There were things the old books did not say.
Things the rituals refused to reveal.
Mira had read them all—page after cracked page, spell after ancient sketch. She had studied the threads of legacy as others study war maps. And yet, nothing had prepared her for this.
A Clove, bound to a Knight.
It was unthinkable. Not because it was impossible. But because it was dangerous. Unnatural. Cursed, in every whisper Hawthorne's roots had ever offered her.
Mira stood in her study, the scent of burnt herbs still lingering in the air. Her hands trembled—not from age, not from fear, but from rage masked as helplessness.
What in the name of the old gods had the town allowed?
How could Elora, a girl of forest blood, of ancestral pain and veiled prophecy, be drawn to him—a boy forged from steel and legacy, from the very bloodline that had once razed their groves and shackled their kin?
The bond was not a mistake. That was what made it worse.
It had chosen them.
It provides more danger to avoid
Mira clearly didn't like this at all.
Was fate playing a game?
It was a dangerous game
As if history had decided to mock her. To lace the roots of the Clove family with the very thing they had bled to escape: the iron of Knights. Their order, their honor, their warped sense of justice.
Devin —quiet, observing, polite—was still a Knight.
And Elora… she was still Mira's.
Her fire. Her legacy. Her last great hope.
And now she was tethered.
Emotionally. Spiritually. Magically. Even if they didn't understand it yet, their souls had begun the ancient ritual of mirroring.
And when a Clove and a Knight mirror each other…
The world answers. And not kindly
The earth was warm tonight—unnaturally so. As though it too had begun to burn beneath the weight of what had been set in motion.
Sensing a shift in the atmosphere.
It came quickly before Mira could react
It threw her on her knees
Mira's head jerked up to the sky.
Her mouth fell wide apart
Her eyes widened only her pupils present, glaring white.
A vision.
It ran through Mira blood like wild fire.
Pain. Sacrifice. Fire beneath glass.
A battlefield not made of weapons, but of hearts.
Devin standing between Elora and death. Elora screaming as something ancient and cruel reached for him. Bleeding together. Fighting together. Torn apart by the same world that had once brought them close.
Even if they learned to love each other…
Even if the bond deepened, strengthened, grew roots stronger than time…
The world would not allow it.
The Clove name had always belonged to the wild. To the hidden. To the ones who bore suffering in silence so others might breathe free.
And Knights?
They were tools of order. Symbols of control. Steel wrapped in law.
The bond will only make them suffer more, Mira thought bitterly. The more they feel each other, the more they'll bleed through each other's wounds. The more they try to protect one another… the more they'll fall.
Love did not protect people like them.
Love tested them.
Love took from them.
Mira fell to the ground as the vision ceased.
She was panting loudly like she just ran a long race, but it was more worse.
Her body trembled still with the effects of the vision.
She rested her head against the bark and closed her eyes.
It had been over eighteen years she had a vision, she almost forgot how draining and horrible it could be.
A vision came when Elora was born , eighteen years ago
Since then no vision came
Mira thought she lost her vision ability
But now it was clear she hasn't.
The vision.
She could already see the day when Elora would look at her with betrayal—for not stopping it.
The day Devin would kneel in the ashes of something broken, unsure if it was his fault.
And the day Hawthorne itself would be forced to choose between survival… and mercy.
Mira did not know which it would choose.
She only knew one thing.
Even if the bond had been fated, even if it was written in the oldest stars…
Fate was never kind to the children of the Clove name