“I don’t know. That dream was so vivid. The most real one yet. I could feel the energy…I woke up and I felt like I was on fire. Here, I wrote everything down. And…there’s something else. A symbol, or some kind? I can’t quite make it out, but I see it in all of my dreams now.”

  Ariel slammed the last Skryll into the stone floor with a brutal crack, the vine recoiling to her arm in a hiss of tension. At the same time, her other hand stretched toward Fornaskr, who clutched his bleeding arm. The medicinal herbs he had packed glowed faintly under her touch. Light pulsed through his wound, the venom drawing itself out like black threads before the flesh sealed over with a shimmer of green.

  For a long breath, only their ragged panting filled the tunnel. Ariel lowered her hand, chest heaving. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice still rough from the fight.

  Fornaskr flexed his fingers experimentally, then gave a sharp nod. “I am.”

  Relief softened her shoulders. She leaned against the wall of the cave, pressing her palm flat against damp stone. She closed her eyes, straining past the thud of her pulse to listen. The cave carried only silence now. No skittering, no pulsing. At last, she let the vine retract, coiling tight at her wrist like a serpent gone to rest.

  They pressed forward into the cave’s depths, their steps careful, lantern swinging in Fornaskr’s hand. For a while they spoke nothing, silence heavy but not hostile, each lost to their own thoughts. The drip of water from the ceiling, the scratch of boots on stone, the faint rasp of breath—these were the only sounds.

  At length, Fornaskr broke the quiet. His voice was gentle, curious. “When you touched the symbol, back in the grove… what did you see?”

  Ariel hesitated mid-step. The question pulled at her like a hook, drawing her mind back to that moment, to the tablet’s glow and the world that had opened beneath her. Her face tightened, pensive, the memory both sharp and shrouded.

  “I… saw something,” she said slowly. “It wasn’t this world. It was… different. A place that felt familiar, but I didn’t know why.”

  Her words faltered. She tried again, fumbling, searching. “There was a couch. A kitchen. A fire burning in a hearth. I remember the smell of it, the warmth on my skin. And there were these—” She swallowed, brow furrowing. “These little things. Soft. Sitting in a window. I felt like they were… guarding something important.”

  Her voice grew quieter, threaded with confusion. “It should have been comforting, but instead it made me ache. Like I was missing something I should have known. Someone I should have remembered.”

  She paused, staring ahead into the dark, lantern-light glinting in her eyes. “It was almost on the tip of my tongue, but it slipped away before I could hold it.”

  Her hand brushed absently over the vine bracer at her arm, as though grounding herself. “I don’t know what it meant. But it felt real. Realer than a dream.”

  Her voice wavered, and after a beat she added, “There was also an urn, sitting on the mantle above the fire. I... I don’t know why, but it filled me with dread. Dread so deep I felt like I was dying. And then it… changed. Colors swirled around it—green and red, weaving into a vortex that pulled at the room itself. The aura grew brighter, faster, until the very air warped around the urn. The sound was like a thousand whispers all speaking at once, rushing in my ears. And then, with a violent shatter, the world around me broke apart into fragments of light and dark, as though reality itself had been torn open beneath me.”

  Fornaskr’s steps slowed. His face was lit strange in the lantern glow, eyes wide, mouth parting as if words might come—but none did. At last he managed, voice low, “I have never heard of such a thing. The symbol… it has never done that. And the place you speak of—this apartment—it is foreign to me.” He fell silent again, his expression troubled.

  After a long pause, he asked softly, “And the person? The one you feel you should remember?”

  Ariel’s throat worked. A single tear welled and slipped down her cheek before she wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand. “I know there’s someone important to me,” she whispered. “But I can’t remember who she is. All I have are scraps. A scream. And… hair. Long, blonde hair catching the light.”

  Her voice cracked. The ache pressed heavier into her chest, grief threading itself through her confusion. Fornaskr’s face softened, solemn as he walked beside her, the silence that followed weighted with her unspoken loss.

  The grief did not fade—it deepened, spreading like water into cracks. Ariel braced herself against the cavern wall, her shoulders shaking as a hollow sorrow coursed through her veins. Fornaskr stumbled as though struck, tears welling suddenly in his eyes. He tried to blink them back, but soon they spilled, carving wet tracks down his cheeks.

  Ariel broke first. A sob wrenched from her chest, raw and wordless. She pressed her face into her arm, trying to choke it back, but the grief had no words—it only clawed out of her until her whole body shook. Fornaskr dropped to his knees beside her, his dagger clattering uselessly to the stone, tears falling freely.

  Through the blur of tears, Ariel managed to ask between sobs, “Why… why are you crying?”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Fornaskr drew a trembling breath, his voice thick. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I don’t know.”

  For a long while they sank together into grief, twin currents pulling them under. Then, slicing through Ariel’s sobs, came a voice—not here, but in her mind. Familiar. Urgent. Screaming for help.

  Save her! The words rang again, desperate, tearing at her chest. The woman’s voice. The same one from her fractured memories.

  Ariel lifted her head, tears still streaming, eyes wide in shock. Fornaskr staggered to his feet, swaying, then forced himself to walk toward her. His cheeks were wet, his breath ragged, but his gaze was steady as he said, voice breaking, “I hear it too.”

  His voice trembled, the words barely steady. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, but more tears slid free.

  “This must be it,” he rasped. “The oppressive weight the Wisp spoke of. The corruption. We must be close.”

  Ariel barely heard him. The voice still screamed in her skull, tearing at her soul, raw and relentless. She pressed her palms to her temples, trying to shut it out, trying to force it into meaning.

  “Please… just stop,” she muttered, her voice ragged. “Let me remember. Let me see her.”

  Her breathing hitched as she stumbled against the wall, sliding down until her knees hit the stone. “The crash,” she whispered through sobs. “I see the crash, over and over. Metal screaming, glass breaking. And her… her hair, gold in the light, always just out of reach.”

  Her words spilled faster, desperation breaking them into fragments. “Who are you? Why can’t I—why can’t I hold on? Just give me her name. Please. Please.”

  She rocked slightly where she sat, grief and frustration twisting together until her muttering became a litany. “Long hair. Screaming. The light—her voice—why can’t I remember? Why can’t I remember?”

  Fornaskr stood over her, stricken, his own tears falling freely. He clenched his fists, as though trying to anchor himself, his gaze fixed on Ariel as the echoes of her voice mingled with the unseen screams in both their minds.

  Forcing himself closer, Fornaskr crouched low, his hands hovering near her shoulders, not quite touching. His words shook, but he tried to steady them, to be the anchor she needed. “Minnidottir,” he said firmly, though grief still roughened his voice. “Listen to me. The voice—it’s trying to stop you. To stop us. It might belong to someone real, but right now it’s being twisted, used as a weapon by the corruption.”

  She flinched, still clutching her head, sobs rattling out of her chest. Fornaskr pressed on, trying to meet her gaze. “You can’t let it take you. Everything will be okay. You just have to keep moving forward. Forward, to the answers you’re looking for.”

  His eyes shone with his own tears, but he held her with a steadiness she could feel, as if willing her to breathe, to stand, to endure.

  Ariel lifted her eyes to Fornaskr, tears still streaming down her face. She gave a shaky nod, trying to steady herself. Her breathing came rough at first, then slower, deeper, until the sobs dulled into tremors. A minute passed before she found her feet again, bracing on the wall, then pushing upright. When her gaze met Fornaskr’s, they shared a fragile smile.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, voice raw but steadier now. “For helping me pull it together.”

  Fornaskr dipped his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “It was my pleasure to help the savior,” he said, lips curling into a playful smirk.

  Ariel let out a quiet chuckle, rolling her eyes. “Oh, stop,” she muttered, giving his shoulder a gentle shove. “Come on.”

  They fell into step together, the grief still clinging to their chests like heavy chains, but no longer dragging them down. They pressed forward, silence their companion now, ears pricked for any sound of skittering claws or venomous whispers. None came. The tunnel stretched long and winding until, at last, a pale glow appeared ahead.

  They froze, hearts tightening as they approached the source.

  The passage opened into a small grove hidden deep within the cave. In its heart loomed a massive bloom of violet, just like the one Ariel had first woken upon.

  But this one bled. From the veins of its petals seeped an oily black substance, dripping thick and slow to pool at its roots, the earth around it darkened, poisoned.

  Fornaskr’s voice broke the hush, low and grim. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Not in this quantity.” His brows knit as his gaze traced the slick black pools. “It looks like the venom of the Skryll… but how could it have corrupted an Eiranth?”

  “Eiranth?” Ariel echoed, brow furrowed.

  Fornaskr glanced at her, then back at the weeping bloom. “That is their name. The great purple blooms scattered across our island. It means ‘healing flower.’ They are sacred. Revered for their natural healing properties and their holy energy. The forest thrives around them. Where they bloom, nothing decays, nothing dies. They are the heart of the green.”

  His jaw tightened. “For corruption to touch one of these… it must be more potent than anything we’ve faced. More dangerous than I imagined.”

  Ariel let the words sink in. Healing flower. The name echoed in her mind, twining itself with the memory of her own awakening. She had risen from the heart of one of these blooms; cradled, as if protected or chosen. The thought pulled at her, unsettling. Did it mean she had truly died? That her last breath in one world had been followed by her first in this? It didn’t make sense. People didn’t die and wake upon giant flowers. That was the stuff of stories, not reality. And yet here she stood, breathing, moving, her heart beating in her chest.

  Her gaze lingered on the corrupted Eiranth, its black ichor dripping steadily to the earth. She hugged her arms around herself, mind circling the impossible. If this was death, why did it feel so much like life? Why did her body ache with hunger, with exhaustion, with grief? She thought of the blonde hair again, flashing in her memory like sunlight off glass, and the scream that never left her. Had she left someone behind in that other place? Someone who had mattered more than anything?

  Her chest tightened. She shook her head slowly, unable to reconcile the fragments with the reality before her.

  Drawing in a shaky breath, Ariel turned her attention back to the Eiranth. The slick black venom glistened in the lantern glow, and she recognized it at once. It did look like the Skryll’s poison, the same she had pulled from her leg, from Fornaskr’s arm. Her gut twisted. She raised her hand toward the flower, closing her eyes, reaching for the pulse beneath its corruption. For a moment there was silence…

  …Then sound flooded in.