Rowan wasn't sure exactly what got him there but he was sitting at the gazebo, admiring the open array of roses.
" Rowan?" Bria appears and approaches him with a smile. " What are thinking so hard about?"
Suddenly, Bria is straddling his lap, her braid spilling over her shoulder like liquid gold. She's laughing softly, fingers slipping beneath the collar of his shirt, mouth brushing his neck. Rowan lets her, not sure if it's because he wants to—or because it felt right— or because it was a dream. Her hands are warm. Her skin is soft. Her lips part, and she whispers his name like one would a secret.
" It's finally happening." She whispers excitedly as she trails her gentle kisses down his neck.
Then the mist rolls in.
He blinks, and it isn't Bria anymore.
Light reflects off her glass skin, cool to the touch. Auro, pressing her body against his like she's trying to crawl inside his chest. The mist clings to his arms. Her eyes glow—hungry, raw, honest. Her mouth hovers near his, not kissing, just breathing him in. One hand slides up his neck, through his hair, and he feels everything. The ache. The fear. The need.
Her shiny fingers, push away the hair form his face. Her eyes search his as she hums a beautiful tune.
His hands grip her waist and she leans in, closer, closer—
He wakes up gasping.
The sheets are twisted. His skin is damp with sweat. There's a strange tightness in his chest, like longing—but it's sharp, unfamiliar. He's never felt this way before. Not for Bria. Not for anyone.
He stares at the ceiling, pulse still racing. He checks under the sheets.
What the hell? He curses under his breath.
The tower is mostly empty in the mornings. Dust hangs in the air like it's part of the architecture. Silence settles between stone walls, broken only by the occasional creak of wood and wind.
Rowan curls into a corner table on the fourth floor, surrounded by books older than the prairie itself. He drags a finger down a page without really seeing it. His mind keeps drifting back to the dream. Back to her.
Bria had been there first. All golden hair and easy laughter, fingers on his chest, lips on his throat. Familiar and comfortable. Not necessarily comfortable but not bad.
But then Auro came in, cool and unreal. What was so special about her that he would dream of her in that way.
This was not supposed to happen. He said over and over. The curse and his tether to her must slowly be making him insane. She has appeared in his dreams before but more as a ghost or plague.
He shoves the memory away like it burns. He was engaged, for gods' sake. Bria was planning a whole wedding back home. And he's up here, sweating over some other woman. That cursed him.
He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. She wasn't even human. He was already starting to forget that she was the menace, the one that rearranges limbs.
Rowan refocuses. Witchcraft. Bloodlines. Forest magic.
Witches have been extinct for nearly a century. Every record agrees. But the curse on Auro says otherwise. The way the forest reacts to her. The pain they both feel when it suffers. She didn't just stumble into power. It was given. Or passed on.
He finds it after hours of digging: a footnote in a forgotten journal. The final branch of a once-powerful lineage, rumored to have lived in Everthine a long time ago. He had to find them.
His stomach twists.
He leans back, pushing a hand through his hair again and lets out a breath. He needed her right now.
Back to the forest. It is.