The dream wouldn't leave him.
Even after Karl woke, even after Mira practically smacked him with a piece of bread to pull him out of bed — the eyes stayed in his mind.
Blue. Wild. Watching.
Not cruel.
But knowing.
"You look like you saw a ghost," Mira said, walking beside him through the market square.
"Was it the well again? Or the creepy whispering mark? Or, I don't know, the part where you keep wandering into the woods like a cursed protagonist?"
Karl didn't answer.
Because when he blinked, he saw a forest again.
Not Asterwall's.
Colder. Wilder. Older.
He rubbed his chest absently. The mark hadn't pulsed in over a day.
But the silence inside it felt louder than anything else.
Like something was curling, watching… waiting for him to make a move.
Suddenly, a gust of wind swept through the square, sharper than it should have been. It rushed around Karl like a coil — and for a split second, the air shimmered at his feet.
Ice.
Tiny. Fleeting.
But real.
He stepped back.
No one else saw it.
But someone did feel it.
High above, on the edge of the village watchtower, a tall figure adjusted the metallic clasp on her cloak.
Silver hair caught the wind. A hawk-like beast perched beside her, unmoving.
She watched Karl with quiet focus, every movement studied, every flicker of frost noted.
"He doesn't even know what's waking up inside him," she murmured.
The hawk shifted its talons.
She reached up and gently touched its head.
Liraen Voss — Seeker of Potential.
Scout of the Valdros Academy.
And she had just found her next candidate.