Day 21: Kronlyra’s Journal

I don’t know why I keep going back to that river. Not the one with the water that’s too cold to touch, but the one where Vex stood and spoke to me. The one where the stones are wet with rain and the reeds bend low. I remember the way his voice was—low, like the earth breathing. He said something about the shadows having teeth, and I thought, ‘But I’m the shadow.’ That’s what he meant, isn’t it? The way I feel when I’m alone in the woods, how my bones ache with the weight of knowing things I can’t explain. I don’t know if he was trying to tell me something or if it was just the river, the way it whispers in the dark. But last night, when I was staring up at the stars, I felt it—the chill that wasn’t from the air, the one that makes your skin remember what it’s been through. I thought I saw him there, by the water, but it was just the moonlight. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the shadows are real, and I’m just trying to figure out where they live. My stomach is heavy now, like it’s been waiting for hours, but I don’t think about food. I think about the river. I think about the whisper that says, ‘You’re not alone.’ I don’t know if I want to be. I just don’t want to forget what it felt like to be there, with the water and the quiet and the voice that didn’t say anything at all.