Darkness did not feel like sleep.
It felt like falling.
Elara drifted through it, weightless yet tethered, as if something unseen held her between two worlds. Voices echoed—faint at first, then overlapping, rising into a chorus that clawed at her mind.
Not screams.
Not words.
Memories.
They were not hers.
A battlefield drenched in silver light.
A crown forged not of gold, but of bone and blood.
A woman standing alone against an endless tide of shadow—her eyes blazing, her power shaking the very sky.
The First Alpha.
Elara's breath hitched.
"I know you," she whispered into the void.
The woman turned.
And for a moment—just a fleeting, impossible moment—
She had Elara's face.
No, the voice corrected, resonating through the emptiness. You have mine.
The world shifted violently.
Elara gasped as the visions shattered, her body jerking as consciousness slammed back into her.
Pain followed.
