The candlelight flickered violently in Lyra's room as she chanted the final words of the spell, her voice barely steady above a whisper. The forbidden incantation spilled from her lips like blood from a cut—too sharp, too dangerous, too alive.
The pull had returned.
Stronger this time.
It was no longer a whisper in the dark or a phantom tug behind her ribs. It was a constant presence, humming beneath her skin like her own heartbeat had fused with someone else's.
She had to know what it meant.
The ancient tome lay open before her, its pages inked in languages even Marian wouldn't dare translate aloud. She'd found it hidden behind a crumbling brick in the coven's abandoned observatory. Dusty, bloodstained, and sealed shut with a ward she shouldn't have known how to break.
But she had.
The moment her fingers grazed the cover, the book had opened to this spell—a summoning of the veil's whisper. A spell to listen through the realms, to reach across the great divide between their world and another.
She hadn't told anyone.
Especially not Marian.
A cold wind slithered through her room as she whispered the final word. The flame on her candle shrank to a blue point—then burst out, plunging the room into darkness.
Lyra stood still, heart thundering.
Nothing.
Then—a crack.
Like ice breaking beneath her feet.
Like something tearing open far away.
She gasped, staggering back, as the air rippled in front of her. For a split second, just before the magic failed, she saw eyes staring back at her.
Not human.
Not kind.
Not the boy from her dreams.
Something else.
The spell snapped.
A sudden gust slammed her window open, scattering the pages of her book and snuffing out every trace of warmth in the room. The candle rolled off her desk and hit the floor with a soft thud.
Lyra dropped to her knees, panting.
Had she just… torn the veil?
---
In the halls of the shadow realm, Raven's boots echoed against cold marble. He moved like a phantom through the royal archives, deeper than any guard dared to go.
Dust coated the stone shelves. Time had forgotten these books.
But something hadn't.
He paused in front of a blackened scroll bound with a crimson seal. It shimmered faintly under his touch, resisting. He drew his dagger and nicked his palm.
Blood soaked into the seal.
The scroll opened on its own, curling back like it had waited for centuries to be read.
"When the dreamer's heart stirs, the veil shall shiver."
Raven's breath caught.
It was the same phrase the girl had whispered in his dream. But here it was—in prophecy ink, on a scroll hidden so deep even his father couldn't trace it.
He read further.
"Two bound by thread unseen. One born of ruin, one born of flame. A pull that defies the veil shall bring the realms to their knees."
He blinked.
One born of ruin. One born of flame.
It couldn't be coincidence.
The scroll blurred before his eyes. His vision wavered. Something was pulling at him again.
And then—he heard it.
Her voice.
"Raven."
Not in a dream.
In his ear.
He spun around. No one there. Just the quiet of a sealed archive and a thousand ghosts held within parchment.
His chest ached.
The pull was getting worse.
He gripped the edge of the shelf until his knuckles whitened. His breathing was ragged. The name she had spoken—his name—wasn't even one he had revealed in the dream.
So how…?
His eyes narrowed.
She was trying to reach him now.
Through spells. Through fire. Through dangerous means.
If she tore through the veil recklessly—
She could kill them both.
Or worse…
Break the balance that kept their realms from war.
---
Lyra stood at the window hours later, the tremble still in her hands. Marian had come knocking earlier, but she'd pretended to be asleep. There was a sharpness to the air now. Something about tonight felt wrong, and she wasn't ready to face the questions in her sister's eyes.
She knew what she had done.
She knew she had gone too far.
But the voice…
The voice she heard just before the magic snapped—it wasn't his.
Something else had answered her.
She hugged her arms tightly, watching the moon rise like an unblinking eye. Was this what obsession did? Was she spiraling into madness, chasing a face she'd never really seen?
The pull burned inside her chest like a warning.
She had touched something she shouldn't have.
And now it was watching her back.