Ella zoomed in on the little girl. The picture was poor quality, but the shape of the face, the set of the wide eyes…With a trembling hand, she minimized the browser and opened a folder on her desktop labeled “Family.” She clicked on the scanned image her mother had given her—her own official “first picture,” taken at a studio when she was supposedly six months old. She placed the two images side by side on the screen.She couldn't tell why she did that but she just couldn't hold back her curiosity, judging from the dream she had had. It was like she could hear a voice speaking from within her, and it was just too irresistible to ignore.And so, to her discovery, the studio photo she had opened showed a baby with a head of dark curls, big, observant eyes, and a solemn expression. The gala photo showed a baby few weeks younger with the same curl pattern, the same profound, watchful gaze.The resemblance wasn’t just passing. It was chilling. It was a blueprint.Ella leaned back, the bl

The rest of the tour was a battle for Ella even as she delivered her scripted lines about cold spots and residual grief, but her mind was a whirlpool, sucking down every detail—the way James and Nancy had stiffened, the knowing glint in the old man’s eye from the pub, the impossible healing of her paper cut. The locket, now a dead weight in her pocket, felt like a key to a door she was suddenly terrified to open.As the group finally trickled out into the car park, murmuring their thanks and goodnights, Ella’s eyes locked onto the young scholar. She was lingering by the old waterwheel, typing something into her phone, the screen’s glow illuminating her sharp, thoughtful face.Gathering every ounce of her courage, Ella approached. The woman looked up, a polite, expectant smile on her lips.“Your question,” Ella began, her voice lower than she intended, almost lost in the rush of the millstream. “About the Flameborn. It wasn’t just academic curiosity, was it?”The woman’s smile didn’t

“Why me?” Jackson asked, his dream-voice choked with a grief that was both old and new. “Why has this always been my fight?”Philip’s eyes, already fading into the consuming grey, held a deep and ancient sorrow. “Because you were there when the breach first opened, when you stood against Victor. You didn’t just fight him, son. You wounded him. Your spirit, your will, became a shard embedded in his essence. A flaw in his perfect, frozen design. Your very existence is an affront to him.”The last of the porch was gone. Philip was now only a faint silhouette of light, but his words were iron.“That’s why he will come for her, the Convergence-Born. To use her power as the final key to his global winter. But he will come for you first. Not just to remove an obstacle, but to erase the proof that he can be hurt. You are the man who once stood in his way. You are the living memory of his failure. To achieve his ‘Gilded Frost,’ he must first extinguish your spark.”The finality of it settled o

Jackson’s consciousness, unmoored from his physical shell, was a compass needle spun free. In the vast, silent theatre of his fugue, there was no grey fog, only a brilliant, straining focus. And at the heart of that focus was a pull that led him straight to Ella who was in her small bedroom above the quiet mill.And just as though, she had sensed the presence of someone in her room, Ella jolted upright in bed. The room was dark, the digital clock reading 3:17 a.m. And just when she was trying to understand the reason behind the strange feeling that had enveloped her room, she saw Jackson standing in the center of the room. He was translucent, shimmering like a mirage, but his features were sharp. He looked gaunt, haunted, but his eyes burned with a recognition that stole her breath. She knew that face. She’d seen it in it severally in the news and even recently when she was digging into the Hart's archives.However, the man she was looking t right now, was looking at her as if she

"It's nothing," Ella said, her voice too light, too airy for the weight in the room. "Just... a weird dream I had. About fancy parties and babies. Forget I said anything."She turned her back, her movements jerky as she rescued the charring toast, scraping the blackened edges into the sink with a sound like grating bones. She could feel Irene's gaze on her, a laser of terrified love, boring into her shoulder blades."Ella..." Irene began again, her voice trembling with the effort of holding back the flood."I said it's nothing, Mom!" The words came out sharper than Ella intended, a lash of frustration born of fear. She winced at her own tone, but didn't turn around. "The toast is ruined. I'll make more."The next few minutes passed in a stilted, horrible parody of a normal morning. They ate in a silence thick enough to choke on. Irene picked at her eggs, her eyes constantly flicking to Ella's face, searching for cracks. Ella kept her gaze fixed on her plate, the food tasting like ash