Darkness.
Not the gentle darkness of closed eyes or nightfall, but an absolute void that devoured all sensation. Amriel drifted through this emptiness, this endless twilight, suspended between heartbeats, between breaths. Neither here nor there, a liminal space where the lines between reality and dreams blurred. The boundary between being and nothingness wavered like cloth caught in a gentle breeze.
Names, faces, memories—all receded, leaving only the barest whisper of identity. Amriel. The name clung to her like the last leaf on a winter-stripped branch, though she could no longer recall what it signified or why it mattered.
Time stretched and compressed around her, it had no meaning in this place between places. How long she drifted, she couldn't say. It could be moments, or it could be a millennia. The question itself seemed to dissolve before she could grasp it fully, leaving only impression where certainty should dwell.
At first, there was only darkness.
Then—a shift. Not light exactly, but a lessening of the absolute darkness. Pinpricks of luminescence bloomed in the distance, like stars birthing themselves from nothingness. They multiplied, swirled, arranging and rearranging in patterns that stirred something deep within her fragmented awareness.
The stars coalesced and wove themselves into pathways, corridors, the skeleton of something vast taking shape around her. They pulled at her, not physically—for she had no body to be pulled—but with a gravity of significance that compelled her toward them.
The blackness thinned, became translucent, then transparent. Color seeped in—muted grays that shifted to silvers, then warmer ambers and burnished golds. With color came substance—boundaries forming, defining space where before had been only endless nothing.
Stone materialized beneath her, its ancient surface warm to the touch, as though it basked in perpetual sunlight despite being far from any window. Each flagstone whispered secrets as her boots—unfamiliar, yet perfectly fitted—passed over them.
Torchlight danced along walls that stretched impossibly high, their surfaces etched with symbols that seemed to shift when she tried to focus on them. Runes, perhaps—older than any language she knew, yet somehow achingly familiar.
I know this, she thought, though she couldn't say what this was.
She couldn't control her movement. This body—taller than her own, stronger—moved with fluid grace, each step made with purpose down the corridor, resonating with quiet confidence. Silver-white hair cascading down her shoulders like a waterfall of moonlight, catching the light with an almost ethereal glow, like starlight scattered on the surface of a quiet lake.
Her fingers—longer than her own, marked with calluses she'd never earned—brushed absently against the twin curved blades at her hips. The hilts fit her palms as though molded specifically for these hands, the leather wrappings worn precisely where fingers habitually gripped. Their weight a comforting presence, their familiar contours a silent reassurance. They were more than weapons—they too were part of her. Just as her armor, they were also extensions of her body, her identity.
As she walked, a dark cloak billowed behind her, the fabric rustling faintly with each step, a soft murmur against her legs. Beneath it, her armor—sleek, form-fitting leather and chain-mail—fit almost like a second skin, catching the torchlight with a quiet gleam. With each step, the echoes of her own movement resonated through the great hall, a rhythmic pulse that matched the beat of her heart—a heart that felt both foreign and yet undeniably hers.
These aren't my hands. This isn't my body. I'm... inside someone else.
The realization should have frightened her, yet fear remained distant, academic. Instead, she felt a profound sense of homecoming, as though she'd finally returned to a place she'd forgotten she missed.
The corridor opened into a vast circular chamber, its domed ceiling lost in shadows despite the dozens of torches burning along the walls. At its center, a pool of what appeared to be liquid silver reflected the flames, its surface unnaturally still. Around it, seven stone thrones stood empty, each carved from a different material—crystal, obsidian, jade, amber, a wood so dark it was nearly black, white marble veined with gold, and something that resembled coral but couldn't possibly be.
The room felt expectant, as though it had been waiting for her arrival for a very, very long time.
At the far side, beside an archway that seemed to lead into deeper darkness, stood a figure wrapped in shadows that moved independently of the torchlight. Tall, certainly male, but features indistinct save for eyes that reflected the light.
He was waiting.
A nameless emotion surged through her borrowed form—complex, layered, intense enough to steal her breath. Longing intertwined with wariness. Relief tangled with dread. Beneath it all pulsed something deeper, more primal—a connection that transcended ordinary bonds, as though their very souls recognized each other across some vast, unbridgeable distance.
They knew each other, this stranger and the woman whose skin she wore.
The body she inhabited moved forward without hesitation, steps measured and deliberate. One hand drifted to the hilt of the left-hand blade—not in threat but in acknowledgment. A salute between equals, between those who had crossed blades enough times to respect each other's deadly skill.
The man stepped forward, but before he could fully emerge from the shadows, the vision blurred, the edges of reality softening, the dream began to unravel.
A voice shattered the vision, calling a name she couldn't quite grasp yet recognized as her own. It echoed through the ethereal hall, resonating in her bones rather than her ears.
"Return, daughter of Nythia."
The marble pillars began to melt like candle wax, torchlight dimming to ghostly flickers. The mysterious stranger reached toward her with fingers that seemed to elongate impossibly—
And Amriel was falling, tumbling through gossamer layers of reality, the vision unraveling around her like a tapestry violently torn apart. Colors blurred, sounds distorted, and the sensation of weightlessness gave way to the crushing pressure of physical existence.
Pain slammed into her with the merciless force of a battering ram.
Her body—her real body—screamed in protest as sensation returned with brutal clarity. Every nerve ending felt flayed and exposed to salt air. The taste of copper flooded her mouth, thick and overwhelming. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, could only endure as wave after wave of agony crashed over her consciousness, threatening to drag her back into the void.
Through the haze of pain came fragments of awareness, pieced together like shards of broken glass. The grit of stone dust against her lacerated skin. The metallic scent of blood—her blood—mingling with the acrid stench of arcane residue. Voices, distant and distorted, speaking words that seemed to bend around her consciousness rather than penetrate it.
Something warm and wet pooled beneath her head, matting her hair to the stone floor. She tried to open her eyes, but even that small movement sent fresh agony lancing through her skull, as if someone had driven a white-hot needle through her temple.
"—both gone. The blast was too powerful—" Kortana's voice sliced through the haze, stripped of its usual composure. Kortana, who had faced down demon lords without flinching, sounded utterly terrified. "No protection spell could have—not natural"
"I don't accept that." Prince Tristan's voice, raw and broken. Something crashed nearby—stone against stone. "Try again. There must be something—"
Why can I hear them? Amriel wondered distantly. If I'm dead, why can I still hear?
The thought drifted through her mind, curiously detached from the broken vessel that contained it. She felt herself slipping again, the pain beginning to recede as darkness beckoned.
Then came the heat.
It began as a spark deep within her chest, a tiny point of warmth amid the cold pain, like the first ember of a fire refusing to die. It pulsed once, twice, then began to spread outward along her veins like liquid starlight. Not painful—no, this heat pushed the pain aside, consumed it, transformed it into something else entirely.
The heat reached her fingertips, her toes, the crown of her head. It filled her completely, and with it came strength. Her lungs expanded in a sudden, desperate inhalation that sent dust motes swirling before her eyes—eyes that were somehow now open, staring up at a ceiling fractured with jagged cracks that resembled lightning frozen in stone.
"Impossible." Kortana's voice again, closer now. A shadow fell across Amriel's face—the Coven Leader's profile, streaked with dirt and something darker. Blood glinted wetly along a gash at her temple, her silver hair matted with debris.
Memory crashed back with the force of a tidal wave—the corridor with its ancient tapestries, the shelves filled with books, the strange man with eyes like midnight pools, the blinding flash as his hands curved in an unfamiliar sigil, the explosion. Princess Irina's horrified face in that final moment as Amriel had tried, too late, to save her.
Amriel turned her head, muscles screaming in protest at the movement. Beside her, the princess lay motionless, her delicate features untouched amidst the destruction, as though she had simply laid down to rest among the rubble. But the stillness of her chest, the vacant, gaze of her eyes told a different truth. Her dark hair fanned out around her head like a halo, unstained by the carnage that surrounded them.
I was tried to protect her. The thought brought with it a wave of grief so profound it momentarily eclipsed even the strange heat still coursing through her veins. Failure tasted more bitter than blood.
"Lyana, get everyone else out!" Kortana snapped, composure momentarily regained. Then her gaze returned to Amriel. Their eyes locked, and Amriel saw something she had never expected to see on the Coven Leader's face—fear mingled with awe. "You were dead," she whispered, voice barely audible over the distant shouts and groans of shifting rubble. "I felt your spirit leave."
Through the dust and debris that danced in shafts of sunlight from the newly created holes in the ceiling, four faces peered down at Amriel—Kortana, with blood trickling from her temple; Lyana, her dark eyes wide with disbelief; Commander Thalon, his face a rigid mask concealing whatever storm raged beneath; and Prince Tristan, grief and rage in equal mixed played on his face as he knelt beside his nieces body.
Each wore a different shade of the same stunned expression, as if they were witnessing something beyond the realm of possibility.
Then, the heat within Amriel began to concentrate, gathering once more in her chest like a star collapsing in on itself. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat—a heartbeat that shouldn't exist. Her vision cleared, sharpened, colors suddenly more vivid than she'd ever seen them.
With effort, Amriel pushed herself up on one elbow. Bits of stone and glass tinkled off her body. Her tattered robes, soaked with what could only be her own blood, clung to her skin. Yet beneath the torn fabric, her flesh was unmarked, whole.
"Why is everyone looking at me like that?" The words scraped past her throat, tasting of ash and copper. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears—deeper, resonant with something that hadn't been there before.
"Because..." Kortana's voice faltered, an unprecedented occurrence from a woman whose certainty had always seemed as immutable as the laws of nature. Her hand trembled as she reached toward Amriel, stopping short of touching her. "You were dead. Your chest was... there was no way—"
"Gone," Lyana whispered, stating what Kortana could not. "Half your ribcage was gone. Your heart..." She shook her head, dark curls sending dust cascading. "There was nothing left to heal."
Prince Tristan's head snapped up, his grief-stricken gaze fixing on Amriel with sudden, desperate hope. "Then Irina—"
"No." The single word from Thalon cut through the air like a blade. The commander stepped forward, boots crunching on pulverized stone. "The princess's injuries were... different."
Amriel followed his gaze to Irina's serene face. Unlike Amriel, there wasn't a mark on her—just that terrible stillness, that absence of life behind eyes that had sparkled with mischief only minutes ago.
Thalon knelt beside Amriel. His hand moved toward her face, hesitating just shy of touching her cheek, as if she might dissolve at his touch. The commander's expression had already shuttered, the raw emotion contained once more behind a warrior's discipline.
"They look at you with shock because you were dead. And now you're not," he said, his voice gruff. "Not something that happens every day." His fingers finally made contact with her skin, and Amriel was shocked at how cool they felt against the fever-heat of her flesh.
From the shattered doorway came the sound of running feet, voices calling out. The world beyond this bubble of impossibility was reasserting itself.
But as Amriel looked down at her blood-soaked clothes and unmarred skin, as she felt the strange new power humming beneath her breastbone where her heart should be—where her heart had been destroyed—she knew with absolute certainty that nothing would ever be the same.
She had died. She had returned. And something had come back with her.