Book Two: Chapter One
The Keeper of Silence
The lighthouse was older than memory.
It stood alone at the farthest edge of Aremu's cliffs, where the land gave way to sky and the sea roared like a wounded god. The structure itself was weathered and worn, its white paint stripped by salt and time, its windows like watchful eyes. Locals said it hadn't functioned in years. That no one lived there. That it was cursed.
But Amira knew better.
She saw the light flicker every dusk, just as the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned violet, bruised with evening. And she had seen the man who lived within its stone ribs.
He was always there, standing at the edge like he was listening to something no one else could hear. A tall figure in a long coat, head tilted to the wind, utterly still. Some days, he would glance toward her side of the cliff. Once, she thought he nodded. But neither had spoken.
Until today.
She had wandered farther than usual. The path that led to the lighthouse was cracked and narrow, carved into the red earth like an afterthought. The wind howled louder here, as though trying to pull her back.
But Amira kept walking.
She didn't know what drew her—curiosity, maybe. Or the way the whispers had changed. Grown heavier. More urgent.
She had begun to dream of the sea. Of names she'd never heard. Of violet dusk and sorrow. And always, always, she woke with a name on her lips.
Elias.
He was at the door when she arrived, as though he'd been expecting her.
Tall, lean, and quiet in the way the sea was quiet before a storm. His eyes were the color of rainclouds, steady and unreadable.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"And yet I am."
A faint smile flickered across his face. "You're the girl who hears the wind."
She didn't flinch. "And you're the man who hides from it."
He turned and opened the door.
Inside the lighthouse was a world preserved in silence: old books stacked on every surface, maps with cryptic symbols pinned to the walls, a single bed tucked into the corner, and the smell of seawater and solitude. A lantern flickered near a journal left open, its pages filled with intricate sketches of the coastline—and a girl with eyes like hers.
"You've been drawing me," she said quietly.
"I draw what the wind shows me."
She stepped closer, drawn to the pages. There were lighthouses she'd never seen. Waves rising like hands. And one sketch, half-erased, of a woman standing on the edge of a cliff, arms outstretched as if falling—or flying.
"What are they?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Echoes."
That night, the whispers returned. But they no longer spoke in riddles.
They warned.
"The storm is coming. Choose wisely, child of two worlds. Love will cost you."
Amira awoke in the lighthouse with Elias watching her. No words were needed. The sea outside had gone still, eerily still. The violet dusk lingered long past sunset, casting everything in shadow.
For the first time, she felt something shifting—not just in the air, but in her bones.
Something had been set in motion.
And love, she feared, would not be enough to stop it.