The first thing Yana Drevelle noticed was the silence.
Not the hum of city lights or the ping of a phone—just stillness, so complete it felt like standing inside a held breath.
Her eyes opened to a sky streaked in rust and lavender, and above her, thin clouds curled like ribbons of smoke. She sat up with a gasp, only to be met with the crackle of dry grass beneath her fingers. A field. A horizon of pale ash and scorched trees. And her body—
This wasn't her body.
Long limbs. Finer hands. Hair heavy on her back. Her breath came short, ragged, and she looked down to see a gown of faded silk clinging to her frame, the hem frayed with soot. A metal cuff, elegant but broken, hung loosely around one wrist, etched with runes she couldn't read but somehow… understood.
She wasn't Yana Drevelle anymore.
The realization hit like thunder.
She remembered dying—coffee on her blouse, the scent of morning, the elevator lurching. Then nothing. Now… she was someone else. Or rather, someone else had been left behind, and she had stepped into the hollow.
The sound of hooves pulled her out of her daze.
A black horse emerged over the ridge, its rider cloaked in gray. He dismounted swiftly, golden eyes sharp beneath a hood.
"You're awake," he said, surprise flickering across his face. "The exiled princess rises."
She blinked. "What did you call me?"
He frowned. "Princess Liora Velquinn. You were cast out four months ago for threatening the High Court. You cursed the Temple and disappeared into the Wastes. Everyone believed you dead."
Princess. Exile. Cursed. The words tangled around her like thread she couldn't unspool.
"I don't remember any of that," she murmured.
The man tilted his head. "Then the spell held. You really don't know who I am, do you?"
She shook her head.
He stepped forward slowly, removing his hood. He was young, but war-weathered. A thin scar curved down his right cheek. "I'm Kael. I was your guard. Once."
Yana—Liora—searched his face for familiarity, but found only a strange ache. "If I was a princess… why was I exiled?"
Kael's jaw tightened. "They said you went mad. That you tried to rewrite the threads of fate. The punishment was exile, not execution—out of respect for your bloodline. But no one expected you to survive the Wastes."
Yana looked out over the endless stretch of pale earth. Survive? She didn't even know how she got here.
Kael followed her gaze. "You shouldn't be alive."
She laughed softly, bitterly. "I get the feeling I'm not supposed to be a lot of things."
He hesitated, then reached into his satchel and pulled something out: a silver spool of thread.
"The last thing you touched before your exile," he said. "You were weaving something forbidden. Something that made the loom scream."
Yana took it gently. The thread hummed in her palm, familiar in a way that made her stomach twist.
Weaving. Magic. Memory.
"I need answers," she said, steadying herself.
Kael nodded. "Then we go back to the city."
She looked at him. "Will they kill me?"
He met her gaze. "Only if they realize who you are."
She turned the spool over in her hand. "Then I'll be someone else."
The wind stirred. Far in the distance, the Temple bells rang. The Weave was shifting.
And Princess Liora Velquinn—the forgotten thread—had returned.