To everyone else, Aria Frostwind and Kai Thornblade were just two ordinary teenagers living in a small, forgettable town. They went to school, did their homework, and spent afternoons exploring old ruins or reading dusty books about forgotten legends.
But behind that ordinary life lay secrets only they knew.Aria could see spirits—both the gentle ones who shimmered like morning mist and the darker, restless ones who watched silently from corners no one else dared to look at.She had seen them since she was little, though she had never told a soul except Kai.
Kai had a different gift. He could hypnotize people—not forever, just for a few seconds. Long enough to make them forget, to calm them down, or to convince them to look the other way. It was a power he barely used, afraid of what it might turn him into if he relied on it too much.
Their families didn't know. No one knew. To everyone else, they were just Aria and Kai—two friends with too much imagination and a love for adventure.And they preferred it that way.
Most days after school, they would meet by the edge of the ancient forest that circled the town like a protective wall of whispers and secrets. The trees there seemed older than memory itself, their twisted roots clutching the earth like they had something to hide.
One late afternoon, Kai leaned against an old oak, his gaze thoughtful."Do you ever wonder why it's us?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. "Why do we have these powers and no one else?"Aria brushed her fingers against the moss-covered stones near her feet, feeling the cold pulse of something hidden deep below."All the time,"
she murmured. "Maybe we're meant to see and do what others can't."A sudden breeze swept through the clearing, carrying with it a faint voice that seemed to call her name.
Aria froze, eyes wide.Kai noticed. "You heard it too, didn't you?"She nodded slowly. "It's been getting louder. The whispers… they want something from us."Kai's hand tightened around the leather cord he always wore on his wrist—a charm his grandmother had given him for protection."Maybe it's just the wind," he tried to say, but they both knew it wasn't.
---Night settled over the town, wrapping it in soft golden light. But by the ruins, shadows grew deeper, stretching and twisting into shapes that almost seemed to move.Something ancient was waiting there, watching
The Northland Portal