The first thing Elara felt was the cold.

  Not the gentle chill of autumn wind or the crisp bite of early winter, but a deep, bone-aching cold that clung to her like a second skin. She gasped, air rushing into her lungs as if for the first time, and with it came a terrible stillness.

  She was lying in the woods. The moon hung low in the sky, silver light filtering through skeletal branches. The scent of damp earth filled her nose, the taste of something old and bitter clinging to her tongue. Slowly, she pushed herself up, her limbs heavy, as if the weight of the earth had only just let her go.

  She didn’t remember falling asleep here.

  She didn’t remember anything at all.

  A shiver ran through her as she touched her chest, where a dull ache pulsed beneath her ribs. Her clothes were torn, dirt smeared across her skin. But there was no blood. No wounds. Only an eerie silence inside her where a heartbeat should have been.

  “Elara…”

  The whisper came from the trees.

  Her head snapped up. Shadows stretched between the trunks, shifting unnaturally. Something—or someone—was watching her.

  “Elara.”

  A voice she almost recognized. Faint. Distant.

  She staggered to her feet, her bare toes sinking into the wet earth. The whisper came again, guiding her forward. The forest was unfamiliar, its paths twisted and wrong. But her feet knew where to go.

  Then, the house appeared.

  A small cottage, its windows dark, its door slightly ajar. Something in her chest tightened. She knew this place.

  Memories flickered—laughter by the hearth, warm hands tucking a blanket around her shoulders, a lullaby sung in the quiet of night.

  And then—

  Pain. Sharp and sudden. A scream cut short. Darkness swallowing her whole.

  She staggered back, breath shallow. No heartbeat. No warmth.

  “Elara?”

  The voice wasn’t a whisper anymore. It was a boy, standing in the doorway of the cottage, his face pale as he stared at her like he had seen a ghost.

  Because he had.

  “Tobin…” The name left her lips before she could think. Her brother.

  He didn’t move. His eyes shimmered with something between fear and grief.

  “Elara,” he said again, his voice breaking. “You’re dead.”

  The words should have shattered her. Instead, they felt like an answer she had been waiting for.

  She took a step forward, and for the first time, she saw it—the faint glow of her skin, the way the mist curled unnaturally around her ankles. The weightless feeling in her limbs, as if she weren’t entirely here.

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  As if she didn’t belong.

  The last piece of the memory slid into place. The knife. The hands that had held it. The whisper of an apology before everything had gone dark.

  She had been taken from this world. And yet, here she stood.

  A ghost. A mistake. A whisper of something unfinished.

  “Tobin,” she murmured. “Who killed me?”

  His breath hitched, and his gaze flickered toward the house.

  Toward the darkness inside.

  “Elara,” he whispered. “Run.”

  Elara didn’t run.

  The cold in her bones told her she should have. Every instinct screamed that something in that house was wrong, that something waited in the dark—something that had stolen her life once before.

  But she had come back for a reason.

  “Tobin,” she said again, voice steady despite the tremor in her fingers. “Who killed me?”

  Her brother swallowed hard, his hands shaking at his sides. He looked like a child again, despite being nearly sixteen now. The same boy who had clung to her arm when he was afraid of thunderstorms. The same boy who had cried when their mother died.

  And now, he was crying again.

  “Elara…” His voice cracked. “You have to go. Before—”

  A creak from inside the house.

  Tobin’s face drained of color.

  Elara stepped forward. The mist curled around her ankles, thicker now, like the forest itself was holding its breath. The cottage door, barely ajar, seemed to darken at the edges, the warm memories of home now twisted and wrong.

  She wasn’t afraid. She couldn’t be. The worst had already happened to her.

  Elara pushed the door open.

  The cottage smelled of wax and herbs, a familiar scent. But beneath it was something sour, something old. A single candle flickered on the wooden table, its flame dancing wildly.

  And then she saw him.

  A man stood in the farthest corner of the room, shrouded in shadow.

  “Elara.”

  Her name, spoken like a prayer, like a curse.

  She knew that voice.

  “Father.”

  The word came out hollow. Empty.

  Slowly, he stepped into the dim candlelight. His once-strong frame looked thinner, his face gaunt, eyes sunken deep into his skull. He wasn’t the same man who had carried her on his shoulders as a child, who had kissed her forehead when she was sick.

  Something had hollowed him out.

  “You weren’t supposed to come back,” he whispered.

  A sharp pain pulsed in her chest. The memory came clearer now—the flash of steel, the warmth of blood spilling over her hands, the last thing she had seen before the dark took her.

  His face.

  His trembling hands gripping the knife.

  Her own father had killed her.

  Elara didn’t feel rage. She didn’t feel sorrow. Just… cold.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Tobin hovered near the doorway, too afraid to come closer.

  Their father’s fingers twitched at his sides. “It was mercy.” His voice was almost gentle. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  She took a step forward. He flinched.

  “Elara,” Tobin whispered. “We have to go.”

  But she didn’t move. She just stared into the eyes of the man who had taken everything from her.

  “I came back,” she said softly, “because something isn’t finished.”

  Her father shuddered. His lips parted, as if he wanted to beg, to explain, to apologize.

  And then the candle went out.

  The room plunged into darkness.

  A breath, not hers.

  A whisper, curling from the shadows.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  But she was.

  And she wasn’t leaving until she found out why.