🜃 Snow fell silently over the ruins of the old altar. The wind carried ancient ashes, as if time itself refused to forget.Arisha didn't know it, but she wasn't alone.
A roar thundered from above, and shards of ice rained like daggers from a ledge. A shadow darted through them, slicing the frozen air with inhuman precision. When he landed, the stranger pulled back his hood slowly.
"Do not be afraid," he said, his voice deep but calm."My name is Salomon. You must be the daughter of the White Wolf."
His sky-blue eyes stood in stark contrast to his long, jet-black hair. He was a man of age, yet his presence was commanding. There was no doubt—he belonged to an ancient bloodline.
"Though it may not seem like it, I once witnessed the supremacy of the Nevri."
Arisha frowned, still disoriented. Her fingers instinctively clutched the edge of the cloak he offered her, accepting its warmth. But something was wrong. She was searching for something… a presence she could no longer feel.
From a snowy hill, a figure stood unmoving.His face was hidden behind a mask with no eyes. Only strands of silver hair danced with the mist.A black wooden staff, carved with symbols of a long-lost lineage, rested beside him.
"The cycle begins again…" he whispered, his voice layered, like many speaking at once.
He was known as the Blind One of Silence.Those few who had seen him swore he had no age—and cast no shadow.
Around him, ancient glyphs burned beneath the ice. He touched them with the tip of his staff, and as he did, a vision lit the air:
—Rasen, holding a medallion he did not yet understand.—Lionel, hesitating before a mirror.—Arisha, unknowingly igniting the mark in her blood.
"You must choose soon," he warned, in a tone no one could hear, "for there is another… one who should never have been born."
He extended his hand, and from the snow emerged a raven of ice.Its transparent wings shimmered with a pale blue glow as it soared into the sky.
"Fluturo dhe ji i lirë…""Fly, and be free…"
Elsewhere, Rasen woke with a gasp.His body was drenched in sweat, his eyes wide, wild.A voice had whispered into his mind—sharp and clear as a blade:
"There are not just three... The fourth is among you. And he doesn't know what he is."
His hand shot to his chest. The symbol of Sanathiel burned, as if something within him had just been torn away.
Nearby, the earth was cracked and dry.The forest that once lived there had vanished.Only the whisper of a dead wind crossed the plain, too afraid to disturb what was about to happen.
Baco blinked, dazed. His vision still blurry, he noticed a silhouette approaching.Tall. Steady. Like a warrior who had borne too many battles.
"Who… are you?" he asked, staggering.
The figure stopped just a few steps away. Rasen didn't reply at once.His eyes—sharp and wounded like a beast taught never to trust—locked onto Baco's, who stared back with caution and confusion.
"You know me," Rasen said at last, his voice hoarse and raw. "Even if you don't remember... I'm part of what you are."
Baco's brow furrowed. He stepped back.
"I remember nothing. Just my name… and a burning pain in my chest whenever I hear Arisha."
Rasen closed his eyes. The name slid through his heart like an old thorn.He stepped closer, and in a nearly paternal gesture, placed a hand on Baco's shoulder.
"She is the beacon... and also the flame. You'll understand, soon. But you must know this, Baco—"his voice trembled for the first time—"You cannot go near Lionel."
Baco stared, startled.
"Why? What are you hiding?"
"Because you're not ready. And because if you do... you might destroy what's left of yourself."
Silence thickened like mist.
"Are you… my father?" Baco asked, his voice cracking.
Rasen didn't answer.He only looked at him.And in that instant, a vision flickered behind Baco's eyes:A woman with chestnut hair, laughing under the moonlight.And a white wolf watching her from afar.
"You loved her…" Baco whispered. "Arisha's mother…"
Rasen lowered his gaze.Words couldn't rewrite the past.
"Yes. But I was not the one who claimed her.It was him… Sanathiel."
"Then why… why does it hurt so much when I hear Arisha's name?"
The wind seemed to hold its breath.
"Because love," Rasen said, "doesn't always bloom where it should... and it doesn't die just because it must.What we feel lives beyond flesh, beyond time.And you... you are the chance to heal what we could not."
Rasen leaned forward, resting his forehead gently against Baco's.
"From my blood... the fruit of life after death," he whispered, and blew softly across the boy's face.
Baco's eyes flashed red for a heartbeat—then dimmed, tamed like coals still glowing.The red remained, but softer now. Controlled.
"Do not deny what you feel," Rasen told him."Fight for it. Because if you don't… no one else will."
Meanwhile, in the old library of the Fallen Sanctuary, Lionel trembled.An ancient book, once blank, was now writing itself in black ink:
"The Son of Exile was not the last."
He slammed it shut, jaw clenched.
"What did you hide, Sanathiel…?"
His tongue clicked in fury.The truth crumbled in his hands like burning ash.
And deep inside Arisha's memory, the price of meeting the Blind One of Silence began to take its toll.Baco had vanished from her mind.Only a blurred image remained. A longing without shape.
She sat quietly as Salomon wrapped the warm cloak around her shoulders.The altar ruins, the piercing cold, the man who claimed to have witnessed the Nevri's rise—all of it felt distant, dreamlike.As if her mind walked through a fog without beginning.
"Do you remember anything else?" he asked in his low voice.
She slowly shook her head.Only one name vibrated deep within her chest—uncertain if she'd spoken it aloud or simply felt it.
"Mikhael…" she whispered.And for a moment, the name seemed to hold her together.
But as soon as she said it, pain shot through her temple.A part of her recoiled.Something inside screamed that it wasn't complete. That someone—or something—was missing.
"Why can't I remember his face?" she thought.Mikhael. The one she was meant to hunt with.To bond with.But that certainty melted in her throat like snow on skin.
She looked up at Salomon, searching for answers.
"He… he's important to me, isn't he?"
Salomon nodded without expression.
"That's what you believe now."
"Now?" she echoed. "What do you mean?"
He gently pulled the hood over her eyes, shielding her from the wind.
"Memory is a fragile thread, Arisha. And you have paid a price.There are gaps you must not force.Just remember this:When the time comes, the heart will recognize what the mind forgot."
She swallowed hard, the silence thickening around her.
Above, the ice raven glided across the night sky—invisible to her eyes, but not to her soul.