The Witch's Heart and The Mortal's Light(GL)

Elara didn't speak of the dream right away.

Not even to Morgwyn.

Not yet.

The rune on her palm still pulsed faintly, like a second heartbeat. It didn't hurt — not in the way wounds do. But it ached in a way that felt like remembering something she never learned.

At dawn, she wandered to the glade's edge, where the old stones still hummed with forgotten power.

The birds fell silent as she passed.

The trees leaned, just slightly, like they were listening.

And beneath her boots, the earth whispered.

"Return… return…"

The whisper wasn't sound. It was memory, tangled in root and wind. Something ancient trying to pull her toward its name.

Morgwyn found her kneeling by the bone-root spring, sleeves damp, eyes unfocused.

"You're humming," the witch said softly.

Elara blinked. "I didn't realize."

"That melody… I've heard it before."

Elara looked up. "Where?"

Morgwyn sat beside her, slow and cautious. "In Vel Ashen. At the outer circle. The ritual wells. Before the collapse."

Elara swallowed. "It was in the dream."

Morgwyn turned fully, expression tense now. "Tell me. Everything."

So Elara told her.

She described the flickering light, the coughing child, the way her sister's fingers had clutched hers like a lifeline. She remembered the window — and the shape standing just beyond it, impossibly tall, impossibly still. No breath. No face. Just presence.

Then the moment of death — almost — and how something seized her heart before it could stop.

A whisper, not cruel but curious:

"Live. Remember. Return."

And then the fire in her lungs again. Life.

But not the same one she'd had before.

She showed Morgwyn the rune now burned into her palm.

Morgwyn paled.

"That symbol…" she murmured. "I thought I'd forgotten it."

"You recognize it?"

"Yes. We uncovered it once. Deep beneath the Shattered Coast. Before the fire."

Elara's chest tightened. "You said it before. Ilsamar. What is it?"

Morgwyn rose, staring into the trees.

"Ilsamar is not like the gods sung about in temples," she said. "Not Light. Not Shadow. Not bound to shrines or offerings."

"Then what is it?"

"A question. A will."

She turned back to Elara.

"Before Vel Ashen fell, a team of seers and bone-singers traced ley fractures beneath the coast. At the convergence point… they found a rift."

"A rift?"

"Not to another world — to another possibility," Morgwyn said quietly. "They heard whispers through it. Felt threads moving through time like silk. Some said it was a sleeping god. Others… thought it was the buried dream of one."

Elara's mouth went dry. "And they called it Ilsamar?"

"It wasn't its name," Morgwyn said. "But the closest they could come to describing it. Ilsamar means 'the one who waits and weaves.'"

Elara traced the rune with her fingertip.

"Why would it save me?"

Morgwyn didn't answer at first.

Then:

"Because something in you said yes."

Elara turned. "I didn't—"

"Not aloud. Not even in thought. But your thread said yes. Your soul, your song. And now you are marked."

"Am I possessed?"

"No," Morgwyn said firmly. "This is no dominion. You are not a puppet. You are… a vessel. Chosen, yes — but not bound. Yet."

Elara swallowed hard. "So I'm a ticking clock."

"Not a clock," Morgwyn said. "A gate."

That night, Elara didn't sleep.

She placed Riven's mirror fragment under her pillow, just as they'd instructed.

The dream took her instantly.

But this time, she didn't fall — she walked.

She stepped through corridors made of salt-stone and bone. Every wall shimmered with faint threads — some gold, some black, some pulsing red like arteries.

She didn't recognize them. But some of them… knew her.

They shifted as she passed. Whispered her name in half-formed syllables.

"El…a…ra…"

At the end of the hall stood a mirror.

Not glass. Not water.

But possibility.

A fluid surface, silver and dark and deep. It reflected not light — but choice.

She stepped forward. Looked down.

And saw—

Not herself.

Not just herself.

She saw her reflection with two gold eyes glowing, her mouth split slightly — as if chanting without voice. Her skin bore runes, some shifting like waves. And from her back—

Wings.

But not angelic.

Not fae.

They were made of unraveled thread, each strand flickering with potential futures — life and death, war and peace, sorrow and light.

And behind her, rising—

Ilsamar.

It wasn't a shape. Not entirely.

It towered, faceless, but not blind.

A tangle of silk and smoke, infinite eyes closed across its form, each one holding dreams it had once swallowed. Its hands were not hands, but choosing points. It smelled like dust and first breath, ocean salt and burnt pages.

It did not ask permission.

It placed a hand on her shoulder and said:

"You remember me.

Now I will remember you."

The moment it touched her, every thread in the mirror behind her flared — lighting futures and endings and cracks between the world.

And she understood.

Ilsamar wasn't a god of answers.

It was the god of unfinished things.

Elara woke with a gasp.

The mirror fragment was gone.

Burned into dust beneath her pillow.

But the rune on her palm now pulsed steadily.

And a second one had appeared — along her collarbone, faintly glowing when she touched it.

Not a mark of possession.

A mark of becoming.

When she stepped outside, the forest didn't hiss.

It bowed.

Every flower along the path turned toward her.

The mist split to let her through.

And at the glade's edge, Morgwyn was waiting with something wrapped in nightcloth.

"I dreamed," Elara said quietly.

"So did I," Morgwyn said. "And I made this for you."

She handed her the bundle.

Inside: a bone-carved pendant. Etched with two sigils — the rune from Elara's palm, and the seal of Vel Ashen's sacred tree.

"It binds you to me," Morgwyn said. "And to this place. You don't have to wear it."

"I want to," Elara whispered.

And she did.

They sat on the old root-stone together, watching the sun climb like it didn't know how close it had come to falling.

Elara turned.

"Do you think I'm dangerous?"

Morgwyn's reply was immediate.

"No. I think you're powerful. But not because of what's in your blood. Because of how you choose to wield it."

Elara leaned into her shoulder.

And whispered, "Then help me stay me. Please."

Morgwyn gently rested her forehead against hers.

"We'll anchor each other."

Far from the Dreadwood, on the broken cliffs of the Shattered Coast, a storm boiled over the sea.

At its center, an ancient temple lay cracked and partially submerged — its roof carved with the old tongue.

A priestess knelt there now, bleeding from her palms.

She whispered:

"Return.

Return.

Return."

A shimmer in the salt fog revealed a single eye — floating, lidless, ringed in thread.

"The Vessel wakes."

"The Thread remembers."

"Prepare the cost."

And behind the eye…

A flame flickered.

Cressid Emberwyne watched. And smiled.

END OF CHAPTER 12