Chapter 4: ‎Chapter 3 — Letters, Drawings, and Revelation

‎Rain came the next morning, soft but steady, drumming against the orphanage roof. The common room smelled of damp wool and chalk dust. Sister Martel spread slates and scraps of parchment across the long table.

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‎“Today we work with letters,” she said. “The alphabet of the city, not the old runes. You’ll need both if you mean to live past chores.”

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‎The children grumbled but obeyed, taking chalk or dull quill in hand. Zara sat nearest the window, gloves tight, lines of precise script already forming under her hand. Brandon leaned back in his chair, squinting at the crooked letters he’d carved into wood weeks before, trying to match them.

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‎Aurora studied the shapes once, then bent her head and traced them with clean exactness, as though copying something she’d known forever. The chalk barely squeaked before she was done.

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‎When Martel told them to draw, to loosen their hands, Aurora took the slate and sketched the same image she had drawn since she could hold a stick in dirt: her mother. Not a face, but a smooth oval of stone where a face should be, framed in flowing hair. A beauty faceless, yet tender in memory.

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‎The room went quiet around her. Brandon craned to see, frowned, and then sat straighter, as though daring anyone to mock it. Zara’s chalk paused mid-stroke, her eyes sliding sideways, then back to her slate.

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‎Martel collected the slates when they finished. Her thumb lingered on Aurora’s drawing a heartbeat too long before she set it aside with a sigh.

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‎At mealtime, Aurora sat apart, bread untouched. Brandon dropped down beside her anyway, chewing noisily through his portion. “You don’t eat, you don’t grow,” he said with his mouth full.

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‎“I grow enough,” Aurora said.

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‎“You’ll vanish like smoke.” He nudged her arm with his elbow. She let the touch stay. The ache in her chest softened just enough.

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‎“Teach me letters,” she asked.

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‎He laughed. “You already outpace me. What’s the point?”

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‎“Show me anyway.”

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‎They bent together over a scrap of parchment, Brandon tracing crooked strokes while Aurora corrected him with quiet gestures. He scowled, she smiled without meaning to.

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‎From the other side of the room, Zara watched, her slate in her lap, chalk still. Her gloves pulled tight, fingertips pressed into her knees. She turned her face back to her work, jaw set.

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‎The lesson broke with the sound of a chair tipping. A younger boy stumbled, fell, and in the scramble shoved Zara sideways. She reached to catch herself—bare hand colliding with Aurora’s arm.

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‎Contact.

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‎Zara froze. Her eyes went wide, unfocused. Her breath left her in a shudder.

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‎In an instant, she saw:

‎The Wilds, wet earth and the iron scent of corpses.

‎The faceless woman carved in stone.

‎The beast that had taken her.

‎The hunger twisting inside Aurora, endless, patient.

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‎It all pressed into her skin like fire through ice.

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‎Zara tore her hand back with a strangled gasp. Her chair scraped. The children stared, puzzled, uneasy. Martel began to rise, but Zara shook her head too quickly, chalk clattering from her grip.

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‎“I’m fine,” she said—too sharp, too fast. She dragged her gloves back on, fingers trembling.

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‎Aurora had not moved. She only tilted her head, watching with the stillness of a cat that has caught another creature watching it.

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‎The lesson ended in brittle silence.

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‎That night, Aurora lay awake, listening to the room’s breathing. Across the aisle, Zara’s breaths came shallow, irregular, as though each one carried the weight of a vision she could not unsee.

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