The water wasn’t silent anymore. 

What used to be a sacred hush, an unearthly stillness that gave the pond its name, was now replaced with the roar of crashing water. The waterfall poured like a scream from the rocks above, battering the surface of the pond below in a rhythm that shook my bones. It sounded like grief, like the land itself was mourning.  

Had it always sounded like this? Or had something broken when I stepped into the water? 

The sky had begun to brighten, streaks of soft amber and indigo creeping along the horizon. The new moon hung invisible above, its presence felt but unseen, a hollow weight suspended in the waking light. It was strange, knowing I had entered the pond beneath a moonless sky… and somehow, it still waited above me.  

Was this the same night? Was this even the same world? 

I stumbled through the tall grass that fringed the sacred water, dragging my body forward with no real direction, my legs trembling beneath me.  

My muscles felt hollowed out, like they belonged to someone else entirely. My shoulder throbbed in time with my heartbeat, but even that pain felt removed, like I had been poured into the wrong body. 

Where was I? What had happened? My head swam with fragments. Light. Screaming. My parents’ eyes. Bryson’s blood. Landon’s relief. 

I had no memory of leaving the water. Only the light. The overwhelming, blinding light. And then this: cold air, wet limbs, the sound of the world roaring around me.  

My clothes clung to my skin, heavy with pond water and blood. My legs stung every time I moved, but it was the silence inside me that hurt more. 

No more voices. No more hands guiding me. Just me. 

Did I drown and wake up in some dream? Was this death? 

The trees surrounding the pond stood tall and still, their branches arching overhead like a cathedral of leaves. A faint shimmer clung to the bark, as if dusted with moonlight or memory.  

The air smelled clean, touched by moss and water, and something faintly sweet; like the breath of old magic. The normal pollutants from Oakfort didn’t hang in the air, making it heavy. 

My limbs ached like I’d been trampled by a stampede. Each breath was a ragged pull. I tried to stand straight, but my knee gave out, and I crashed to the ground on all fours. 

A rustle near me made my spine lock. Not the trees. Not the wind. Movement. 

Low. Wet. Stalking. 

I barely turned before something burst from the underbrush.  

A bear, massive and wild-eyed, its fur matted and slick from the falls. It moved with startling speed for its size, hunger or panic driving it forward.  

A bear? My mind reeled. We hadn’t seen one in our territory in generations. They were supposed to be extinct around here: driven out, hunted off. What the hell was it doing near the sacred grounds? 

One massive paw swiped through the air, and I wasn’t fast enough. Its claws raked across my shoulder, sending white-hot pain tearing through my skin as I stumbled backward. 

I screamed as fire ripped across my skin, the bear’s claws carving into my shoulder like a hot blade through cloth.  

It didn’t feel real. I expected to wake up. The pain told me I wouldn’t. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was happening. 

The pain was instant and blinding, tearing a cry from my throat that echoed over the roar of the waterfall.  

My feet slipped in the wet grass, and the momentum of the blow spun me, sending me crashing toward the pond’s edge. 

I hit the moss-covered altar stone hard. The breath punched from my lungs as my body folded around the ancient slab, my ribs jarring against its edge.  

It jutted out of the earth like a forgotten fang, slick with rain and time, the surface etched in runes I barely registered. 

I lay there, stunned. 

Pain bloomed, vivid and consuming. My vision swam in waves of black and red, and I felt the warmth of my own blood spreading beneath my shirt, soaking into the waistband of my pants, dripping onto the altar. It trickled down in thick lines, sluggish and hot. 

I groaned, trying to push myself upright, but the weight of my limbs refused to obey. A tremble passed through me: not just from the pain, but from something older and more profound rising in the air around me. 

The bear pawed at the ground, sniffing the blood. Its breaths were rough and uneven, foam flecking its mouth. Madness rolled off it in waves, and I realized this wasn’t just fear or hunger, it was infected with something. Something wrong. Its eyes were clouded, its movements frantic and broken. 

It inched forward. 

But then... something else stirred. 

The altar stone beneath me grew warm, humming faintly against my side. 

The blood soaking into its surface shimmered for a moment, as if the stone itself drank it in. Then it pulsed, just once, and the tremor beneath me was so deep and subtle it felt like a heartbeat in the ground. 

I tried to shift away, but my limbs felt like water. 

The pain... it changed. 

A strange warmth uncoiled through my chest and neck, wrapping like ivy beneath my skin. I blinked and looked down. 

A mark had begun to glow just below my collarbone, faint as moonlight filtered through fog.  

The lines of it were delicate, curling and knotted, almost like a rune or sigil. The more I stared, the more it pulsed.  

I stared in disbelief. Was this what my mother meant? That something was sleeping inside me, waiting for blood and fear to wake it? I didn’t want this. I didn’t understand this. 

It shimmered: not just with light, but with presence. 

Alive. 

The air thickened, charged like a storm was about to break. The trees didn’t groan in pain this time, they sighed. As though the forest itself was holding its breath. Waiting. 

And then... exhaled. 

A low, resonant sound vibrated through the clearing. My ears rang with it, not from noise, but from the weight of the silence it disrupted. 

The bear backed away with a rasping hiss, its hackles raising. Its body went rigid. It spun to flee. 

But it was too late. 

I should’ve run. Should’ve dragged myself back into the woods, anywhere but here.  

But I couldn’t move. I could only watch as something answered the altar, something ancient and terrifying. 

The surface of the pond exploded. 

A crack like thunder shattered the morning calm, and a column of water erupted upward, not sprayed, but pulled, like something vast and ancient was clawing its way out of the earth, not into it.  

The light that followed was blinding, a flash so intense it turned the world into stark white silhouettes. 

I was thrown back by the force of it, my body striking the altar again, this time on the opposite side. The impact left me dazed, curled in the grass, arms weak around my ribs. 

I could barely see, but I could feel it. The cold. The raw power. The magic. 

Something now stood between me and the bear. 

A figure, tall and motionless, cloaked in steam and the fading brilliance of whatever had just been released.  

He wasn’t just a man. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. Something in my bones recognized him before my brain could catch up.  

My pulse stuttered: equal parts dread and awe. 

His silhouette was striking, all lean muscle and regal posture, his back to me, bare skin shining like it had been carved from moonstone.  

His shoulders rose and fell with heavy breaths, each one pulling the mist tighter to his frame like smoke curling around a flame. 

Lines of silver glowed across his back: tattoos? Scars? I couldn’t tell. They pulsed in time with my mark. 

The bear hissed again, but it didn’t move. 

Neither did I. 

Because the moment I looked at him, I felt it. 

Something in me recognized him. 

Something in me remembered him. 

The creature hissed again: but didn’t charge. 

The bear didn’t run. 

It froze, muscles coiled, breath steaming in heavy puffs, its head low and twitching in confusion. Something in the air had shifted, and even in its frenzied state, it sensed it. So did I.  

The clearing, moments ago a place of chaos and blood, had quieted in a way that made the sound of my own heartbeat feel intrusive. Every tree stood still, every leaf held in place, as though the very forest watched alongside us. 

The man at the edge of the pond shifted slightly. He turned just enough for me to glimpse the line of his jaw and the arch of his cheekbone, the faintest outline of a profile that looked like it had been carved from stone and starlight.  

His expression, though unreadable, radiated an otherness that made my chest tighten. There was no mistaking it: this wasn’t just a man.  

There was something ancient in the way he held still, like time moved around him rather than through him. 

Before I could draw a breath, he vanished. 

He moved with a speed that my eyes couldn’t follow, a blur of light and shadow that left the air humming in his wake. The bear reared back, snarling in confusion, but it was too slow. Too mortal.  

A single, bone-snapping crack echoed across the clearing, sharp and final. The bear collapsed to the earth in a twitching heap, its neck twisted grotesquely, its body motionless. 

I flinched at the sound. I wanted to look away but couldn’t. Whoever he was, whatever he was... he had just saved me.  

And I wasn’t sure which of the two terrified me more:  

the bear, or him.