41. Interlude
Interlude
T he trees bent toward me like they remembered something I didn’t. They whispered with their limbs, not in words, but in warning.
A mirror hung in the clearing—cracked, silver bleeding red light from its center.
Behind me, three shadows waited. One held a lighter. One dripped blood. The last one—he whispered my name.
I didn’t turn around.
The ground pulsed under my bare feet. Like a heartbeat. Like something ancient had been buried there, and it was waking up just because I’d come too close.
There was a door ahead. I was younger then. Small. I’d seen it before. In memories I hadn’t made. Flashes I couldn’t place. In a house I never lived in.
My father’s voice was behind it. Not angry. Not soft. Just... waiting.
He said my name like it wasn’t mine yet. Like it would mean something different when I opened the door.
And then he said it. “Choose.”
The mirror shattered.
The trees screamed.
And I woke up—gasping—with the taste of ash in my mouth, and something cold gripping my wrist like a memory I hadn’t made.