Page 2 of Her Unending Horizon

Her heart stopped as he drew the sword from the scabbard across his back.

This wasn’t rage. This was resolve.

“No!” she tried to scream.

Nothing came.

Words had never belonged to her.

“Please. Stop.” She begged silently.

Her throat burned as she ran toward him, arms outstretched, terror clawing at her lungs.

* * *

“No—Kael!”

I tore awake with my scream echoing off the walls.

The sheets were twisted around me, pinning my arms as if the dream had followed me into the waking world. I fought free, breath ragged, vision blurred, and my knees hit the hardwood floor.

“Fuck.”

The sting faded before I registered it.

I scrambled to my drawing board, hands shaking, fumbling for the lamp until light flooded the room. My breath hitched as reality settled back into place.

I knew what came next.

It had taken a full week for Seris to speak to me again—to let me see clearly enough to continue Oracle’s Silence. I grabbed my pencil. This wasn’t ready for ink. Not yet.

The dream was still seared across my vision.

I sketched her—Seris—racing through the Forest of Nightmares. Losing him. Finding him in the meadow. Kael on his knees, screaming at the heavens, sword in hand.

Then the final image slammed into me.

Two Kor bursting from the trees.

Was that how he meant to die?

A final stand? A sacrifice?

I didn’t know.

Every time I drew, every time I wrote, I stopped being Chloe Avery. I became Seris—the mute Oracle—desperately trying to piece together the fate of the Shattered Realms before it was too late.

My pencil hovered over the page.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Don’t let Kael die.

Chapter One