Prologue: The Dream

Aagh—
She woke with a gasp—but she already knew.
Not because she saw it. Not even because she felt it. The dread was already pulsing in her bones, vibrating beneath her skin like something alive. Her hand moved anyway, slow, reluctant, reaching down. The sheets were soaked. Not with sweat. Thicker. Warmer.
She lifted her fingers and saw the red.

And then, everything inside her fell.

Just hours ago, she had danced barefoot through the clearing. Her secret place. The place no one knew but the trees and the wind. She’d spun until she was dizzy, until the world blurred into golden leaves and sky. Laughed—really laughed—as she pressed a hand to the swell of her belly. The child had fluttered then, tiny and alive. It had felt like a celebration. Like life itself.

Now, that moment felt impossibly far away. As if it belonged to another life. One dream. One vision. And everything had changed.

In the dream, she had seen her husband’s death.

The friend’s hands hadn’t trembled as he nocked the arrow—only his eyes had darted, watching. Waiting. One silent breath, then the twang of the bowstring. The shaft flew straight, burying deep in Galen’s back just as he turned his head to call out. For a heartbeat their eyes met—the archer’s steady, Galen’s wide with hurt more than anger, as if the betrayal itself had struck deeper than the arrow. Then his knees buckled, and the forest swallowed his breath.
He fell without a sound.

She had heard the friend’s gasp, the shouts that followed—so convincingly frantic. A hunting accident, he would claim.
But Rea had seen the smile. Small. Satisfied.
She had cried out, twisted in sleep, but the vision hadn’t let her go.
She watched him die, again and again.And now—this.

Blood on her legs.
Silence where there had been life.
Her scream this time was real, and it cracked the afternoon like thunder.