~OmniscientVerdant Forest did not welcome visitors.It loomed rather than stood, its ancient trees packed too tightly together, their canopies knitting into a ceiling that swallowed light whole. The air changed the moment they crossed the threshold—thicker, damp with magic that felt old enough to resent being disturbed.Calista slowed instinctively.Her shoulders tightened, fingers flexing at her sides as though remembering weapons she no longer had. The forest remembered her. She could feel it in the way the undergrowth shifted, the way the shadows seemed to lean closer.Angela noticed.“This place reacts to you,” she murmured, gaze sweeping the treeline. “Residual recognition.”“That’s comforting,” Calista replied flatly.Elvis stepped slightly ahead of them, posture loose but alert. His movements were quieter here, deliberate. The shadows clung to him differently in the forest, stretching just a fraction too long when he passed.“Stay close,” he said. “Creatures in this place like

~CalistaThe time vein did not feel stable from the inside.From the outside, it had looked calm—threads woven instead of tearing, colours braided into something almost gentle. From within, it was motion without direction. I wasn’t falling. I wasn’t flying either. I was being *carried* by something that did not care where I ended up, only that I kept moving.There was no ground beneath me.No up or down.The vein stretched around me like a corridor made of light and fracture, its surface rippling as though it were a living membrane. Colours slid past—gold thinning into pale blue, blue collapsing into something darker, bruised at the edges. They didn’t blend so much as *argue* with one another.I turned slowly, searching for anything—anchors, pathways, even resistance.There was nothing.No markers.No doors.No sense of Eldoria at all.For the first time since stepping into the vein, fear reached me properly.“I don’t know where to go,” I said aloud, my voice echoing strangely, stretc

~Calista The moment I crossed the threshold, the forest exhaled. The pulse beneath my feet softened. The heavy pressure in the air eased, like a clenched fist finally relaxing. The glow in the trees dimmed, settling into something warmer, gentler. Familiar. Too familiar. The smell hit me first. Rain-soaked soil. Crushed leaves. The sharp green scent of living bark. Eldoria. I stopped walking. My heart stuttered once, then began to race—not with fear, but with something dangerously close to relief. “No,” I whispered. The word sounded weak here. The trees around me shifted. Their thick, glowing trunks thinned, bark smoothing into shapes I recognised. Branches lifted higher, leaves unfurling into the wide canopies I had grown up beneath. Light filtered through them just right—golden and alive. I turned slowly. The bones were gone. The vines receded into the earth, their glow fading as grass pushed through the soil. Soft. Green. Unbroken. A breeze brushed pas

~Calista The word hit me harder than the fire ever could. “Mom?” I stared at him. At the hand still extended toward me. At the way the flames bent away from his skin like they knew better than to touch him. At the fact that he looked familiar in a way that had nothing to do with memory. “I think,” I said slowly, my voice coming out hoarse, “you have me confused for someone else.” His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Not quite. “Confused?” he echoed. “No. I’m afraid not.” I didn’t take his hand. I pushed myself upright on my own, legs unsteady, pulse still racing. Up close, the resemblance sharpened into something deeply unsettling. His eyes—wrong colour, wrong age, but the shape of them made my stomach drop. The tilt of his brow. The way he stood, weight balanced like someone who had learned very early not to rely on anyone else to guard their back. “I don’t have a son,” I said flatly. “You will,” he replied. “You do. Just not yet.” That did it. Magic stirred instinctively,

~CalistaAerin led.I followed.For once, I didn’t argue.The land shifted as we moved, the terrain changing in subtle, unsettling ways. The ground grew smoother, stone giving way to something fused—rock melted and reset by forces too large to leave clean lines behind. Mana lingered low here, not wild like the plains, but compressed. Pressed down. Waiting.The air felt older.Not ancient—used.I walked with my hands clenched at my sides, listening to our footsteps echo too clearly in the open space. No creatures stirred. No wind moved. Even the ruins we passed seemed reluctant to crumble further, as if this place demanded stillness.Aerin didn’t look back.He didn’t need to.I could feel it drawing us forward—an invisible slope tugging at my bones, urging us toward a point the world had already chosen.“This place doesn’t feel like the others,” I said quietly.“No,” he agreed. “It wouldn’t.”The structures ahead grew taller, more deliberate. Pillars rose in broken rings, etched with s