Hope's POV

The dream came to me like smoke curling through a crack in the wall.

I stood in a place that felt like nowhere. No ground beneath my feet, no sky above my head. Just endless gray stretching in every direction, thick and heavy like fog before dawn. My breath came out in small white clouds, though I felt no cold.

Then I saw her.

A woman stood at a distance that felt both far and impossibly close. Her hair fell like liquid silver down her back, gleaming even in this colorless void. ...