The dreams always began with the sound of wings.
Ethan Veyra jerked awake, his throat raw from screaming. The remnants of the nightmare clung to him like cobwebs—a raven with eyes like shattered glass, its feathers glinting obsidian under a blood-red moon. It perched on a stone labyrinth, walls slick with moss, while a voice that wasn't a voice hummed in his bones.
'Find it before the veil tears.'
He sat up, sweat plastering his shirt to his chest. The clock on the bedside table read 3:07 a.m., its ticking too loud in the hollow silence of the estate.
For weeks, the same dream had haunted him, each time ending with that same resonant command.
Find it. But what?
The only thing he'd found since arriving in Valenmoor was dust and disappointment.
The Veyra estate loomed like a gargoyle atop the mist-shrouded hills, its once-grand façade crumbling under decades of neglect. Ethan had inherited it after his father's sudden death—a man who'd abandoned him as a child, leaving behind only a cryptic letter and a key to this decaying monument of family shame.
He'd spent days combing through relics of a lineage he'd never known. The attic yielded yellowed letters sealed with a wax raven, their contents riddled with words like oath and sacrifice.
The library shelves sagged under grimoires bound in cracked leather, their pages filled with spiraling symbols that made his head throb. Portraits of stern-faced ancestors lined the halls, their eyes tracking him like predators.
But it was the grand foyer that unsettled him most. Moonlight streamed through cracked stained glass, painting the floor in fractured hues of sapphire and crimson.
At its center lay the Veyra crest—a raven mid-flight, talons clutching a seven-pointed star. His father had torn up the carpet to expose it years ago, shouting drunken rants about "cursed legacies" during Ethan's single childhood visit.
"Some legacies are curses, boy. Pray yours stays buried."
Tonight, the dream's pull had been stronger. Ethan found himself descending the stairs, flashlight in hand, drawn to the crest like a moth to flame. His boots echoed on the marble, each step stirring clouds of dust that danced in the beam's stark light.
He paused at the star's center, its edges worn smooth by time. On impulse, he scuffed his heel against it.
Thud.
The hollow sound froze his breath. Kneeling, he pried at the edges with a rusted letter opener from the study. The wood groaned, splintering to reveal a compartment beneath. Inside lay a bundle wrapped in moth-eaten velvet, its folds stiff with age.
His pulse roared as he peeled back the fabric.
The object beneath was no ordinary book. Its cover shimmered like liquid mercury, cold to the touch. Along its spine glowed symbols—jagged slashes and spirals that seemed to writhe under his gaze. The same symbols from his dreams.
The Resonance.
Against his better judgment, he brushed a finger over the metal.
Pain lanced through his skull. The world dissolved.
He stood in a desert beneath a fractured sky, twin moons bleeding into a horizon choked with smoke. Figures in obsidian robes circled a monolith, their chants weaving a hymn that vibrated in his teeth.
At their center stood a woman—pale hair streaked with ash, eyes voids of shadow. His grandmother, Liora Veyra, though he knew her only from portraits.
She pressed bloodied palms to the monolith.
"The pact is a lie," she rasped, black veins crawling up her neck. "The Thirteenth Star rises. You must—"
A raven's shriek split the vision. Ethan lurched backward, the codex clattering to the floor. His hands trembled, the symbols on its spine dimming to a faint pulse.
Hallucination.
Sleep deprivation.
But the grandfather clock in the hall, silent since his arrival, began to toll.
One. Two. Three.
Each strike shuddered through the floorboards. At the twelfth, the stone raven's wings crumpled, grinding like unoiled hinges. The star in its talons split open, revealing a staircase spiraling into darkness.
Ethan's breath fogged in the sudden chill. The codex hummed against his palm, insistent.
Find it.
He grabbed a candelastick its wax-dripped arms half-melted, and stepped into the void.
The air thickened with the scent of wet stone and iron. The stairs twisted deeper than the estate's foundations should allow, walls shifting from brick to slick black rock etched with more glowing symbols.
At the bottom lay a circular chamber, its ceiling a mosaic of constellations—one star, larger than the rest, throbbed a sickly green.
In the center stood a pedestal clawed with deep gouges. On it rested a locket, its surface engraved with the Veyra raven and star. Inside was a miniature portrait of Liora, her smile gentle but her hand clasping a dagger stained pitch-black.
"You're late, little guardian."
Ethan whirled. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, dry as parchment. Shadows pooled in the corner, coalescing into a figure—a man in a tattered coat, edges flickering like a corrupted film reel.
"The Order already hunts the codex," the figure hissed. "They'll peel the flesh from your bones. Give me the locket. Let the Veyras' sins die with you."
"Who are you?" Ethan demanded, backing toward the stairs.
The figure laughed, a sound like breaking glass.
"A friend of your grandmother's. She begged me to spare you. Sentimental fool."
A roar shook the chamber. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling as the green star flared. The figure dissolved into smoke, his final words echoing.
"Run, Ethan Veyra. They're coming."
Dawn bled across the hills as Ethan fled the estate, codex and locket burning like guilt in his pack. Behind him, the raven crest watched from the oak door, a fresh spiral sigil carved into its surface—dripping sap like blood.
Far below, in the shattered chamber, the Thirteenth Star began to awake.