AnnouRewrote pretty much the whole chapter. It was my least favourite one by far, and I am much happier with the result here.

  In a quiet vilge on the far edge of the Serkoth ds, the inn was unusually quiet for the evening. Lantern light flickered against the worn wooden walls, and the usual chatter of travellers and locals alike had dimmed to muted murmurs. It wasn’t the storm brewing outside that silehem—though the wind howled like a hungry beast—it was the stranger seated he hearth.

  She wasn’t remarkable at first gnce: a slender woman dressed in a traveller’s cloak, the fabric dull as old part. Her face was obscured by shadows cast from her hood, but her hands... her hands drew the eye. Pale and long-fihey worked a quill across a sheet of paper id oable before her. The scratg of ink against part carried through the inn, louder thaorm beyond the door.

  A boy, no older than twelve, crept closer, curiosity overtaking caution. “What’re you writing?” he asked, his voice tremulous yet eager.

  The stranger didn’t look up, but her lips quirked in a faint smile. “A story.”

  The boy frowned. “What about?”

  This time, the aused, lifting her quill and tilting her head as though sidering the question. “A story about choice. About paths that cross in the most ued ways.”

  The boy blinked, not uanding, but before he could ask more, the innkeeper’s wife called out sharply. “e away from her, Tarris! You’ve chores to do.”

  The boy hesitated, but the woman waved him off gently. “Go on, little oories find their way to those who hem.”

  As he scurried back, the innkeeper approached, wiping his hands on his apron. “Not many folk brave a storm like this for a drink,” he said, his tone carefully ral. “You’re wele to stay the night if you’ve .”

  “I won’t stay long,” the woman replied, her voice soft but carrying an odd resonance, like an echo across ay room. “Just passing through.”

  The innkeeper nodded auro the bar, though his eyes lingered on her with unease. Something about her presence made his skin crawl—something he couldn’t name.

  The stranger remai her table, her quill dang across the part in fluid strokes. Despite her erely passing through, she didn’t seem hurried. She wrote with care, her movements deliberate, as though every word she crafted carried weight beyond what the eye could see.

  A few patrons tried to focus on their drinks or whisper among themselves, but the storm outside seemed to echo the tension ihe inn. Thunder rumbled, dista deliberate, like the exhale of something vast and unseen.

  The boy, Tarris, peeked out from the kit doorway. His chores were fotten in favour of watg the strahe way her quill moved fasated him—not hurried and meical like the town’s scribe, but smooth, almost alive. It felt like the strokes themselves whispered secrets, though he couldn’t quite hear them.

  The stranger gnced up then, her gaze catg his for just a moment. Her eyes were unlike any he’d ever seen, shifting with faint patterns, like ink swirling in water. Tarris froze, heart thudding, but the woman simply smiled faintly before returning to her work.

  The door to the inn creaked opeing in a sharp gust of wind and a flurry of rain. A man in a tattered cloak stumbled inside, soaked and shivering. His face ale, his eyes darting wildly as though he’d seen a ghost.

  The innkeeper hurried over, his apron fluttering with the motion. “Boy, close that door! What’s the matter with you?” His voice carried a blend of frustration and unease, cutting through the urmur of the room.

  The man, drenched from the downpour outside, smmed the heavy wooden door shut with a resounding thud, leaning against it as though it alone could shield him. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, and water pooled beh him, dripping steadily from his cloak. “Something out there,” he gasped, his voice trembling.

  The room stilled. The hum of quiet versation died away, leaving only the crackle of the fire to fill the silence. Eveorm outside seemed to falter for a moment, its howling winds retreating as if holding their breath.

  “What kind of something?” one of the braver patroured, his voice low but steady. He was a burly man, his weathered hands gripping the hilt of a k his belt, though his posture betrayed a faint unease.

  The drenched man shook his head, his wet hair ging to his forehead. “Don’t know,” he stammered. “It wasn’t human. Eyes... too many eyes. Staring at me from the dark.”

  Uneasy gnces darted around the room. The innkeeper exged a look with his wife, her hands clutg her apron tightly. A couple seated by the fire leaned clether, their earlier ughter now a distant memory. Even the burly man, whose calloused hands were used to hard work and harder fights, paled slightly at the words. His grip on the kightened, knuckles bng.

  Only one person remained untouched by the tension, the stra the er table who tio write. Her quill scratched steadily against part, an unnervingly calm terpoint to the room’s mounting unease.

  “You’re drunk or mad,” the burly man muttered, though his voice cked its usual bravado. His eyes flicked nervously toward the shuttered windows.

  The drenched man shook his head again, water spttering onto the floor. “I saw it,” he insisted, his voice hoarse. “I swear I did. Too many eyes. Too many.”

  He straightened slightly, still catg his breath, his gaze dartiweerons. “I’ll pay for a drink,” he said, his tone faltering. His trembling hand reached toward his belt, but his movements froze. His breath hitched as his fingers searched, then patted frantically over his soaked clothing.

  “It’s gone,” he whispered, his voice a threadbare ey purse… I had it before…” His eyes darted to the door as if expeg the thing in the dark to slither inside.

  Before what, no one dared to ask.

  The scratg of the quill stopped. The woman at the er table tilted her head upward, her hood casting shadows across her features. “I will pay for your drink,” she said, her voice smooth and measured, carrying a weight that silehe room further. “If you tell me exactly what you saw.”

  The tension in the man’s shoulders sed slightly, though his hands still trembled as he lowered himself into the chair across from the woman. His damp cloak left a dark stain on the floor, and his breathing was uneven. A serving girl hurried over, depositing a mug of ale in front of him before retreating quickly, as though proximity to his fear might i her.

  The woman leaned forward slightly, her gloved hands resting atop the part she’d been writing on. Her quill, poised as if ready to resume its work, betrayed no impatience, but her gaze was sharp, expet. “So,” she said, her tone quiet but insistent, “what exactly did you see?”

  The man ed his fingers around the mug, drawing strength from its warmth, though he made no move to drink. “A creature,” he began, his voice hoarse. “Masquerading as a woman. It had… monstrous features. Not all at onot so obvious you’d run screaming the moment you saw it. But the longer you looked, the more you realized h it was.”

  He paused, his brow furrowing as if trying te the fragments of his memory into coherence. “Her gaze—” his voice faltered. “It could devour you, pull you apart piece by piece. But the teeth… gods, those teeth. Rows of them. Like razors, all crammed into a mouth too wide to be human.”

  Murmurs rippled through the patrons, most huddled close to the fire as if its light could shield them from the tale. One older woman clutched a string of carved wooden beads, her fingers moving in a rhythmic pattern as she whispered an intation to the gods.

  “Was there anything else?” the stranger pressed, her calm demeanor unshaken. “Details. How did she move? What did she do?”

  The man swallowed hard. “Her smile—if you could call it that—was the worst of it. Not because it was cruel or malicious, but because it was… amused. Like she knew something we didn’t. Something awful.” His hands tightened around the mug, his knuckles whitening. “She was with another. She didn’t seem scared of her, like she was used to her. Maybe even protected by her. But the air arou felt heavier. Wrong.”

  He goward the window, the dark night pressing against the shutters as if the thing might still be watg. “I don’t know what she is,” he admitted, his voice a bare whisper. “But she isn’t human, or lekine or siren. She’s something far worse.”

  The strailted her head, her expression unreadable beh the hood. “And what did you do?” she asked.

  The man flushed, his fear twisting into shame. “What could I do? I hid. I’m just a logsman. Some of the other vilgers went to front her, but they backed down.”

  The woman studied him for a long moment before nodding. “You were wise to hide then.”

  “Wise?” another patron scoffed, his voice brimming with nervous bravado. “He’s just a coward who spooked himself over shadows.”

  The stranger ignored him, her gaze lingering on the drenched man. Then, with a smooth motion, she picked up her quill and resumed writing, as though the tale had simply been a momentary distra.

  “Should we be worried?” someone else asked, their voice trembling.

  The woman didn’t look up. “If you’re lucky,” she said simply, her tone devoid of fort, “it won’t matter.”

  The man sitting across from her squinted, suspi etched into his furrowed brow. “I don’t think I’ve seen you ‘round these parts before,” he said slowly, his tone ced with mistrust. “You speak as if you kly what I’m talking about.”

  The woman’s quill didn’t falter, the rhythmic scratg against part a pointed trast to the tension thiing in the air. “Perhaps,” she replied with an air of detat. “I hear things here and there. It’s part of the trade.”

  The man leaned in slightly, his voice dropping as he pressed further. “And what trade is that?”

  For the first time, her hand stilled. She looked up, her expression calm but her eyes betraying a sharp edge, like a knife cealed in silk. “We are done speaking now.”

  Her gaze locked onto his, and for the briefest moment, her eyes gleamed unnaturally—something otherworldly, fleeting enough that the onlookers might have dismissed it as a trick of the firelight. But the man across from her didn’t have the luxury of such denial. His face sed, his posture slumping as though a string holding him taut had been cut.

  “Go drink somewhere else,” she said, her voice carrying a weight that brooked nument, her tone final and dismissive.

  The man iffly, his movements meical as he rose from his seat and shuffled to aable, sinking into a chair as though the life had been drained from him. He stared into his ale, his earlier bravado pletely extinguished.

  The woman—'Lyra’ to those who asked—returo her writing as if nothing had happehe quill’s soft scratches filling the uneasy silence left in the room. Arouhe other patrons avoided her gaze, their murmurs hushed and uneasy. No one dared question what had just transpired.

  Inwardly, Lyra sighed, though her outward demeanour remained poised and trolled. The storm outside battered against the inn’s walls, but it was the storm within her own mind that raged more fiercely. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want anything to do with Akhenna’s chosen, much less the entangled mess that was bound to follow. But when faced with the alternative—defying a power that transded prehension—the choice had been simple, if not easy.

  Her quill hovered over the part for a moment, the ink pooling slightly before she resumed her work. The words flowed, intricate and precise, but her mind was already elsewhere, anticipating the trials to e. For now, though, she let the storm outside mask the storm within, burying her dread beh a veneer of focus.

  SupernovaSymphony