The next day felt wrong.
Not in a way most people would notice. But Elara had learned to listen to the quiet things the way the wind moved differently through the trees, how the light didn't warm her skin the same way, how the birds fell silent too early.
Something was shifting.
The symbol in the clearing stayed in her mind like a whisper she couldn't quite hear. Someone had left it. Someone who knew the shimmer. Someone who wanted her to find it.
She didn't tell anyone.
Not yet.
Not even Aven, who had been following her around all morning with that stubborn mix of concern and curiosity. He asked questions with his eyes, but Elara gave him nothing.
There was too much at stake now.
She needed answers. Real ones.
And there was only one place left in the manor where the truth might still be buried.
The 'catacombs'.
They were old, older than the estate itself. Carved deep beneath the hill, sealed off decades ago. Her mother used to say they were just a crumbling ruin, nothing but rot and rats and ghosts of the past. Her father had never spoken of them at all.
Which meant they were hiding something.
That evening, long after the lanterns had dimmed and the manor had quieted into sleep, Elara slipped out of her room. She wore a black cloak and soft-soled boots. No light. Just memory.
She made her way past the servant quarters, through the abandoned southern hallway with the cracked wall and the boarded-up window.
Then, she found the iron door.
It was smaller than she remembered.
Covered in dust. Marked with a faded sigil, her family crest, but altered.
The crescent moon was split.
The open hand clenched into a fist.
Elara's breath caught.
She pressed her hand to the door.
It didn't move.
She closed her eyes and let herself feel.
She didn't reach for the door with her body.
She reached with the shimmer.
Something stirred beneath her skin, soft at first, like mist winding through her veins. It pulsed once, and the metal warmed beneath her palm.
The lock clicked.
The door creaked open.
And the shadows welcomed her in.
The catacombs were colder than she expected.
The air tasted of iron and old magic, like breathing in the memory of something long dead.
She moved slowly, her hand brushing the wall to guide her.
It wasn't just stone.
It was carved. Marked with runes she couldn't yet read but somehow understood. They whispered as she passed, not in words, but in emotion.
Fear. Hope. Silence. Grief.
She came to a chamber, round and domed, with a basin in the center. The walls shimmered faintly with traces of ancient enchantment, faded but not broken.
And in the middle of the basin, resting on black velvet, was a silver mirror.
No dust. No cracks.
It didn't belong to this time.
Elara stepped forward, drawn to it.
The shimmer in her chest pulsed faster.
She reached out, slowly and touched the edge.
Her vision blurred.
The chamber disappeared.
She was no longer standing underground.
She was in a memory.
It was the manor, but older. The walls brighter. The candles still burning tall.
And standing in the great hall was a woman in a deep green dress, her face so much like Elara's it stole her breath.
Her hair fell in dark waves, her eyes sharp with sorrow and fury.
She was arguing with a man, Elara couldn't hear their words, but she saw the desperation in the woman's hands, the way she pressed something into the man's palms, a sealed letter, glowing faintly with magic.
Then, the woman turned.
She looked directly at Elara.
Not through her.
At her.
Her mouth moved.
Elara strained to hear.
"It begins again."
The vision shattered.
Elara stumbled back into the catacombs, breath ragged, heart racing.
Her hands trembled as she gripped the edge of the basin.
The mirror now lay dark and cold.
But she had seen it.
'Her bloodline'
'Her past'.
There was a message hidden in time left behind for someone like her. Someone with the shimmer. Someone who would be hunted when the wrong people learned what she could do.
Elara straightened.
She was not imagining this.
Someone had left a trail.
And she was meant to follow it.
As she made her way back through the catacombs, she heard a sound that stopped her breath cold.
Footsteps.
Not hers.
Light. Careful.
Too careful.
Elara flattened against the wall, her ears straining.
The steps moved past the main corridor then paused.
A breath.
Then the faint scratch of metal against stone.
Someone was down here.
She held still, barely daring to breathe.
Then she heard a voice.
Low and a male's.
"…she's close. I can feel it."
Another voice replied. Older and raspy.
"Then take her soon. Before the others notice."
The shimmer surged inside her like a scream.
Elara turned and ran, silent and swift as shadow, heart pounding like a war drum.
She didn't stop until she reached the manor door and slammed it shut behind her, chest heaving, hands scraped and bleeding from the rough stone walls.
She locked the door behind her, then backed away, one step, then another.
There were people inside the manor.
Spies.
Enemies.
Maybe even servants.
And they were looking for her.
They knew what she was.
And worse, they knew before she did.
But then she managed to sneak pass them to her room.
That night, Elara didn't sleep.
She sat at her window, like she always did at nights she when she couldn't sleep, watching the moon rise slowly into the sky.
Somewhere below, in the woods or in the walls, someone was watching her.
But she wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.
She was finally awake.
And if the shimmer had chosen her, then it hadn't made a mistake.
She would find the truth.
She would unearth every buried secret.
And if they tried to stop her, well.
They'd learn what it meant to fear the forgotten fire in her blood.