“Ray,” Lia said softly, smiling.
He stepped into the hut, his presence big and quiet. Without a word, he moved to stand beside her—protective, solid, like he belonged there.
“This them, then?” he asked, his gaze flicking over us. “The ones from your dream?”
Maddie blinked. “You dreamed about us?”
She sounded more confused than alarmed—but barely.
Lia nodded. “I have a gift. It only started a few years ago… visions, mostly. But yes—I knew you were coming. I knew you were important.”
My stomach tightened.
“Important how?” I asked.
Lia stood and drifted to the window. Her fingers touched the wooden frame like she was remembering something far older than the room itself.
“This world…” she said quietly, “It’s fractured. It always has been. Each king rules with iron. Each kingdom builds its walls higher. There’s no unity. Only survival.”
“There never will be,” Maddie replied. “No one out there can bring everyone together.”
Lia turned slightly, her eyes far away. “That’s where you’re wrong. I believed that once, too. I believed the world was cold. Cruel. I tried to bring back the light—and I was punished for it.”
Her voice didn’t tremble. But Ray crossed to her anyway, placing his hands gently on her shoulders.
“Lia—” he warned.
“It’s all right,” she said, almost too softly. “They need to hear this.”
She looked back at us, and her eyes caught the firelight just enough to flicker gold.
“I was dying,” she said. “I was left on the edge of the wilds, my body shattered, with no magic left. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. The pain was… ancient.”
A pause.
“Then I saw it.”
Her voice dropped to a hush.
“A comet. Cutting across the sky like a blade of fire. A gift from the gods. Or a curse. It fell—and the moment it touched the horizon, I saw everything.”
Her breath hitched—but she smiled. Not kindly.
“I saw what could be. I saw a world reshaped. I saw you.”
She turned back to the window.
“And it starts here. It starts now. With you two.”
Maddie’s brow furrowed. “And you think we’re the ones meant to change it?” Maddie swallowed hard. “What do we need to do?”
Lia didn’t answer right away. She just smiled like someone holding a secret too heavy to name.
“You follow your heart,” she said at last. “That’s all I’m allowed to say.”
Ray turned to us, his voice low. “There are a few of us who aren’t happy with the way things are. Families are being torn apart—turned into currency. Into weapons. Into slaves for kings.”
He hesitated. Just a second.
