The voice filled her mind once again, but this time it wasn’t just anger. It was something older, something that clung to the very air around her. "Don’t you remember what we had before you abandoned me?" The words seemed to echo through her very soul, Arlith struggled against the heavy fog in her mind. Her chest was tight with an aching, nameless sorrow. Why did it feel like something had been ripped away from her?
Arlith jolted awake, the remnants of the dream clinging to her like fog. The knock on her chamber door shattered the silence, a reminder that the world outside had not paused for her restless mind. "Ma'am Arlith, your father has requested your presence," Came the muffled voice from the other side of the door, signaling that it was one of the castle servants coming to wake Arlith up and stir on her bed.
The dream’s echoes still haunted her mind, leaving her staring blankly at the floor, trying to shake off the unease. Shaking off her unease, Arlith rose from the bed and made her way to the door before opening it just a crack, her blonde hair was disheveled, and her light blue eyes struggled to stay open. "Tell my father that I shall be there shortly." She tried to push aside her unsettled feelings, but yet the dream lingered - why did that dark voice stir such nameless longing?
As she dressed and exited her chambers, Arlith's thoughts turned to the possible council meeting with her father. Tensions had been rising in the kingdom, with rumors of war on the horizon. As the daughter of King Farodin, it was her duty to offer guidance to her father, or even help ease her father’s tension in these turbulent times.
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Yet part of her felt adrift as if searching for pieces of a puzzle just out of reach. Flashes of another life sometimes came to her - of power and purpose, something she could not explain. Only in her dreams did hints of truth emerge, though they left her more confused. But Arlith brushed it off for now, thinking that it must be just a dream.
Arlith made her way to the grand chamber where Farodin held court. But as she entered the gand chambers, she saw that the usual bustle was instead replaced by grim faces. "Father, what’s wrong?” Arlith asked, her voice catching in her throat. Farodin turned slowly, the weight of his gaze settling on her like a storm cloud. His dark blue eyes, usually distant, now brimmed with urgency. A storm was coming, and he could no longer ignore it.
"The Cøsræthian Empire marches. Thalvaor himself leads their forces, his forces already ravaging Alpine Satyr land. And they've ignored our calls for peace." Arlith's heart aches when she hears those very words exit her father’s mouth. War was coming, and something deeper tugged at her, a sense of familiar darkness rising once more. Yet something told her that the dreams—and that voice—it felt like it was no coincidence. Clenching her fists, Arlith takes a deep breath as she tries to look calm in front of her father.