The air changed first.
The light bled from gold into a velvety, bruised blue as we crested the path into the village, and every nerve in my body tightened. Not with fear—at least not the sharp kind—but something like recognition. Like walking into a room that used to be yours in another life.
"Come, you've made it," said the man waiting beneath the woven archway of herbs and rust-colored vines. His voice was warm and cracked at the edges, like he'd been waiting a long time.
He wore moss-stained robes and had a soft limp in his left foot. I could hear it before I saw him—one step lighter than the other, like the ground didn't hold him quite the same. I didn't recognize him. But he clearly recognized us.
He smiled directly at me. "The nullseer apprentice. We weren't sure the Elderglen would send another. Come, there's much to prepare."
Nullseer. My chest hollowed. He saw me as someone who belonged. Someone who had always been here. Yet I'd never heard that word before stepping into the waterfall. I turned toward the others—toward Antic, Grin, and Dolly.
But none of them corrected him.
Dolly's porcelain face was still. Grin adjusted the cloak at his shoulder, head bowed just slightly. And Antic—he nudged me forward with a small bump of his shoulder, whispering low: "I guess we're already in character."
We followed the herbalist through the winding cobbled paths into a village that looked dream-born: lanterns floated midair, tethered to nothing but music. Children with woven crownlets darted past us. Somewhere nearby, someone was singing in a language I didn't know, but my skin understood it.
Everything smelled of cinnamon bark, pressed violets, and something electric. Maybe fate.
The herbalist led us into a modest wooden cottage that pulsed with quiet magic. Herbs hung from the ceiling like sleeping bats, and a circular hearth glowed with soft blue flame. A mirror rested on the far wall, carved with curling runes around its edges.
"Get washed," he said, gesturing toward a basin. "And take your places. I know your journey was long, but the Festival of Joining begins at dusk. We can't afford delay."
Then he turned, whistled once, and disappeared into another room.
I exhaled. "Did he... think we were expected?"
"Looks like it," Antic murmured, turning slowly. "And not just expected. Known. Like we're already part of this story."
"I mean... isn't that the point?" Dolly asked. She jumped up onto the edge of the washbasin like she weighed nothing. "You don't fix a memory from the outside. You get swallowed up in it."
Grin stood near the mirror, arms folded, watching it warily. "…But who are we inside the memory?"
"Does it matter?" I asked, though the weight of the question coiled tight in my gut.
Antic, standing closest to the mirror, caught a glimpse of his reflection—and froze. "Oh. Oh, that's weird."
I turned toward the sound of him stepping back. Dolly slid off the basin and joined him.
"What do you see?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away. Then, slower, he muttered, "I still look like me. But different. Clothes. Pendant. Scar I don't have. Hair's longer. And... I look calmer."
Dolly stepped in front of the mirror next. Her voice dipped. "I have a human face."
That made Grin grunt.
She turned to him. "No cracks. No joints. Just... a girl. Pale. Pretty. Weird."
Grin finally stepped into view. "…I look like I belong."
I didn't move. "What about me?"
No one answered.
The silence stretched. A pause that became an ache. Finally, Antic moved closer and whispered, "You're… just you. Same clothes as us. But your eyes are still white."
"Blind."
"Yeah. But no one seems to notice like it's a curse or a reason to pity you. You're the Nullseer. They treat you like someone important."
I stepped forward then, not to see the mirror, but to feel it. My hand grazed the edge—cool metal, slightly buzzing. I didn't need to see my reflection to know it was both me and not me.
We weren't imposters here.
We were written into the story.
Even if we didn't know who we were supposed to be
The room they'd given us was small, stone-floored and round, tucked inside the belly of a tower that smelled like rain and candle wax. A single bed sat pushed against the far wall, layered in embroidered quilts that held stories in their seams. The window looked out over the gathering courtyard, where strings of lanterns swayed in the air, their soft glow whispering secrets I couldn't hear.
It was festival night.
We were meant to be preparing. Dressing. Blending in.
But I sat on the edge of the bed, fingers tracing the weave of the quilt, while Dolly wrapped a golden ribbon around her wrist with theatrical precision.
"Apparently I'm Lady Marwen's visiting niece," she said, inspecting herself in a shard of polished copper. "With a tragic backstory and an even more tragic fondness for wine."
I nodded, but I wasn't really listening.
Grin sat on the floor by the door, slowly sharpening a dagger with a whetstone he'd found tucked into his robes. "I'm… Lord Silas. Retired war historian. They call me 'the Quiet Flame.'" He let the blade whisper against the stone. "Not sure why yet."
Antic was sprawled near the hearth, half-dressed, fiddling with the clasps of a tunic he clearly didn't like. "I'm apparently a bard from the eastern mountain terrace. Some minor court's favorite annoyance." He smirked. "So… me."
I turned slightly toward him. "And me?"
He sat up a little straighter. "You're the Nullseer. A seer who doesn't see. Supposedly guided by roots and old memory. You used to be part of the Elderglen court before you left."
I blinked. "How do you know that?"
He shrugged, his voice softer. "I don't know. It's like... it's just in my head now. Yours too, maybe. Like the story's seeping in."
Dolly's lips twisted. "That means we don't just play dress-up. We're stitched into this world. Their memories are pushing into ours."
Grin didn't look up. "…And that means their dangers are ours too."
My hands curled in my lap. There was something else, too—something under my skin. Not fear. Not exactly. But a weight. Like I was being watched by the air itself.
A knock at the door broke the quiet. Then a young woman's voice—bright and breathless: "Elara's arrived early. She's in the west garden. Should we begin the lantern procession without you?"
Dolly's eyes sharpened. "Elara."
"She doesn't know us," I said. "Not yet."
Grin finally stood. "We blend. We gather. We listen."
"And if we're lucky," Antic said, brushing a bit of invisible dust from my shoulder, "we might catch the first thread of what went wrong."
I stood.
The dress they'd left for me was stitched from pale moss and soft linen, the color of dew just before dawn. It didn't feel like mine, but when I walked, the hem whispered like old leaves and the air moved around me like it knew me.
As we stepped out into the festival—into firelight and music and laughter laced with hidden grief—I could feel it:
We weren't just part of the memory.
We were already inside the wound.
The courtyard breathed around us. Warm light pooled from lanterns strung high in crisscrossing patterns, floating like tethered stars above cobblestone paths. Villagers and nobles alike moved between food stalls and flower-wrapped altars, laughter echoing softly, sweet and distant.
My steps were quiet as we entered, the others naturally falling into rhythm beside me.
Antic looked... frustratingly good in his bard's cloak. Dark violet with golden trim, his horns polished and swept back, a small silver flute tucked at his hip. He walked like he owned every eye in the square—and he probably did.
Dolly was a vision of artifice, her wine-colored gown cascading in perfect pleats, lips bloodred, eyes sharp with knowing. She twirled a parasol she didn't need, voice a practiced purr as she greeted villagers who clearly remembered "Lady Marwen's niece."
Grin was still Grin, even in fine robes—silent, steady, always watching. The scars on his fingers made the silk look wrong, and yet... somehow right.
And I...
They saw me.
They whispered about me.
"The Nullseer," someone murmured as I passed.
"Does she actually see the future?" another voice asked.
"No. She listens to the stones."
I walked slower. My fingers brushed against the fabric at my sides. Every step felt rehearsed and unfamiliar at once.
Antic leaned in slightly. "You alright?"
I nodded. "They don't fear me."
"Should they?" His grin was lopsided, but his voice was gentle.
"I thought they might."
He glanced around. "They respect you. They think you're something... sacred."
Then—her.
Elara.
I didn't need to see her to know. Her presence hit the air like a song remembered. The crowd shifted in reverence as she entered, dressed in moon-pale silk, her golden hair caught in a loose braid that draped over her shoulder.
She was laughing—softly, politely—at something one of her attendants said. But the sound didn't reach her chest. It didn't reach her eyes.
The ache hit me like a blow.
Dolly murmured, "That girl's holding herself together with thread."
Elara turned—and saw us.
For a heartbeat, the world slowed. Her eyes—amber gold—landed on each of us, and lingered on me.
She approached.
The crowd parted for her like water.
"You must be the guests from the Elderglen Terrace," she said. Her voice was clear, noble, rehearsed—and brittle beneath it. "Lady Marwen's niece, yes?"
Dolly dipped into a curtsy so fluid it could've won awards. "At your service, Princess."
Elara nodded, then turned her gaze to me. She hesitated.
"You... are the Nullseer?"
I nodded.
"What do you see?"
I wanted to lie. But something in her voice—something frayed and soft—pulled the truth out of me.
"I don't," I said. "I only hear what's already been said."
She blinked. Then—smiled. Not polite. Real.
"That sounds like the kind of truth most people avoid." She turned to Antic next. "And you are?"
He bowed with flair, one hand pressed to his chest. "Lutien. Traveling bard, occasionally charming, always inconvenient."
She laughed.
A real laugh.
"Then welcome, Lutien. Nullseer. All of you."
She offered her arm—not to me, but to Dolly, a gesture of trust among nobles.
But as she passed, her shoulder brushed mine.
And I heard something.
Not with ears. Not in words.
Just... a tremble.
Like someone crying behind a locked door.
I turned my head slightly, instinctively—but she was already guiding us toward the central dais, where the lanterns would be lit. The festival would begin.
A celebration of peace.
Of union.
Of legacy.
But beneath the warmth and joy, the stories here were rotting. We could already smell it.
And if Elara didn't know that yet...
She would.
The lantern was warm in my hands.
Not hot—never hot. But warm the way something living is warm. My fingers curved around the carved paper shell, inked with swirling sigils I didn't recognize but could somehow feel. Symbols of union. Legacy. Hope.
"Lift it when the music changes," Elara said beside me, her voice soft beneath the stringed melodies drifting through the square. "Not before. It's tradition."
"Why?" I asked without meaning to.
She paused. "Because if you release your wish too soon... it might not find the sky."
Antic, standing just behind me, whispered, "That's also what she said."
Dolly jabbed him with her fan so fast he yelped.
I smiled—just barely. I was getting better at this. At them.
The music shifted—gentler now, slower. A hum of flutes and crystal chimes.
The crowd lifted their lanterns.
I hesitated. Just for a breath.
Then I let go.
Mine floated upward like it already knew the way. It danced higher, joining the sea of glowing lights that filled the sky like soft stars. Hundreds of them. Some flickered, some spun, some carried prayers written in trembling script.
All of them rising.
Elara stood beside me, her arms crossed loosely. She watched her own lantern vanish into the canopy with an unreadable expression.
"I don't make wishes anymore," she said suddenly.
I turned my face toward her.
"Why not?"
Her smile didn't touch her eyes. "Because they make you believe things can change."
Antic stepped forward before I could respond. "That's usually the point."
She looked at him. Really looked. And for a second, I felt it again—that silence, that ache. The whisper behind the locked door.
She tilted her head. "What do you wish for, bard?"
His grin wobbled. "I try not to waste wishes. I just ask for what I want out loud."
"Oh?" she asked, voice lifting. "And what would you ask for?"
He glanced at me.
Just for a second.
"More time," he said. "To figure things out."
She stared at him, like she was searching for something in his expression. Maybe the same thing I was starting to look for, too.
Before anything else could be said, a bell rang across the square—clear, musical, final.
"Elara!" a voice called from across the courtyard. "Your brother's looking for you."
She turned quickly. Too quickly.
"I should go," she said. "Before he finds me again."
"Is he dangerous?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Elara paused. Then looked at me—not shocked, not angry. Just tired.
"No. Just... loyal."
And she was gone.
Lanterns still glowed above us, casting golden light across the flagstones. But the warmth was fading.
Antic stepped to my side. "That was... a lot."
"She's unraveling," I said.
"She's been unraveling," Dolly said, arms folded. "She's just good at looking like a bow."
Grin, standing at the edge of the crowd, finally spoke. "We're not just watching this memory," he said slowly. "We're standing inside a bomb someone already lit."
Antic muttered, "Then we'd better figure out how to disarm it."
I turned my face up to the lanterns again, just as a child near us whispered a name in awe.
"Did you see him? That boy who came with the rain? The moon-eyed one? Orion."
The name sent a chill down my spine.
Orion.
We hadn't seen him yet. But now I knew—
He was near.
And this story was about to change.
It started with thunder.
Not a crack, not a scream across the sky—just a slow roll, like something ancient had stirred beneath the clouds and decided to wake.
The town barely blinked. Rain came often in Evergreena. But this rain was different. It shimmered, like the sky had remembered how to cry in silver.
I stood beneath the carved awning of the tea house with Antic, Grin, and Dolly. We were meant to be laying low. Blending in. "Living" the story, not unraveling it.
But something was wrong today.
"I feel it," I whispered.
Antic leaned in, close enough that his scarf brushed my arm. "You're not the only one. The air's got that… twist. Like the world's holding its breath."
"Or like it's been punched in the face and hasn't figured it out yet," Dolly offered, sipping some disgustingly floral concoction she'd bribed a merchant for. "Lovely town, though. Tragedy smells like marigolds."
Grin stood a few steps away, unmoving. I could feel his silence like a second sky above us.
Then the bell rang.
Not a warning. Not a celebration. Just a single note echoing across the village square.
Everyone turned.
And he appeared.
Through the curtain of rain, cloaked in storm-grey linen and soaked to the bone, a boy walked into the village like he'd never seen walls before. He moved with a quiet certainty, head high, eyes storm-colored—like the sky had gifted him its rage and asked him to carry it gently.
I didn't know how I knew.
But I knew.
"Orion," I breathed.
Antic heard me. He tensed, barely.
The villagers whispered around us. Not in fear. In wonder.
"He's back…"
"Did you see his eyes?"
"The prophecy said moonfire... it's him, isn't it?"
But no one stopped him.
Not even Elara.
She stepped out from a second-floor balcony across the square. She looked like she had swallowed a sunbeam and it was setting behind her eyes. Her hand gripped the rail so tightly, I thought it might crack.
He didn't look up at her.
He didn't have to.
They felt each other.
Orion moved to the center of the square and knelt—not like a soldier, but like a boy returning home unsure if he'd be allowed to stay.
"I come not for peace," he said, voice low but clear. "I come for truth."
Grin spoke at my side, voice like velvet over bones. "…This isn't part of the official story."
Dolly hissed through her teeth. "That boy is off-script. And that means someone else might be, too."
Antic looked sideways at me. "You alright, sweetheart—uh, no-eyes?" He caught himself, and I didn't have the energy to tease him for it.
I could feel something cracking under the village's skin. Like everything pretty and painted was just a surface.
And Orion?
He was here to peel it back.
After the storm settled, the village returned to a strange rhythm. Chatter was quieter. Doors shut faster. Elara disappeared from the balcony, and Orion? They ushered him into the council house under guard—but no chains. That said everything.
We reconvened near the herbalist's cart, where a girl with too many freckles and too few shoes handed Antic a paper-wrapped bundle of moss salve and said, "Your apprentice wages will cover it."
Antic blinked. "My what now?"
She only winked and skipped off.
I raised a brow—not that anyone could see it. "You're an apprentice now?"
Antic patted the moss bundle like it had insulted his lineage. "Apparently. News to me."
Dolly adjusted the ribbon in her hair, her disguise flickering briefly—too fast for the townsfolk to notice, but I caught it. "We're not just visitors in the story," she murmured. "It's trying to make room for us. Fit us into the narrative like puzzle pieces."
Grin stepped forward, and the cobbled street somehow quieted under his boots. "…Then we need to find out what pieces we are. Before we say the wrong line."
I nodded. "It's adapting to us. Giving us new names. Histories."
"And expectations," Dolly added. "Heaven forbid I end up a seamstress again. That century was dull."
Antic tucked the moss under his arm. "So we dig, right? We follow the crumbs and figure out who this timeline thinks we are."
"And we play the part," I said. My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
Grin's slow gaze scanned the street. "…It thinks I'm a scholar. Local historian. Taught a boy named Thistledown how to read under a fig tree."
"Romantic," Dolly muttered, "if you're into illiterate woodland boys."
Antic tilted his head. "If I'm an herbalist apprentice, then I must have a mentor somewhere."
Dolly pulled out a small, glittering envelope that had not been in her bag before. "A letter just manifested in my satchel." She held it delicately, like it might bite. "'To Lady Aradia of the Verdant Ring—formal invitation to council dinner.'" She blinked. "I'm a noble. Again. Thank the silkweavers."
I felt my hands tremble as I reached into my pocket. Something crackled. A folded paper.
The ink was smudged, the script hurried. Caretaker of the Grove. Blind Seer. Bound to the roots. It was signed by no one.
I didn't know what it meant. But somehow… I did.
Dolly read over my shoulder and pursed her painted lips. "They know you're blind."
I nodded. "They don't see me as broken. Just… different."
Antic stepped closer. "How different?"
"I don't know yet." I turned slightly, letting the scents of lavender and ash settle into my senses. "But I think I'm supposed to be more than just a witness in this story."
The village bell rang again. A different tone this time. Not a call. A summoning.
"The council," Grin said, low. "…They're calling everyone."
"To see what Orion's return means," Dolly added, slipping her invitation into her sleeve.
Antic grinned—but it didn't reach his eyes. "Time to meet our fates in eveningwear."
I took a breath and stepped toward the town square, the note still clenched in my palm.
We were no longer just outsiders.
We were characters now.
And the story was waiting.