The wind that touched Aurea's face smelled of ash and frost—like a memory long buried.
She awoke not on her cot in the sanctum, but in a silver-white desert beneath a sky stitched with constellations. The air shimmered with ghostly patterns: glyphs, equations, things she shouldn't be able to understand—but somehow did.
"This isn't a dream, is it?" she whispered, her voice swallowed by the sands.
"No," Eryan answered beside her, his hand steadying her elbow. "You've entered the Star Archive. One of the oldest places still bound to the fate-threads. It only opens... for people like you."
"People like me?" Her voice cracked.
"Marked. Claimed. Divided."
Behind them, Kael growled softly. "She's not ready for this."
"She was born for this," Eryan replied.
"That doesn't mean I want her to burn for it."
They were arguing again. Of course they were.
Aurea closed her eyes and took a step forward, her bare feet sinking slightly into the silken dust.
This wasn't about them.
This was about the thing inside her—waking, watching, whispering more and more clearly with every passing night.
---
The Archive shimmered with light and silence. Floating tomes drifted in midair, pages fluttering like wings. Some whispered fragments of future wars, others screamed of gods fallen in love or madness.
Aurea reached toward one—only to be yanked back by Kael.
"Don't touch that."
She twisted from his grip. "If you're going to keep dragging me away from everything dangerous, you might as well chain me up."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Don't tempt me."
"Enough," Eryan cut in. "The Archive's begun to shift. It knows she's here."
The horizon rippled.
Then they came.
Shadows walking on no legs, faces made of broken memories—Dream-Eaters. Monsters born from mortals' abandoned futures, used by the Forsaken God to scent the Chosen.
They weren't ready.
---
Eryan raised a wall of starfire, drawing glyphs mid-air as Aurea clutched her head—visions pouring in.
Kael rushed ahead, sword glowing like the sun. He struck down two shadows, only to be swarmed by five more.
And Riven—
He appeared behind her, stepping from the Archive's deeper dark. His arms wrapped around her waist as he pulled her into a hidden corridor of drifting books.
"Don't move," he breathed.
His heartbeat was steady. His breath was cold. His presence was the only anchor she had left.
"You came."
"I always do."
She looked up. "Why?"
A beat.
His lips were close. "Because you dream in my voice."
---
Then something worse came.
A Dream-Eater took her father's form—gentle, trembling hands, his eyes the exact shade of dusk she remembered.
He reached for her. "Come home, Aurea."
Kael shouted, too far to stop her. "It's not him!"
But her fingers had already brushed her father's.
In that instant, something unleashed inside her.
Aurea screamed.
---
She rose from the ground, hair floating, eyes glowing with constellations. Her voice became layered—hers and not hers.
"Unbind," she whispered.
The sky split open.
Star-metal armor wrapped around her body like living skin. Above her, three glowing circles turned—each representing one of them: Kael, Eryan, Riven. Her tri-bound fate, forged in the stars.
She lifted a hand, and the Dream-Eater dissolved into ash.
Powerful.
Terrifying.
Too much.
---
When she collapsed, Riven caught her again.
Kael ran to her, bleeding, fury and panic etched into his features.
"You can't do that again," he choked out. "You nearly tore your soul apart."
"She saved us," Eryan murmured.
"She nearly killed herself."
Riven said nothing—just held her.
Aurea looked at all three of them, her voice raw:
"I don't know who I am when I'm like that. I don't know who I am anymore."
None of them had an answer.