All he knew was pain. And cold. And silence.

  It swallowed him whole, stretching into eternity. There was no ground beneath him, no sky above—only the void pressing in, vast and unfeeling. He had no weight, no breath, no shape. Just pain. A raw, searing thing that pulsed through the nothingness like a dying ember.

  The cold was worse.

  It slithered beneath the pain, slow and insidious, seeping into the marrow of what remained. It did not soothe. It did not numb. It hollowed. Peeled at something deep inside, unraveling him thread by thread. The absence it left behind was worse than agony.

  There was nothing to hold onto. No sense of time. No sense of self.

  And yet… something stirred.

  A ripple in the dark, faint as the hush before a storm. It pressed against the edges of the void, distant but insistent. A whisper slipping through the cracks before silence swallowed it whole.

  He reached for it. And the darkness reached back. It clung to him, pulling, resisting, desperate to keep him. To smother him in nothing. To erase what remained.

  Beyond the dark, something waited. Faint. Familiar. A tether. A warmth. Not strong enough to save him—not yet—but enough to remind him that he had been more than this emptiness. If he could just hold on. If he could just remember. Something from before. Before the pain. Before the silence. A sound. A word. A name.

  His name.

  Ronan.

  The void recoiled. It shuddered, pulling back, recoiling from the name like a wounded thing.

  And then—warmth.

  Fleeting, fragile, but real. A spark in the dark. The name pulsed through him, anchoring deep, stronger than the emptiness, stronger than the cold. It did not bring memory, not yet. But it brought something. The hush of sound against the silence. The ember of warmth against the frost.

  He was not nothing. Not yet.

  He was Ronan.

  The more he thought the name, the more warmth fought against the cold, pushing back the void, forcing it to retreat. He was Ronan Blackarken, son of Gideon Blackarken.

  He was Ronan, from Kael Kestrel, in the Duchy of the Reach, in the Kingdom of Sardia.

  The void shuddered. Cracked.

  And then—light.

  It did not come gently. It surged, blinding, searing, carving through the dark like fire splitting ice. It filled the space around him, within him, burning away the emptiness. The cold shrieked and collapsed beneath it, splintering into nothing.

  He was Ronan, friend of Daire Tanner. They grew up together.

  He had been a levy. A blacksmith’s son. A soldier. A warrior. He had the blessed blood running through his veins. He had become a Knight Initiate in the Aetherian Knights.

  And he had died. He had failed. A crack in the light. A hesitation.

  Then—sound.

  Not the hush of a whisper, nor the distant hum of something far away, but a roar. Deafening. Violent. A storm crashing into him all at once.

  The thunderous crackle of flames, consuming, seething. Heat pressing in from all sides. The storm of breathing, frantic, ragged—his own, or someone else’s?

  And beneath it all, a voice. No, many voices. Chanting, layered upon each other, rising and falling in a rhythm he did not recognize. It was everywhere. Inside him. Around him. Pulling at him. Binding him. Banishing the darkness, pushing away the silence. The light was gone. The void was gone.

  Only this remained.

  Feeling crept back, slow and uneven. A spark at the edges of numbness, spreading, clawing its way through him.

  The noise receded—still vast, still all-consuming, but no longer deafening. The light dimmed, no longer searing, but present.

  The chanting swelled, reaching its peak—a crescendo of voices, a command of existence.

  And then, air.

  It rushed into his lungs, sharp and burning, too much and not enough. His chest seized, his body convulsed. Pain flared, sudden and absolute, tearing through him as sensation returned. It was agony. It was relief. It was being alive.

  The chanting slowed, fading into a steady hum, no longer overwhelming but ever-present. A rhythm to match his breathing, grounding him, keeping him tethered to this place, this moment.

  His senses stirred, sluggish but certain, clawing their way back from the void. He had yet to move, yet to open his eyes, but the steady rise and fall of his chest was proof that he was here, that this was real. The pain and the strange, aching sweetness of it—too sharp, too intricate to be a dream.

  He was lying down. The surface beneath him was hard, yet warm. Not the unyielding bite of stone, nor the damp chill of earth—something else, something solid yet oddly comforting.

  A weight draped over him. A blanket. A shroud. Rough fabric brushed against his skin, heavy but not suffocating. It trapped the warmth against him, cocooning him in something both protective and unfamiliar.

  Beyond that, the world existed again. Sounds filtered through—faint movement, distant voices, the whisper of breath not his own. The chanting, though softened, remained. A presence. A tether.

  He exhaled slowly, his first deliberate action. The breath shuddered, the simple motion sending a ripple of sensation through his body.

  Along with his senses came awareness, and with awareness came questions.

  He had died.

  The certainty of it settled over him like an undeniable truth, more solid than the ground beneath him. But it wasn’t just death—he remembered his body breaking, failing, piece by piece. His right arm, wounded beyond use. His left hand, shattered and crushed. His leg, too weak to bear his weight. A sword, driven clean through his chest.

  He had felt all of it. The agony, the finality. And yet, even then, it had been distant—like it was happening to someone else, while he had simply watched, a passenger in his own ruin.

  But now, he was here.

  The pain lingered only as a memory, a shadow of what it had been. He knew it should be there—should consume him—but it remained just beyond his reach, a wound recalled rather than felt. Even the fatigue of the long march from Kael Kestrel to the Sardian Pass, the relentless exhaustion of battle, was gone.

  He was tired, yes, but not with the bone-deep weariness of a body pushed beyond its limits. This was something different. A quiet, lingering weight rather than the crushing fatigue of months on the march.

  Something had changed.

  Cautiously, he began testing himself. He flexed his fingers, curled his toes. They responded as they should—smooth, precise, without hesitation. No aches from healed wounds, no resistance. Just movement, simple and natural.

  But it shouldn’t have been.

  His left hand should have been stiff with pain, crippled by the memory of bone shattering beneath a mailed boot. He had felt it break, had seen it crushed under the weight of a boot. And yet, it moved—flawless, whole, as if it had never been touched.

  His right hand should have been sluggish, weak. Arrows had pierced his shoulder and upper arm, rendering it useless. He had felt the sword slip from his grip, had felt the pain feed the red-hot anger that had consumed him in his final moments. But now, his fingers curled and uncurled with ease, his arm moving without strain, as though none of it had ever happened.

  A slow unease crept over him.

  His body remembered the wounds. His mind held onto the pain. But the flesh beneath his hands, the limbs he now commanded—they bore no trace of the damage they had endured. No scars. No stiffness. No proof of what he had suffered.

  Then he noticed—the chanting had stopped. Only the crackle of flames and the steady rhythm of approaching footsteps remained.

  The realization came slowly. He had not been alone. If there had been chanting, there had been people. The rhythmic voices had surrounded him, steady and distant, but now they were gone.

  The footsteps echoed softly, the measured sound of a hard sole striking stone. Not hurried. Not cautious. Just movement, deliberate and familiar.

  "Isolde? You've been lying there a long time now. Are you feeling alright?" A woman’s voice. Curious, but friendly.

  The words reached him first, distant but clear. The question lingered in the air, waiting. Was he alright?

  He wasn’t sure how to answer. His body felt whole, but his mind was sluggish, as if waking from a dream he couldn’t quite remember. There was no pain, no stiffness, yet something felt off. Disjointed.

  He swallowed, testing his throat, his voice, before responding.

  "I... I think so."

  The words left his mouth, but something was wrong.

  The voice sounded off—lighter, smoother than he expected. He had braced for the rough, raw edge of exhaustion, the hoarse remnants of battle, but what came was steady, clear.

  For a moment, confusion hit him. Was it just the lingering haze in his mind? The remnants of whatever had happened to him dulling his senses?

  He dismissed the thought. There were more important things to focus on.

  "I'm just a bit disoriented, is all."

  Ronan sat up. The movement was effortless, natural, as if his body had never known injury. The ease of it barely registered, his mind still sluggish, still catching up to itself.

  As he rose, his eyes opened for the first time.

  Light flooded in—blinding, searing, too much all at once. His vision swam, his breath caught. Instinctively, he raised a hand to shield his face, the brightness pressing against him like a weight.

  A voice cut through the haze.

  "Oh dear, was it difficult this time? The ritual did take longer than usual."

  The woman’s tone carried a note of concern, her earlier curiosity now laced with something closer to expectation. She had anticipated something else—less hesitation, less confusion.

  As Ronan turned the words over in his mind, something caught his attention. A ritual.

  Was that why he had heard chanting as he came back? Not just as he came back—before. The voices had been there in the void. Not distant, not faint, but everywhere—inside him, around him, pulling at him, binding him. Banishing the darkness, pushing away the silence.

  The memory of it returned in flashes. The roar of fire. Heat searing his skin. The storm of ragged breathing, the rising crescendo of voices, the exact moment the chant commanded him back into existence.

  Had they dragged him back? Had they forced his return? A quiet breath escaped him, though whether in realization or dread, he wasn’t sure.

  "What..." he managed to say. His voice still strange in his ears.

  His vision was slowly returning. The blinding light faded into shifting blurs, hazy shapes forming at the edges of his awareness. Shadows moved against the glow, figures half-seen, their details still obscured.

  The woman’s presence remained close. He could sense her watching, waiting. Expecting something. But he didn’t know what.

  "Where am I? What happened?"

  Ronan's own voice unsettled him, the unfamiliar tone adding another layer to his confusion. He was just as lost—perhaps more—than when he had drifted in the nothingness. At least there, things had been constant. Empty. Silent. A void without questions.

  Here, each moment unraveled into something new, something unknown. More sensations. More voices. More questions. And still, no answers.

  His vision cleared, sharpening into details. The woman in front of him was middle-aged, around his father's age. She had a pretty, unblemished face, her large, expressive amber eyes studying him with quiet worry. Her lips, painted a soft red, were pressed into a concerned half-smile—warm, yet measured, as if unsure how he would react.

  Her attire spoke of wealth and status. The fabric of her dress shimmered in the firelight, its deep blue hue unlike any Ronan had ever seen on clothing before. It was exquisite, too fine for a common noble’s court, let alone a battlefield or temple. She looked at him as if she knew him. But he had never seen her before in his life.

  "Isolde, dear, are you alright?" Her voice was warm, gentle even, but beneath it lay an expectation—one that made the question feel less like concern and more like confirmation. "You are in the Dawnspire. We just completed the Covenant." There was no explanation, no reassurance, only the certainty that he should already understand.

  "Dawnspire? I'm back in the Reach? What happened?" The confusion inside him deepened. How long had he been in the nothing?

  The Reach was months of travel from where the battle had been. To be taken all the way to Dawnspire—one of the most sacred sites in the kingdom—meant that something had been very wrong with him.

  His gaze shifted around the room. As he moved his head, something caught in his peripheral vision—strands of hair, catching the firelight in shades of amber. He frowned. His hair had never been this long. For it to have grown this much, a long time must have passed.

  The chamber around him was vast and circular, bare except for the flickering braziers that lined the walls, casting long shadows against smooth stone. The air carried the scent of burning oil and something faintly floral, almost like incense.

  The only other occupants were the woman before him and a man standing slightly behind her, silent, watching. Waiting.

  The woman turned slightly, casting a glance over her shoulder.

  "Cadog, have you ever seen the others this confused before?" Her tone was measured, curious rather than concerned, as though Ronan’s reaction was unexpected—but not alarming.

  "Not that I recall, no." The man—Cadog—moved closer.

  He was older than the woman, his hair white with age, his face lined with deep wrinkles. There was a shrewdness to him, a sharp intelligence in his piercing amber eyes—the same color as hers. Were they siblings?

  His robe was of fine make, its fabric rich and elegant, the kind worn by those of great importance. Yet, it was the color that struck Ronan most. A soft gold that shimmered in the firelight, shifting like molten metal. Emblazoned across his chest was a symbol he knew all too well—the mark of the Lightbringer, an orange eight-pointed star. A priest, perhaps? No—something more.

  When he spoke again, his voice carried the weight of wisdom, gravelly and dry with age. "Isolde, why don't you lie down again? I'll fetch some water for you."

  The name hung in the air, pressing against Ronan’s already tangled thoughts.

  Isolde.

  They had been calling him that. It had barely registered at first, lost in the haze of waking, but now the realization struck like cold steel. They weren’t expecting him. They were expecting someone else.

  Confusion surged.

  "Who... Isolde?" His voice, still unfamiliar to his own ears, wavered slightly. He looked between the two figures, searching their expressions for clarity, for denial, for anything that would explain this mistake.

  "My name is Ronan, sir."

  He wasn’t sure what he expected. A correction? A brief, startled laugh at the misunderstanding? Annoyance?

  But what he saw instead sent a chill through him.

  The woman’s expression faltered, her brows knitting together, confusion spreading across her face in slow realization. Cadog’s* reaction was more measured, but no less unsettling. His amber eyes locked onto Ronan with sharp intensity, narrowing—not in skepticism, but in deep, unfamiliar concern.

  They were not confused because he did not remember. They were confused because he was not supposed to be here. The silence stretched between them, thick with uncertainty. The woman’s lips parted as if to speak, but no words came. Cadog, for all his earlier composure, had gone rigid.

  Then, the woman broke the silence. "Cadog, did we perform the Covenant correctly? You did call for Isolde Aldwych, right?"

  Her voice came hurriedly, almost stumbling over the words. The confidence she had carried before was gone, replaced by an undercurrent of disbelief and distress.

  "Yes, Alena. I am sure." But there was no reassurance in his tone. His amber eyes locked onto Ronan, filled with something unsettlingly intense—as though Ronan wasn’t just a mistake, but a problem neither of them knew how to fix. As though he was the most concerning thing in the world.

  "Then why are we not talking with Isolde right now?"

  Alena’s voice cracked with frustration. The distress that had only flickered in her moments ago now flared into something near panic.

  She turned sharply toward Cadog, her composure slipping. "Why are we speaking to—" She cut herself off, her eyes flicking to Ronan, as if saying it aloud might make it worse.

  Instead, she exhaled sharply, her breath shaking as she refocused on Cadog, her voice rising. "What did we do wrong?" She was almost screaming at him now.

  "I don't know." Cadog’s voice remained steady, though Ronan could still sense the tension beneath it. His calm was not from certainty—it was the restraint of someone trying to hold things together. "This has never happened before. It has always been one of us who came back."

  One of us. The weight of those words pressed into Ronan’s mind, but before he could grasp their meaning, Alena snapped back.

  "Bigger problems?"

  This time, she did shout, her frustration breaking past whatever control she had left. But the outburst was fleeting—she drew in a sharp breath, steadying herself, though the anger still simmered beneath the surface.

  "Cadog, Isolde is missing—for all we know, gone for good. And someone else just shows up." She gestured toward Ronan without looking at him, as if acknowledging him directly would make it worse.

  "How is that not our biggest problem?"

  "It is," Cadog said, his voice becoming steadier now. More measured. More certain. "But not because of Isolde."

  Alena’s head snapped toward him, her expression shifting—disbelief replacing anger.

  "To be called through The Luminous Covenant requires strength. Not just anyone can answer the call." His piercing amber eyes flicked toward Ronan, scrutinizing him as if seeing him for the first time.

  "And on top of that, that body was meant for Isolde."

  The words sent a slow, creeping chill through Ronan’s chest. That body. Meant for someone else.

  Alena continued the argument, her voice rising and falling, but Ronan had tuned them out. The weight of their conversation faded into the background, muffled beneath the growing awareness crawling through him.

  He finally started taking stock of himself.

  His hands. They should have been aching and slow, rough with callouses, dirtied with soot and streaks of old scars—small cuts and burns earned in the forge, in battle, in life. But the hands he saw were not his. Slender fingers, graceful, unblemished. Nails, long and clean, almost impossibly elegant, painted a deep red. Hands that had never touched a forge. Never gripped a sword. Never known anything but care.

  Again, in his peripheral vision, he caught the sway of long hair, shifting like amber silk in the firelight. With growing dread, he reached up. One of those impossibly fine, impossibly delicate hands. He touched it. It was soft. Too soft.

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  The texture was unfamiliar—like the silk they had sometimes used for sheaths in the forge, smooth and luxurious where it shouldn’t be. A stone dropped in his stomach. With a sharp breath, he pulled the strands forward, dragging them into his sight. The gentle tug sent a jolt of finality through him. It was attached to his head. It was his hair.

  Only… it wasn’t.

  His hair had always been short, oily, rough—a deep, near-black brown. What he saw now, held in one of those delicate hands, shimmered in the firelight like polished copper and burnished chestnut. Like autumn leaves freshly fallen, rich and warm.

  It wasn’t just a trick of the fire. This was its color.

  The hand dropped the hair, trembling slightly, as if releasing something foreign. But the unease didn’t fade. His fingers, still alien to him, drifted to his face. The stubble—or beard—that should have been there was gone. His jawline was smooth, unnaturally so, as though it had never known the scrape of a blade or the roughness of hair growing back. He traced the curve of his cheek, the shape of his chin, the slope of his nose—familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

  A nail, long and sharp, scratched his skin. The sensation was jarring, an unnatural edge to something that should have been instinctive. His breath hitched. The movements felt wrong, precise and graceful where they should have been firm and deliberate. Even the skin beneath his touch was different—softer, finer, like that of someone who had never spent a day beneath the sun or by the heat of a forge.

  This wasn’t his face.

  He finally looked down, the weight of the silken copper hair shifting as he moved. The sensation alone was foreign—his hair had never been heavy before, never brushed against his shoulders like this. It draped over him, strands catching the firelight, cascading down over fabric that was equally unfamiliar.

  He was wearing a robe or a dress, the material fine and luxurious like Alena's, but where hers was the color of the deep ocean, his was the color of an oak forest, a rich and deep green. The fabric shimmered as he moved, catching the light like the leaves of a tree swaying in the wind, an interplay of shadow and luster that made it seem almost alive. Small flowers and delicate leaves were imprinted and embroidered into the fabric, the stitching so fine it was almost indistinguishable from the weave itself.

  His breath was shallow, barely controlled, his fingers twitching against the soft and smooth garment. He had never worn anything like this before—never needed to. His clothing had always been practical, durable, suited for labor and war. This was something else entirely. This was made for elegance, for status. For someone who had never lifted a hammer or swung a blade in their life.

  He forced himself to shift his attention, grounding himself in something tangible, something that might help him make sense of the impossible. What he had assumed to be a high dais beneath him, an altar or a raised platform, he now realized was only hip-height for Cadog. Yet his own feet did not touch the ground.

  That realization made his stomach turn.

  His legs hung above the stone floor, weightless in a way that felt unnatural. He could feel shoes encasing his feet—slim, light, unfamiliar—yet he dared not look at them. The robe or dress obscured his view for now, a merciful barrier between him and whatever further truth awaited below.

  Ronan swallowed, his throat tight. Every piece of new information only pushed him further from what he knew to be true, from what should have been true. He exhaled slowly, steadying himself. Then, finally, he gathered the courage to look straight down—at what he now knew would await him.

  Framed by the draping folds of the dress, on his chest sat two breasts.

  Ronan's breath hitched, his chest tightening as though the realization alone had stolen the air from his lungs. He froze, staring, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. There was no mistake. No illusion. No cruel trick of the firelight distorting shadows. They were real, pressing against the fabric of his dress, shifting slightly as he breathed. His fingers twitched, his hands curling into the green silk at his sides, as if anchoring himself to something familiar might steady the roiling unease within him. But it was no use.

  A breath shuddered out of him, and before Ronan could stop himself, his hand lifted. One of those impossibly fine, impossibly wrong hands. He hesitated for a moment, as though touching them would solidify the horror, would make it irreversible. But he had to know.

  His palm pressed against his chest, fingers splaying over the curve of soft flesh.

  The sensation jolted through him, alien and yet undeniable. He could feel the warmth of his own skin beneath his touch, the unfamiliar weight that shifted slightly under the pressure. His breathing grew shallower as his eyes flicked down to where his hand rested.

  The sight sent another shock through him.

  Slender, pale fingers, smooth and unblemished, topped with deep red nails, rested against equally soft, untouched skin. His breath stilled as he took in the contrast—not the rough, scarred hand of a soldier pressing against a broad chest hardened by battle, but a delicate, graceful hand against the gentle curve of an unfamiliar body. No callouses, no inked lines of old wounds, no uneven patches of skin from years of forging, fighting, surviving.

  The stone in his stomach dropped deeper, a crushing, inescapable weight.

  Ronan's body—his real body—had been broad-shouldered, built from years of labor and war. It had scars, strength, a weight that this—this slender, delicate thing—could never hold. He had fought in the mud, had lifted steel so heavy it turned his muscles to iron, had taken wounds that left his skin scarred. That body had been his. This one was not.

  His breathing quickened. The tightness in his chest constricted further, panic rising like bile in his throat. He tore his hand away as if burned, but it was too late. The confirmation had already sunk its claws into him. He felt it. Felt the way his body moved, the way the dress shifted over his unfamiliar frame, the way every breath pushed against the undeniable truth of what had happened to him.

  He wanted to reject it, to force it away, to wake up. But there was nothing to wake from. Because this was real.

  A tremor ran through him. His hands curled into fists, the long nails pressing into his palms, unfamiliar and sharp. His breath came in quick, uneven bursts. His hair felt heavier, brushing against his shoulders like an unwelcome weight, the fabric of the dress clinging where it shouldn’t, hanging loose where it should have been tight. Every part of him felt wrong, like his body had been turned inside out, and the sheer impossibility of it shattered whatever fragile control he had left. Tears burned in the corners of his eyes. His chest heaved. The pressure inside him built, higher, tighter, until it became unbearable.

  And then it burst. The scream forced its way out of Ronan, raw and panicked—except it wasn’t his scream. The sound was too high, too soft. His own voice startled him, silencing him mid-breath. The remnants of the scream hung in the air, delicate, trembling. The breathless hush that followed was worse than the sound itself. He could still feel the vibrations in his throat, could still feel the release of breath, but the voice—that voice—did not belong to him.

  The realization cut through the panic like a blade. Even that had been taken from him. The weight of it settled deep in his chest, cold and suffocating. He was trapped. In a body that wasn’t his. With a voice that wasn’t his. In a life that wasn’t his.

  Both Cadog and Alena were looking at him now, concern evident in their eyes. But it wasn’t for him—not truly. Their worry was not for Ronan, the man who had lived, fought, and died as himself. Their concern was for something else, something larger than him, something that his very presence had disrupted.

  They were not afraid for him. They were afraid of what to do with him.

  Alena’s lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something, but nothing came. Her fingers twitched at her sides, hands tightening around the fabric of her dress as she took a half-step back, as if uncertain whether she should comfort him or restrain him. Cadog, standing beside her, remained rigid, his expression carefully composed, but the way his fingers curled against his robes betrayed his unease.

  What to do with the hysterical, panicking man sitting before them in a body meant for someone else. They had never planned for this. Never accounted for this. And now, they did not know what he was supposed to be.

  Cadog exhaled through his nose, his fingers still playing at the hem of his robe. "We don’t have much time. If we stay here any longer, the others will start to notice." His tone was measured, but the sharp glance he gave Alena made it clear—this could not be left unresolved.

  Alena looked at him, then at Ronan, then back again, her shoulders stiffening slightly.

  Cadog hesitated, his mouth pressing into a firm line. "Alena, could you take..." His fingers twitched, curling tighter around the fabric. A breath, slow and controlled. "Could you please take the child to their bed chamber?"

  The word child hit Ronan like a slap, like something meant to strip him of whatever fragile sense of self he still had.

  His breath hitched. His panic, which had momentarily settled into confusion, surged back to the surface, sharp and unrelenting. He wasn’t a child. He wasn’t whatever they thought he was. He didn’t belong here. They had done something to him, something impossible, something wrong, and now they wanted to hide him away like a problem that needed containing.

  "No."

  It came out as a whisper at first, but the refusal built in his chest, pushing past the tightness in his throat. His fingers dug into the fabric of his dress, his breath uneven, heart hammering against his ribs. He shook his head, sharper this time.

  He pushed himself up, rising too quickly. The drop to the floor was longer than expected, and his footing nearly failed him. The shoes he had refused to look at felt strange, elevating his heel, throwing his balance off. He nearly stumbled, the shift unnatural—yet before he could fall, his body adjusted on its own, correcting his stance with an ease that wasn’t his.

  "No, I’m not going anywhere with you." His voice cracked, and he didn’t care. His gaze darted between them, searching for something—an explanation, a sign of what they had done to him—but all he saw was Cadog’s steady, unreadable expression and Alena’s clear hesitation.

  "Ritual? Covenant?" He spat the words, panic creeping into his tone. "What did you do to me? Why am I here? Why am I—" His breath caught, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  This body. This wrong body.

  Alena flinched slightly at his outburst, her hands pressing against the fabric of her gown, her fingers tightening as if she were holding herself back. She didn’t move toward him, didn’t speak immediately, but he saw something flicker across her face—pity, reluctance, maybe even doubt.

  Cadog, in contrast, remained composed, though Ronan didn’t miss the way his fingers curled just a little tighter against his robe. If he was surprised by Ronan’s reaction, he didn’t show it. He simply exhaled, his voice still measured, still calm in a way that made Ronan’s skin crawl.

  "I understand that you’re afraid," Cadog said, as though stating a simple fact. "But you are in no condition to make sense of this yet. We will give you time to rest. To think." His eyes met Alena’s, something silent passing between them. "You know this is the best course of action," he added, not unkindly.

  Alena hesitated. Ronan saw the way she didn’t immediately agree, the way she glanced toward him, the conflict playing behind her amber eyes. Her fingers twitched at her sides, uncertain, but then, finally, she exhaled, nodding just once.

  Ronan took a step back. His limbs felt light, foreign, but the instinct was still the same—get away.

  "No," he said again, sharper this time, his voice rising. "I don’t trust you." His breathing quickened, the weight of the dress dragging against his legs, the too-soft skin of his own arms foreign against his sides. "You—You did something to me. You did something, and I don’t even know who you are."

  Cadog’s gaze didn’t waver. If anything, he looked almost patient.

  "Then let us explain," he said simply.

  Ronan didn’t want an explanation. He wanted to wake up. He wanted to hear his own voice, see his own hands, feel his own body as it should be. But instead, he was here, staring at two strangers who were looking at him like he shouldn’t exist.

  Alena took a step closer, hesitant, but deliberate. "We brought you back from Oblivion." Her voice was steady, but there was something raw beneath it. "We do not wish to cause you further distress, or any harm. If you trust nothing else, then please trust that."

  She was looking at him with pleading eyes, her earlier hesitation replaced with something almost desperate.

  A part of him—some small, lost part—wanted to believe her. Wanted to cling to the idea that they had saved him, not broken him. That whatever had happened to him had been done with kindness, not cruelty. But kindness would not have done this to him.

  Everything was wrong. The body, the voice, the way they looked at him—not with familiarity, not with reassurance, but with uncertainty, calculation. Had they not already harmed him, pulled him into this wrongness? The thought alone sent a wave of nausea rolling through him. He didn’t know these people, didn’t know this place, and yet they were speaking as though they had done something merciful. As though he should be grateful. But all he could feel was the crushing weight of it—the strangeness of his own limbs, the foreign silk pooling around him, the lightness of a body that wasn’t his. It was wrong. All of it. They had taken something from him.

  But the nothingness—Oblivion—had been worse. Hadn’t it?

  The thought slithered into his mind unbidden, poisoning his certainty. There, he had drifted away. Thought had faded. Memory had unraveled. He had felt himself thinning, dissolving, slipping into something vast and nameless, until there was almost nothing left of him at all. No pain. No self. No past. He had been unraveling piece by piece, the edges of his mind fraying like a rope worn too thin. Even the things that had defined him—his father’s voice, the heat of the forge, the weight of his hammer in his hands—had started to slip from his grasp. Everything he was, everything he cared for and loved, fading.

  They had taken his body. His voice. His very sense of self. But they had also pulled him back.

  Doubt replaced certainty.

  Ronan had to face what was before him, no matter how much he wanted to reject it. He had died once already—surely the worst they could do was kill him again. And yet, the certainty that had once comforted him in battle, the knowledge that death was final, unavoidable, absolute, had been shattered. He had been gone, but now he was here, alive in ways he did not understand. And that meant something.

  For all that was wrong, for all that had been taken, this body still breathed. His heart still beat. He still existed. And existing was better than being nothing. If nothing else, he would hold onto that. Because if he still existed, then maybe—just maybe—he could make sense of what had happened to him.

  "I don’t trust you." The words scraped out of him, wrong in tone, wrong in weight. His voice was foreign to his ears—lighter, smoother—but the words were still Ronan's.

  "What do you plan on doing with me if I go with you?"

  The words were spoken to Alena, but it was Cadog who answered first.

  "As Alena said, no harm will come to you." His voice remained steady, detached, as if he were simply stating a fact. "But further than that... I don’t know."

  Alena shot him a glance, her lips pressing together as though displeased with his cold response. Unlike Cadog, she did not maintain the same distance. She took a step forward, her hands unclenching from where they had been gripping her gown, the rigid set of her shoulders softening just slightly.

  "Ronan..." she spoke his name carefully, as though testing the sound of it. Her voice was gentler than Cadog’s, but still carrying the weight of expectation. "I know you’re afraid. I can’t imagine what this must feel like for you." She hesitated, then slowly lowered herself to his level, no longer towering over him. "But you are alive." Her amber eyes searched his, trying to convey something beyond mere words. "Whatever else has happened, whatever has changed... you are here, and I swear to you, I will not let harm come to you."

  Her words were measured, deliberate, as though trying to reassure him—but something in them felt too polished, too well-placed. As if she was used to convincing others, to guiding people toward accepting something they did not want to. Ronan didn’t know if she truly meant what she said, or if she simply wanted him to believe it.

  His fingers curled into the heavy folds of his dress, a reminder of everything that was wrong.

  "That’s easy for you to say," he muttered, his voice quieter, but still laced with defiance. "You’re not the one trapped in a body that isn’t yours."

  Alena flinched, just barely, but it was there. A flicker of emotion, something almost like guilt, before she composed herself again.

  Cadog, meanwhile, remained unmoved. "The alternative is Oblivion." The words were blunt, final, spoken as though that should be reason enough.

  Ronan’s breath hitched, his chest tightening at the memory of that vast nothingness, of himself unraveling into the void. He forced himself to meet Cadog’s gaze, but the man’s expression gave nothing away—no sympathy, no reassurance, just calculated certainty.

  He was not asking for Ronan’s trust. He was simply stating the alternative.

  Alena exhaled softly and reached out, almost as if to touch his arm, but she stopped short, hesitant. "Please, just come with us. You don’t have to trust us, not yet. But we can help you. You don’t have to go through this alone."

  Ronan stared at her hand, hovering in the space between them. He did not move to take it.

  "If I go with you, I want an explanation." His voice was firm, though his pulse was still unsteady.

  He still did not trust them. He believed that they intended no harm, but that did not mean they had no other motives. Power was never simple. Nobles did not act without purpose. And if these people had the power to pull him back from Oblivion, they had the power to use him for something else, too.

  Back in Kael Kestrel, he had seen how people like this moved. He and Daire had often stood at the edges of the training grounds, watching the Knights spar. He had seen how they moved, how their loyalties were not just to their swords but to the politics that surrounded them. And when he and his father sold blades to the knights, to visiting nobles and merchants, he had heard even more—words spoken carefully, but always with purpose. A favor exchanged here, a debt built there. The servants in the tavern had been even more entertaining, whispering of the shifting alliances and quiet betrayals in Duke Thorne’s court.

  These were the kinds of people who understood the weight of power and the necessity of control. They were not careless, nor were they kind without reason. They had not meant to pull him from Oblivion, but now that he was here, they were trying to keep him calm, trying to keep him contained. That meant something. And Ronan needed to know what.

  "Of course, Ronan. I will answer your questions, but not here."

  The relief was visible on Alena's face, her shoulders easing as though she had feared he would refuse. But she did not press him further. Instead, she glanced toward Cadog, her expression shifting, her voice quieter but firm. "But Cadog is right. We can’t tarry much longer. If we stay, people will start asking questions—questions we may not be able to answer."

  Ronan hesitated, his fingers tightening in the smooth fabric of his unfamiliar dress. He still didn’t trust them. He still didn’t understand why they cared now, why they were bothering to help him at all when he had not been the one they meant to bring back. But they had answers, and if he wanted them, he would have to play along. At least for now.

  Ronan exhaled slowly, steadying himself. The weight of the dress, the strangeness of his body, the foreign sound of his own breath—it all grated at him, but he forced himself to push past it. Existing was better than being nothing. And if this was what it meant to still be alive, he had to hold on.

  He exhaled, steadying himself. If he wanted answers, he would have to play along. But that didn’t mean he had to trust them. And it didn’t mean he would forget. "Fine," he muttered, though the word felt like ash on his tongue. He looked between them, searching for some hidden cruelty, some sign that this was all a trick. He found only expectation. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. "I’ll go with you."

  The words felt heavy, wrong. Doubt clawed its way back, cold and insistent, and his lips parted as if to take them back. But what else was there to say? What else could he do? His options had already been stripped away, just like everything else.

  Cadog did not acknowledge his words beyond a small nod, already turning his focus elsewhere. "Take him to the guest quarters, Alena. The room next to yours was prepared for Isolde, use that." There was no hesitation in his command, no regard for whether Alena would approve of being ordered around like a servant. Ronan could almost feel him hurrying them out of the chamber, as though their presence here was an inconvenience that needed to be dealt with before it became anyone else's problem.

  Alena stiffened at his tone, her fingers twitching slightly against the folds of her dress. Though she said nothing at first, the tension in her shoulders made it clear that she did not appreciate being given orders so directly. She was no lesser noble, no attendant to carry out his will without question. A slow breath passed through her lips before she replied, measured but firm. "I will, but don’t assume you will find all your answers in the library, Cadog. The ritual is always held here in Dawnspire. If there were precedent for this, we would have known of it."

  Ronan caught the slight edge in her voice. It was not outright defiance, but neither was it full compliance. She would do as he asked, but only because she agreed. Whatever the nature of their relationship, it was clear that Alena was not someone who simply bent to Cadog’s will.

  Cadog, for his part, barely reacted beyond a small incline of his head, as if acknowledging her words but dismissing them just the same. "Nevertheless, I will look," he said, his tone unchanged. Without further discussion, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit, already considering the matter settled.

  Alena exhaled sharply through her nose, shifting her attention back to Ronan. "Come," she said, less commanding than Cadog but leaving little room for argument. She turned toward the arched doorway that led out of the chamber, waiting only a moment to see if Ronan would follow before stepping forward. He didn’t move.

  His feet refused, his body refusing to acknowledge the decision his mouth had made. He wasn’t supposed to follow. He wasn’t supposed to be here. And yet, he had no choice. No matter how much he wanted to fight, to demand answers here and now, to tear away from this nightmare, he had nothing but uncertainty. And uncertainty left only one path forward.

  He forced his feet to move, each step a betrayal. His steps unsteady at first as he adjusted to the unnatural way his body moved. The moment he stepped forward, the unfamiliar elevation of his heels sent a jolt of instability through him, forcing his body to compensate. He had never worn shoes like these before, had never had to walk on something that deliberately unbalanced him. And yet—his body adjusted.

  His steps faltered, but his body corrected itself. He tried to hesitate, to slow, to force himself to move differently, but his own muscles betrayed him, adjusting with practiced grace. His ankles adjusted, his posture straightened, and he found himself walking without thinking. His stomach twisted. This was wrong. It wasn’t just the heels or the weight of the dress—it was the way his own body betrayed him, moving as though it had done this a thousand times. As though he had done this a thousand times. His hands curled, though stopping just shy of his long nails biting flesh. What else did this body remember that he did not?

  They left the chamber together, exiting through the arched doorway that led into the grand halls of the Dawnspire, the heart of worship in the Kingdom of Sardia. The shift from the stark ritual chamber to the opulence of the corridors outside was almost overwhelming. The hallways were lined with high, vaulted ceilings adorned with gold-leaf patterns, the walls intricately carved with depictions of dawns and sunsets, of radiant light breaking over rolling landscapes. Pillars of white marble stretched high above, each one inlaid with veins of gold that shimmered in the light of the hanging lanterns—lanterns made of finely wrought brass and glass, their flickering flames casting shifting patterns onto the polished floors. The air was warm, heavy with the scent of incense and melted wax. The silk of his dress clung unnaturally to his skin, and beneath the shifting firelight, it felt as if the walls were watching.

  The symbol of Aethor, an eight-pointed star, was everywhere. It was carved into towering pillars of white marble, etched into stained glass windows that burned with golden and crimson hues, stitched into the rich banners of pristine white and gold that draped along the walls. Light filled every corner, ever-present—glowing braziers lined the walkways, flickering candles adorned alcoves, and great beams of the evening sun poured through the arched windows, illuminating the sacred space in a way that felt both reverent and overpowering. Alongside the stars were the ever-present depictions of sunrises and sunsets, each one bathed in deep oranges and reds, the transition between light and dark symbolizing the eternal cycle of Aethor’s grace.

  Ronan felt suffocated by it.

  This place, this temple, was the center of faith for an entire kingdom. He had heard of the Dawnspire before, had seen the banners of the faithful, had watched the warriors who knelt before its altars. He had prayed in temples dedicated to Aethor, had stood in the golden light of dawn and murmured his devotions alongside his father. And more than that, he had been accepted into his knightly order—the Aetherian Knights.

  Faith had never been something he thought about deeply. It was tradition, expectation. His father had prayed, so he had prayed. His mentors had spoken of Aethor’s light, so he had listened. The words had been easy enough to say, the rituals easy enough to follow. He had knelt when required, but it had never been more than that. He had never looked for meaning beyond duty.

  But here—standing beneath the golden glow of Aethor’s light, with the weight of devotion pressing down from every carved stone and painted wall—he felt like an imposter.

  The Dawnspeakers, robed in flowing white and gold, moved with quiet purpose along the hallways. Some bore tall staves tipped with orange crystals, shimmering as they caught the glow of the lanterns, while others carried ornate lamps, their flickering flames casting halos against the walls. The highest among them were adorned in deep burgundy and rich orange, their robes heavy with embroidered sigils of the rising sun—symbols of Aethor’s eternal flame, of enlightenment, of divine purpose.

  It should have been comforting. But instead, it only made the wrongness of his existence sharper.

  He walked with stiff steps behind Alena, adjusting to the unnatural sway of his body, to the way his heels forced his stance into something more refined than he had ever been taught. He did not stumble, but only because something in him—or in this body—seemed to know how to move. It disturbed him more than if he had fallen outright.

  He forced his gaze forward, unwilling to meet the gazes of those they passed. Would they see it? Would they look at him and know that he did not belong? The thought made his skin crawl. Every step he took felt heavier beneath the weight of the symbols that surrounded him, the ever-present reminders of Aethor’s light pressing down on him from all sides. He had walked in temples before, stood beneath banners bearing the eight-pointed star, but never had it felt like this—like something watching, something judging.

  They soon arrived in a wing that felt different, warmer. The symbols of Aethor were still present, but they no longer dominated every surface. Here, the devotion was quieter, less overwhelming. A fine rug covered the floor, soft beneath his steps, muting the sound of his unfamiliar heels against stone. The imagery of light and sun remained, but it was joined by something else—paintings of everyday life. Rolling green hills stretching toward the horizon, golden fields basking beneath a painted sky, bustling cities standing tall and proud against the setting sun.

  Then, as they walked further, his breath caught. There, among the depictions of grand landscapes and sacred sites, was a painting of his home. Kestrel.

  The great cliff where the city stood on top, overlooking the vast stretch of the plains below. The river winding through the farmland, glimmering in the painted light, the waterfall frozen in mid-descent. He had seen this view a thousand times—from the high walls of the keep, from the roads leading into the city, from the hills where he, Daire, and their friends had played as children. The details were perfect, down to the narrow bridges arching over the river, the scattered homes along the valley, the distant mountains fading into the horizon. And yet, seeing it here, surrounded by symbols of devotion and places of reverence, made his stomach twist.

  He was so far from home. He had not seen it in many months, had not walked those roads, had not stood before the castle gates. And yet, here it was, staring back at him from a gilded frame, immortalized in paint and gold leaf.

  His fingers twitched against the fabric of his dress, and for the first time since waking, the weight of what had happened pressed into him—not as confusion, not as panic, but as loss.

  He had stopped walking, staring at the painting, willing himself into it. Wishing himself back. Back to the high walls of Kestrel, back to the roads he had walked all his life, back to the hills where he, Daire, and their friends had played as children. He traced the familiar lines of the cliffs, the river, the frozen waterfall—each detail perfectly preserved in paint, unchanged, untouched by time. But he was not there. He was here, in a place that was not his, in a body that was not his, surrounded by symbols of faith that should have brought him comfort but only made him feel like an imposter.

  Beside him, Alena had stopped as well, silent. She did not press him, did not interrupt. She only watched, her gaze flicking briefly between him and the painting, unreadable.

  After a moment, she cleared her throat lightly. "Come, Ronan, the room is just down here."

  Her voice was softer than before, lacking the authority it usually carried. It came from somewhere behind him, distant, as if she were speaking through water. He barely heard her. Because this was all he had left of home. A picture. A memory, framed in gold.

  He should have moved. Should have followed. But his feet refused, holding him there a moment longer. A moment too long. As if staying would change anything. As if staring hard enough could pull him back into the past. But the past was gone. And so he exhaled, forcing himself to turn away, leaving it behind once more.

  Then, without a word, Ronan followed.