Over the years, she has always dreamed of that strange dream, the dream that she should not have remembered.
At first she was very troubled by it, but after a few years she realized -
It was not a dream at all, but something that had happened deep in her consciousness.
Adriana Velez clearly remembers how, as a child, she would echo through the corridors of the manor for hours at night, with only a lamp to chase away the shadows and no servants or nannies following her.
At first the family would panic, but her father would always find her at the top of the bell tower because she could find peace in the chirping of the birds.
There is a nest of black swallows on the top of the tower, and she often feeds them there.
There she could see the sun rising over the mountains, and her father, his heroic father who had been a high-ranking officer in the Astra Militarum, would sit on the floor next to her and ask her the same question every time.
.
"Daughter, what are you thinking about?"
She would tell her father about her dreams and the scenes in them, and he would listen patiently as the birds fluttered their wings rapidly above their heads.
After she finished speaking, he would put his hand on the top of her head, smile, and say that familiar sentence.
"They're just dreams, Anna, that's all."
For a long time, she believed him.
She no longer wandered the corridors or climbed to the top of the tower.
Then one day, when she dreamed of winged creatures coming to speak death into her father's ears, she did not tell him - she merely comforted herself with his words.
"They are just dreams, nothing more."
But they are more than just dreams. They rarely are.
Her father eventually died in a car accident when she was 14 years old. When she found him, black crows were surrounding him, overhead, jumping and fluttering their wings.
The doctors and priests who arrived later blamed his death on the injuries he sustained during the war, a moment of trance, and the wine he drank while missing the war and his mother.
They even blame the weather, but none of that should be blamed, none of it.
Adriana Velez knew she was the one to be blamed for touching the dream but concealing it.
If she told her father, maybe—
Adriana Velez's father left her a fortune and a high status, and her aunt was the wife of the planet's governor, but she still chose to join the Sisters, and she still hides
own thoughts and dreams.
After that, she received her title in the order, and she followed where her dark dreams led her.
But since she fell into coma, her dreams have changed.
There was a person who kept breaking into her dreams, calming her inner uneasiness and confusion, and making her dreams no longer dark.
It seems good if it stays like this, but every time at the end of her dream, there is always a touch of light blue that ruthlessly destroys everything. That person——
"Um?"
Waking up again, she stood up from the wooden chair where she had fallen asleep, but she looked panicked and began to fumble around for something. Her desk was filled with scrolls and star maps, books and folders, and there were also books and folders on the floor around her.
Same.
She was wearing a simple robe that clung to her body as she searched around, outlining the graceful curves of her body.
Almost everything in the room was a little cluttered, except for the small bed in the corner, where she hadn't slept in weeks.
Some people joked that during the ten years she slept, she slept all the sleep she should have had in her entire life, and sometimes she thought so.
Actually it's not a good habit to have everything so untidy, she wasn't always like this, it's too messy here now.
Velez read the words on the table quickly, lifting them up and flipping them open, pushing the stack of papers to the floor as she searched for the words she needed.
Every book, scroll or piece of paper here was very old, extremely precious, and almost unique, but there was nothing she was looking for.
She stepped over the piles of books and scrolls on the floor, searching for each one, until at last she found her target.
"Got you."
She said to the book in her hand.
It was a small book made of old cowhide. It had no title, no author's signature, no edition mark or trace of printing. It was hand-knitted and handwritten. Just holding it in her hand made her
I think of the mountain air and the cold, ancient stones.
It reminded her of her father's voice.
"Daughter, what are you thinking about?"
She opened her father's diary and went straight to the last page, turning to the verses that she had memorized clearly since her childhood. Her fingers crossed the words written in dim blue ink, her hands slightly moving in the process.
Trembling.
Soon, she read to the end of the page, exhaled slowly, and closed the book even more slowly.
She reached towards her collar and pulled out the pendant she was wearing.
It was an object that once belonged to her father, a skeleton surrounded by ten pointed halos. She turned the pendant over in her hands, feeling its weight and texture, feeling its warmth against her hands.
Then, she bent her fingers to hold the pendant and squeezed it so hard that the spikes on the halo pierced her skin.
She opened her hand and saw ten tiny drops of blood appearing in her palm.
This is a test to prove that she is awake now and not still in a dream.
She did this because her dream was so deep that it even gave her the illusion that she had woken up, but in fact she did not really wake up. She didn't know if this was a sequelae of long-term coma.
At least she could confirm that in her dreams, the pendant's spikes would never make her bleed.
"He might be in danger..."
After Velez confirmed that he was truly awake, he leaned back in his chair and recalled his dream, a burning world, countless twisted and grotesque shapes, and a gray eagle entangled in fire.
Now that she knows this, she needs the help of another person, someone who should not exist in the order.
She stood up, quickly put on the light overlapping armor, tied up her hair, and picked up her sword from the weapons rack next to the door.
They are a pair of swords, two identical curved blades made of steel and polished bone, with prayers and blessings engraved on the blades.
One of them is the sword she has carried since she joined the order, and the other is the symbol of the great nun.
She walked out of the room and into the cold stone corridor.
The lights were now at night, burning with faint starlight, and the seamless obsidian floors and walls absorbed all the light and the sound of her footsteps.
There is something silencing and sacred about this place, like a tomb, like a monument to silence.
This place was not like this before. When the order was at its most prosperous, it was full of young nuns and servants coming and going.
After so many years, the order has barely recovered from the previous blow. The number of nuns has only reached half of what it once was, and there are still many recruits who still need to be trained.
Velez walked quickly down the quiet corridor to the room where she always went when she needed relief.