78. Interlude
Interlude
T he dream came slowly this time.
Like smoke through a locked room.
I was standing barefoot in a corridor I didn’t recognize—long, narrow, stone beneath my feet. Red light poured from torches on the wall, but there were no flames. Just glow. Just heat.
And silence.
My silver bracelet burned. Not painfully—just enough to remind me it was there. I touched it and felt a pulse. Not mine. Deeper. Older. As if something buried in my blood was waking up.
I walked.
The corridor twisted. Time bent.
I saw flashes as I passed doorways that didn’t lead anywhere: Alden’s eyes dark and unreadable. Trace on his knees, blood on his hands. A handprint on glass. The shape of my own mouth crying a name I couldn’t hear.
Then I was outside.
A forest, moonless. Trees bent overhead like ribs. There was no wind, but the leaves whispered.
“Scarlett.”
My name came from nowhere and everywhere.
A silver flame hovered above my palm. It flickered once, then shot up like it had a mind of its own. I didn’t flinch. I watched it dance.
Then he was there.
At the edge of the clearing.
Not close. Not fully visible. But I knew.
Older now. Taller than I remembered. But still—the man who used to carry me in one arm like I weighed nothing. The one I’d buried in memory.
My father.
“You weren’t supposed to choose yet,” he said, voice both near and far. “But then again, neither were they.”
I tried to speak, but the flame grew louder—roaring in my ears like water.
He stepped closer. Still veiled in shadow. “They think they’re protecting you.”
I swallowed. My mouth dry. “Who are you talking about?”
His silhouette didn’t move. “The ones watching. The ones waiting. The ones who already know.”
A chill spread through my chest.
“You were born for this, Scarlett.”
I shook my head. “Born for what?”
He looked past me, into the dark. “To inherit what they fear. To rise in the ruin.”
The silver flame flared once more—violent, blinding—and I saw it behind him.
A veiled eye, covered in red. A symbol carved into bark I’d seen before in a different dream.
My father turned away.
"You’ll remember when you’re ready."
Then everything vanished.
I woke up gasping, fingers clutching the bracelet, heart pounding hard against my ribs.
Something had changed.
And I wasn’t sure it could be undone.