“Some people enter your life like a wound. And yet, you never wish to heal from them.”
— Amah's Book of Forgotten Truths
---
Raon had always believed the wind spoke in riddles.
But tonight, it screamed in a tongue older than fire.
The village of Hollowshade lay unnaturally still. Even the rats had vanished. The scent of salt and damp ash curled through the air like ghost breath. Beneath the well-moon, the hills looked like sleeping beasts.
Raon stood outside Amah’s hut, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the mountain path. He wasn’t waiting for anyone. He didn’t expect anything. Yet… his skin burned with that heavy silence before something cracks.
That’s when he saw her.
---
She walked into the village like someone who’d always belonged to the dark.
A traveler. A widow, they’d say later. Dressed in deep violet robes trimmed with dusk-thread lace. A silk veil hung over her face, but her eyes—gods, her eyes—shone like a storm seen from behind glass. They didn’t dart around nervously like other newcomers. No, her gaze was direct, curious… calculating.
Raon’s hand twitched toward the knife tucked beneath his belt. Not in fear. Instinct.
The girl stopped in the center of the path. The wind lifted her veil for the briefest second—just long enough for their eyes to meet.
And in that second, the world tilted.
---
She bowed politely to Amah, who had emerged with her usual quiet wisdom.
“I’m looking for lodging,” the girl said. Her voice was like warm ink—slow, precise, leaving a stain you’d never scrub away.
“I don’t take strangers,” Amah replied, already retreating.
“I’m not a stranger,” the girl said calmly, “just someone you’ve forgotten.”
Amah paused. Looked again.
Raon’s fingers clenched.
Why did this girl feel like memory trying to force its way back into a locked room?
---
That night, the girl stayed.
She gave a name no one believed: Lira — meaning “song that doesn’t die.”
She claimed to be a widow, but her hands bore no ring marks. Her robes were too finely woven. Her posture too alert.
Raon didn’t trust her.
But he couldn’t look away from her either.
---
🜃 The First Fire
Raon watched her from the woods the next morning, arms folded as she lit incense outside the temple ruins—a place untouched by prayer in years. The villagers avoided it. Said it was cursed. Said it had burned once without ever catching flame.
She knelt there, eyes closed, whispering something to the ground.
He stepped from the shadows.
“You’re not from any village nearby,” he said.
She didn’t flinch. “Neither are you.”
Their eyes met again—more steady this time, more dangerous.
“You burn things,” he said softly. “I can smell smoke in your bones.”
She smiled beneath her veil. “And you, Raon, are still afraid of the thing you’re meant to become.”
---
🜃 Whispers Beneath the Skin
They met again that evening by the cliff where the sea moaned like a dying god.
Raon should’ve left. Should’ve walked away.
But her voice wrapped around him like silk dipped in blood.
“What are you really doing here?” he asked.
She stepped closer. Close enough for him to see the faint scar along her neck, like a blade’s memory. “I’m hunting someone,” she whispered.
“Who?”
She looked out to the waves. “A man who once destroyed everything I loved. I plan to return the favor.”
Raon exhaled. “Revenge isn’t as clean as it feels.”
Lira turned, face inches from his. “Neither is love.”
---
🜃 Flame Meets Storm
That night, rain whispered against the thatched roof. Raon sat by the window, watching Lira’s silhouette in the moonlight outside, her arms raised in silent motion—like a dance, or a ritual.
She didn’t see him watching.
Or maybe she did.
Maybe she always did.
He didn’t know if she was here to heal or to kill.
He didn’t know if he wanted her to stay… or to disappear before she burned his world down.
But he knew one thing as surely as his own breath:
This girl had come for blood.
And something deep inside him…
wanted to help her spill it.
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