Prologue: Written in Silence
Before the Library, There Was a Dream
They told her it was just a story.
A tale passed around the kitchens by firelight, traded in whispers between nursemaids and scullery girls—the kind of legend no royal blood should ever believe. But Evelara never forgot the way her heart ached the first time she heard it.
They said there was a hidden library, buried within the oldest part of Rhiston—the rival kingdom her family had feared and hated for generations. They said the library chose who could find it. And within its walls, resting on a pedestal of stone, sat a single enchanted book.
The Book of the Lost Heart.
It was said that only those who had been separated from their soul’s other half could open it. That someone—a stranger you were meant to love—could write to you within its pages. And if you were brave enough… you could write back.
Most dismissed it as nonsense. A bedtime tale.
Look Inside: Hiding in Plain Sight
But Evelara had always listened differently.
Because long before she ever heard the story… she had the dream. It began the same way every time:
A fog-covered battlefield. A man in worn armor, standing alone with his back to her.
She never saw his face, but his presence was always the same—like a memory she was never allowed to keep.
And then he’d say it—just before the dream slipped away.
“You’re not lost. You’re just hiding in plain sight.”
She’d wake gasping. Heart aching. Fingers reaching for someone who’d never been there.
Until one night, after the dream, she pressed her palm to the frost-covered window of her tower chamber… and saw something written in the fog:
Even if I never find you, I will write until you answer.
It was then that Evelara knew the story wasn’t just legend.
The book was real.
And he… whoever he was… was waiting.
