache from casting still throbbed behind her eyes, her clothes stiff against her skin, sour with dried soup.
And yet—something was off. As if she stood on an edge, not just between sleep and waking, but between realms.
She traced the air, catching the swirls of dust on her fingers that drifted languidly on the wind. Then she felt it.
A pull.
It started softly, a barely-there whisper at the back of her mind, but it grew, steady, like the tide drawn irresistibly toward the moon. Her breath hitched as it tugged at her chest, something inevitable lurking just beyond her reach.
And even if she wanted to, she couldn’t resist it.
Elara kept walking and almost as if they’d been waiting, a circle of stones emerged from the haze. They rose from the desolation like jagged, broken teeth, their silhouettes dark against the bleak landscape.
They resembled the stones in the Pit, but these were different. Their edges were worn and uneven, covered in moss that had withered to a brittle shell, as if even nature had forsaken this place.
She drew a breath and stepped closer, letting the circle of stones close around her. When her fingers brushed the nearest stone, a sharp shiver raced up her spine. The surface buzzed faintly beneath her touch—old power, worn but alive, humming through the ground. She closed her eyes and listened.
“It's you.”
Elara’s stomach dropped in a rush of surprise as she spun around, locking eyes with the Hunter.
His heavy-lidded gaze took in the world like a man not yet convinced it was real.
Sleep softened his dark eyes, curls tousled as if he’d crushed them into submission during the night.
He wore simple trousers and a linen tunic, the laces at the neck undone, revealing the hard planes of muscle beneath.
“What—why are you here?”
The sound of her voice seemed to drag him from whatever daze he was in. He blinked, his frown deepening as his eyes swept over the barren, ghostly landscape. “I don’t know. I… think I’m dreaming.”
Elara’s pulse quickened. Yes—this had to be a dream. The weightlessness, the way everything blurred and shifted at the corners.
She was dreaming. It had to be.
The Hunter’s gaze narrowed as he studied her face. “Why did you summon me?”
“I didn’t…” Her voice faltered, unsure. She hadn’t called him, but something had drawn her here. That pull—could it have been the stones? Her gaze flicked back to him, his face still unreadable, though something shifted in his eyes—hesitation, maybe.
“Where are we?”
He squinted. “I’ve been here before…” He crouched low, hands sinking into the soil. Slowly, he let the dirt sift through his fingers, the fine grains catching the light, swirling like ash caught in a breeze. “We’re in Arwn’s Void.”
“Arwn’s Void?” Elara echoed. “I’ve never heard of it before.”
“You wouldn’t have,” he murmured, “They wiped it from every map after Osin took control. Didn’t want anyone finding it again.
” He gave a curt nod to the ground. “Look closer. The soil’s not like anywhere else.
It’s alive, in a way. It remembers. What’s left of the Great War.
.. Draoth still bleeding through the land. ”
Elara's gaze traced the shimmering particles she hadn’t noticed before. The dust seemed to glimmer in the fading light, as though tiny fragments of stars had fallen to the ground, glowing faintly beneath his fingers. “Draoth?”
The Hunter stood, wiping the dirt from his hands. “It’s the Tírrísh word for ether.”
Elara hummed softly, her gaze drifting. This land was dead—and yet ether, ancient ether, still endured, surviving where nothing else could. Her chest tightened. This place was survival stripped to its bones, clinging on despite everything.
Survival, at any cost.
Recognition stirred in her chest. Like the land, she carried something buried deep, dormant but not gone. Waiting.
Waiting for rain. For ignition. For a shift—any sign that might make sense of the path before her.
The Hunter stepped closer, stirring the dust around them. “Strange that I’d see you here, of all places,” he said under his breath, almost as though he was speaking to the air, not her.
Elara brushed her fingers against the stain on her tunic. “Don’t give yourself too much credit. You’re just another torment my mind cooked up—haunting me in real life wasn’t enough, apparently. Now I can’t even get a break when I close my eyes.”
His head snapped toward her, brow creasing in confusion. Slowly, perplexity sharpened into recognition. His eyes widened, color draining from his face as though a dark realization had just slammed into him. Like he’d uncovered a piece of a nightmare.
Elara’s heart stuttered, and before she could stop herself, she took a step back.
“What? What is it—”
Elara shot upright, heart slamming against her ribs.
A dim, muted glow bathed the Pit, the scattered orbs casting just enough light to deepen the shadows. That faint, dull glow signaled the end of the day, just before the night shift began.
She blinked, disoriented.
Curse it. She’d slept through the entire day.
Muscles stiff and aching, she stretched, wincing at the throb in her neck.
Across the cell, Reynnar lay sprawled on the floor just beyond the bars.
His broad shoulders rose and fell in steady breaths, his face softened by sleep, yet there was a coiled tension in his posture, as if he could wake at the slightest sound.
Her heart clenched at the sight—he had stayed close, kept watch.
She pulled the blanket tighter, but it did nothing to stop the shiver crawling over her skin. That dream—gods, what was it? It wasn’t just a dream. It had weight, substance, as if she could still taste the air. It felt like a warning.
Elara pressed her palms to her eyes, the pressure steadying her. She’d dreamed of the Hunter before… but this was different. It felt as though he’d been there. Not just in her mind, but truly present, as if a piece of his soul had reached across whatever lay between them.
She shook her head, stifling a laugh. Impossible. Dreams didn’t work like that. She was exhausted from casting—gods, she still hadn’t wrapped her head around that.
And yet… he’d carried her to the cot. Warmed her cell. That was the strangest part. Why would he do that? It made no sense.
Of course her mind had seized on it and twisted it into something more. That was all it was—a dream, nothing more than an overtired brain misfiring.
And yet...
Elara shoved the blanket aside and slipped from the bed, cool air prickling her skin.
She moved to the edge of the cell where the passing orbs cast just enough light.
Kneeling, she dragged a finger through the dirt, sketching the stones from her dream—slow, careful, the shapes still fresh in her mind.
Then, beside them, she drew the stones from the Faerie tunnel.
The ones Saria had warned her never to speak of.
Her pulse quickened as she stared down. Nearly identical. The dream-stones were fractured, cracked, one split clean in half—but they were the same.
“Tá Aelfhenge tarraingthe agat12.”
Elara blinked and looked up to find Reynnar watching her, one brow lazily raised. He dragged a hand over his face, his gaze drifting between her and the marks on the ground.
“Do you know what this is?”
He hummed, low and thoughtful, then crouched by the bars and tapped a finger against the drawing. “Aelfhenge,” he repeated.
Elara pinched the bridge of her nose, her thoughts racing, sifting through the endless vault of knowledge she’d buried herself in over the years.
The archives, the dusty tomes, the brittle pages she’d pored over—Aelfhenge.
The word drifted through her mind, brushing against something familiar, something just out of reach.
One book stood out in her mind more clearly than the others—a worn, leather-bound volume titled Whispers of the Veil.
Within its pages, she recalled a particular passage about the Stone of Liria, a legendary Fae artifact believed to be infused with the essence of celestial bodies.
The text described how, under the light of a full moon, the stone would emit a soft glow, its power reaching its zenith when the alignment of celestial bodies was precise.
During these rare moments, the Fae could channel divine energies through the very bones of the earth, harnessing a force both ancient and formidable.
Could they be related somehow?
But the Aelfhenge didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the Fae. She didn’t know enough yet. She needed to find out more.
Elara glanced back up at Reynnar, biting back a sigh of frustration. For what felt like the hundredth time, she wished they spoke the same language.
“Aelfhenge,” she repeated, and Reynnar nodded.
“Elara.” She tapped her chest, and his grin spread wide, like he knew exactly what she was doing.
“Reynnar.” He pointed to himself, then gestured at her. “Yoo-man”
Human.
She couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, human.”
“And you're a Faerie,” she said, pointing at him, her tone almost teasing. But the moment the word left her mouth, his expression darkened, the easy smile vanishing.
“Ní hea,13” his voice was low, almost a growl. “Sidhe.13”
Elara leaned in, just a bit closer, her brow arching as she studied him. "Sidhe?"
She rolled the unfamiliar word on her tongue, never having come across it in all the texts she’d devoured. But when she said it, Reynnar nodded, his eyes gleaming with something unspoken, like the word held a meaning far deeper than she could grasp.
"Is ea,14” Reynnar whispered, touching his chest with a gravity that rippled through the space between them. “Sidhe.14”
The air felt thick with the truth of that single word.
“Oi!”
Elara practically jumped out of her skin, her heart slamming into her ribs. She and Reynnar sprang apart so fast it was like they’d been burned. Too slow, though—far too slow.
“What did I say about talking to the other prisoners?” Malak’s voice was a low, menacing growl. “You deaf or just stupid?”
Elara’s stomach flipped. “I—I wasn’t. It’s the first time—I won’t do it again. We don’t even understand each other.”
The world shrank to the pounding in her chest, each beat so hard she swore it would crack her ribs.
If Malak took Reynnar—she couldn’t survive without him.
Would they punish him? Kill him? And all because of her.
The thought hit like a punch to the gut, stealing her breath, leaving her mind spinning.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus as Malak’s gaze slid to Reynnar, then back to her, his lip curling.
“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to gut someone tonight. But if I catch you whispering to that thing again, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
“I won’t,” Elara said quickly, nodding like her life depended on it. “I won’t.”
“Good,” he spat, canceling the wards with a sneer. “Now get your arse moving. You’re wanted.”