Chapter 1
LUMORIA
ONE
“I’m getting closer to finding the Spiritborn, but we are running out of time. Shadeheart’s forces appear to be getting closer. I believe she is behind the rips in the protective Wards.”
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
It’s early spring. The kind of morning that lies.
I stand outside our house, watching smoke curl from the chimney into a pale sky. The porch creaks behind me as the breeze nudges the faded blue door. The wood-plank walls, silvered by wind and time, lean into the hillside like they’re tired—but holding.
My father works nearby, framed by the hush of late morning light. Sun warms his shoulders, sweat glistening at his brow like dew on stone. His hoe moves in quiet rhythm—rise, fall, breathe—splitting the soil in soft, scraping strokes. It parts easily, dark and rich, curling like a wave.
I watch him work. Watch the hills. Something in the breeze tugs at me—too sharp for spring. Too still.
I tuck a strand of black hair behind my ear. My braid’s already loose, the ache in my back already starting.
I just can’t shake this sense of foreboding.
The hills roll like sleeping giants, touched with green. Wildflowers dot the field’s edge—yellow, white, the occasional violet. Trees along the far edge have only just remembered sunlight.
Father catches my eye and smiles. His fair skin flushed from sun and work, brown eyes crinkling with quiet joy. A breeze lifts his brown hair from his brow, and for a second, he looks younger.
I smile back, wipe my brow with the back of my hand, then swing my arms a few times, trying to loosen the tension. I stayed busy all winter—hauling wood, grinding grain, helping Mother with weaving—but fieldwork is different. It asks more of you. Different muscles. A different kind of patience.
I know the ache will fade. It always does. By midsummer, my body will remember, and these muscles will carry me through harvest.
Each day here brings its own rhythm: the feel of soil beneath my hands, though it crumbles drier than it should for early spring. The laughter over our meals, always a little louder these days—like we’re all trying to drown something out.
The farm feels safe. But safety’s started to feel like something we pretend—while word spreads of shadow breaches, raids along the southern borders of the realm, and skies growing quieter as fewer dragons are choosing.
Nonetheless, there’s comfort in focusing on the land—something I can control. This rhythm . . . this shared return to the earth. A season turning over. A life beginning again.
“Time to eat!”
My mother’s voice rings out from the house, clear and melodic. I look over my shoulder to see her standing in the doorway, drying her hands on her apron. Her green eyes are bright, her cheeks rosy, and her chestnut hair piled into a messy bun, strands catching the sun.
She looks beautiful: sun-kissed, confident, and content. Glowing with the life she built with her hands.
Father sets down his hoe and stretches, then starts toward the house. I rise too, brushing dirt from my hands, the pull of sore muscles steady in every step. As we step inside, delicious scents greet us—bread, vegetables, and something sweet, enveloping us in comfort.
As we eat, Mother mentions the market. “We’ll need to go tomorrow,” she says, reaching for the butter. “We’re out of salt, and I want to see if the baker has that rye flour I like.”
Father nods. “Anything else?”
“We have a few jars of preserves left,” she says, glancing toward the pantry. “Blackberry and quince. I’m hoping to barter for more.”
The mention of the market lights a spark in me. “I want to come,” I say, leaning forward, bowl forgotten.
Mother’s lips twitch. She and Father exchange a knowing look.
They’re remembering things.
Probably the time Lyra and I knocked over a fruit cart chasing a chicken. Or dyed the fountain blue with berry juice. Or when I almost punched the baker’s son for saying I didn’t look like my parents.
Which—fine. I don’t. Not in the ways that matter, anyway.
“Of course,” Mother says with a smile that’s part indulgent, part wary. “I already asked the Durnharts if we can stay with them tomorrow night.”
Lyra Durnhart—my best friend since we were eight. Fifteen years of chaos and the best kind of trouble. It’s only been a few days, but it feels like weeks. I miss her laugh. The way her thoughts fall straight out of her mouth. That glint in her eyes before she ropes me into something reckless.
I can already hear her now: Finally! I was starting to think you got buried under a pile of potato sacks.
Mother starts to clear the table, but Father stops her with a hand on her wrist. He gathers the plates and carries them to the sink, washing them in silence. She sits beside me, watching him with quiet affection.
When he’s done and the plates are resting in the drying rack, he turns and extends a hand to her. She takes it without hesitation, that same familiar glint in her eyes. They walk toward the door hand in hand, back to the fields.
I glance through the window, toward the curve of the road—the one that leads to the village. And farther still.
And for a moment, I feel it.
A pull in my chest. A hum beneath my skin.
Like something’s waking up.
“Amara?” Mother’s voice calls gently from outside, pulling me back.
“Coming,” I say quickly, grabbing my gloves from the hook by the door.
Just like that, I slip back into the rhythm of the day—stepping into the light with the people I love, and the fields waiting.
The sun casts sharp shadows across the field as we return to our places. The soil is looser in the afternoon warmth, soft and pliant beneath my fingers. I drop to my knees beside a row we left unfinished and dig in with renewed purpose.
I press my palms to the earth and call to the magics inside me. It answers, rising slow and steady. I offer it to the seeds—a gentle nudge, a promise. If the weather holds, they’ll break through the soil by morning.
I examine the work that still needs to be done without apprehension—I find comfort and balance in what might be considered a daunting task.
People say earth is unyielding, but I know better. Earth doesn’t refuse to move—it refuses to fall.
That is the Earth Clan. My clan.
I reach for the short-handled hoe beside me. The wooden grip is worn smooth, the Maker’s Mark—a simple spiral—still etched in the grain. I remember when Father gave it to me, not a gift, but a quiet passing of something earned.
What you shape, shapes you, he said.
I didn’t understand it then—I’m not sure I fully do now. But when I work the land with this tool, something in me settles. Like the world makes more sense when I’m part of its tending.
I glance back at the house, at the stone ledge beside the door where my mother etched our names over the years. Our family’s Stonekeep. It’s tradition in the Earth Clan—births, vows, even heartbreaks—all carved into stone.
“The land remembers what we do not,” my mother always says. “So treat it like a witness.”
I remember sitting at the Gathering Table, listening to old stories under the stars—quiet truths passed hand to hand, like seeds in the dark.
The Earth Clan doesn’t rush its wisdom. We let it take root.
One summer night, Lyra and I laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe, mouths full of roasted squash. The air was golden and still—like even the wind was listening.
She stood, bold as ever, and told the story of jumping the ravine at Warden’s Edge to impress a hunter boy. She made it halfway; hit the riverbank with a yelp and two scraped knees—but gods, she owned it. Told her story like a triumph, not a fall. Even the stone-faced elders smiled.
When she sat beside me, cheeks pink with laughter, she nudged my shoulder and whispered, “Everyone falls trying to cross something too wide. Doesn’t mean you weren’t meant to try.”
I didn’t think much of it then.
Now, I do.
I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a precipice, something waiting or about to happen. I feel it—a stirring under my skin. A pull in my chest, the hum of the earth where there was only silence before.
Something’s shifting. I don’t know where it leads—or if I’m ready.
That night, I collapse into bed, sore and humming with the scent of turned earth still clinging to my skin even after bathing.
The window is cracked open to let in the cool spring breeze. The sounds of the night drift in—crickets singing in the grass, the soft rustle of trees, the occasional creak of the old barn settling.
Peace.
I curl beneath the old quilt Mother stitched, faded blue and gold, and stare up at the ceiling beams, thoughts racing. My body is heavy from the day’s work, but my mind refuses to settle.
Eventually, I drift off.
And dream.
No colors or shapes. Just endless darkness.
I float—weightless, nameless—only stillness cocooning me.
Then, a flicker.
A single thread of light arcs through the dark—flame underwater. Then another. And another.
Soon, the darkness is laced with glowing strands, like constellations stitching themselves across the void. I don’t know how I know, but they’re not stars. They’re threads. Lines of an intricate ancient pattern.
They pull me towards . . . moments. Memories. But not mine.
A girl in gold robes, runes glowing on her palms, standing in the heart of a storm. She speaks, and the wind obeys.
A warrior queen, braids like fire, arms slicked with blood as she charges forward, leading an army of light.
A healer, kneeling beside a dying child, her hands pressed to his chest. She smiles as she gives him her life.
A seer atop a mountain shrine, eyes turned skyward, incense curling around her. She chants into the wind—and the sky splits open.
I feel everything.
The hum of the storm. The heat of battle. The ache of sacrifice.
None of these women are me. But something deep inside me pulls tight, like a string being plucked. Like some part of me already remembers.
The threads glow brighter—then unravel all at once, dissolving into a sea of light. It’s blinding. Beautiful. Terrifying.