Page 34 of Elemental Becoming

We ate dinner together that evening. The table was lively—Rowena holding court with stories of their childhood—but I kept glancing at Lyra across from me. She was quieter than usual, softer, as if someone had turned the volume down on my typically boisterous friend. Garrick leaned in often, murmuring into her ear, his hand resting at the small of her back. The worry on his face never quite faded.

Lyra and I went to bed earlier than the others, both still feeling the lingering effects of the healing.

She died. And came back.

The thought makes my body shudder as I drift toward sleep.

I barely remember Thane slipping into bed beside me, only the faint sensation of heat and strength anchored behind me. Exhaustion presses down again, in spite of my earlier nap, as the past few days continue to weigh on my mind and body.

Thane wraps an arm around me, his body radiating heat. I lean into him, sinking into his warmth. The constant rise and fall of his breathing lulls me deeper, a grounding rhythm that melts into my exhaustion.

I let it pull me under.

And then I dream.

A voice calls to me.

Soft at first, barely more than a breath on the wind. But it grows stronger, threading through the darkness, reaching for me.

A woman’s voice, gentle, calming.

It feels familiar in my bones, like something I’ve always known.

And yet the sound is foreign—a voice I’ve never heard before.

How can both things be true?

A warmth glows around it, flickering like the first light of dawn. It pulses in the darkness, spreading outward, golden and soft, wrapping around me in a way that feels like . . . home.

The more I listen, the brighter it grows, until it becomes everything. Sight. Sound. Sensation.

It draws me closer.

I don’t question or resist it. There is no fear here. Only a pull, deep and undeniable, as if something long lost is finally within reach.

The light swells, cresting like the sun breaking the horizon, chasing away the dark. It’s warm. Golden. Alive.

It fills the hollow places inside me.

The voice calls again.

You are home.

The words sink deep in my chest, in a place I didn’t realize was empty.

The warmth pulses, wrapping around me like a second skin.

You are safe.

I want to believe it. Every part of me wants to sink into the light, to let it carry me, to surrender to the comfort that radiates from it.

You are the balance.

The words reverberate through me, deeper than before—like a stone dropped into still water. A shift, a stirring, something waking within me.

The light pulses flares, surrounding me, filling me—then, in an instant—darkness.

My eyes snap open.