Chapter One – Edgefield

The air shifted. The world fell silent — the kind of silence that feels like a held breath.

Something has been stirring quietly in the mist — a voice, a story, a girl who refuses to stay silent.
This is how her journey begins: in a field no one dares to cross, where the fog hums with ancient memory and the first secret of the Bridge reveals itself.

It was dawn. Over the vast, open field beyond the last farmhouse, the dense fog never lifted.
Just on the border with the Veiled Grove, the horizon was draped in a soft, silver mist.
Not much could be seen, save for the faint silhouettes of tall trees standing like silent sentinels at the Grove’s edge.
The grass sparkled with thick droplets of dew that glinted in the early light. It was always quiet here — as if the world were holding its breath.

The villagers called it Edgefield, though no one went near it except for the crows — or wolves, on occasion — and a tall, lanky girl who should have known better.

Rhiannon knelt in the wet grass, mud streaking her knees, though she did not seem to mind. Her eyes were fixed on the faint shimmer of light pulsing beyond the mist.
She was certain it wasn’t the sun — it was too pale for that. It fascinated her, how it looked almost alive, as though the breath of the Ancient Ones had been caught between worlds.

Her father used to walk with her here, across this field. He told her stories of the Ancient Ones, of animals that spoke and heroes who defied the gods.
How she had loved those tales.
He had also warned her that the fog was cursed — that it had swallowed men whole in the old wars.

Her mother, back when she still spoke, used to whisper a different story — that the mist was a veil. Between what and what, she never revealed, no matter how much Rhiannon begged.
Now, her mother said very little at all.

Rhiannon sighed and tightened her fingers around the pendant at her throat — a silver amulet etched with a crescent intertwined with a root. It had been her mother’s once, and was her most cherished possession.
The metal felt warm against her skin whenever fear found her. Today, it pulsed faintly — like a heartbeat echoing her own.

From behind her came an infuriated voice.
“Rhiannon! Come back here this instant!”

She didn’t need to look to know who it was — Branwen, her closest friend, the one she trusted with everything.
Branwen, the healer’s daughter, two years older and twice as cautious. Her plaits were uneven, her eyes wide with the kind of fear Rhiannon only half understood.

“I’ve been searching for you everywhere,” Branwen hissed. “One of these days, you’ll get yourself lost — or worse.”
Her fists clenched on her hips, her face flushed with the sharp intensity of her worry.

Rhiannon straightened, brushing dew from her palms.
“Calm yourself, Branwen. You can’t get lost in your own home.”

But she didn’t move closer either.
The mist had thickened, shifting like smoke between her and the forest. Somewhere within it, a sound stirred — a low, resonant hum, like something forgotten coming alive.

Branwen grabbed her sleeve. “Come on,” she urged, dread lacing her voice. “Your father’s been looking for you.”

At the mention of her father, Rhiannon’s stomach knotted.
She thought of the door slamming whenever the tavern bell rang, of the sharp scent of ale and the bitterness that followed him home.
She thought of her mother’s silence upstairs — her amber eyes turned to closed windows.
Her once joyful family had become a shadow of itself.

She looked at Branwen, eyes brimming with a sadness too old for her years.
“I’ll be right there,” she said softly. “I just want to see something first.”

Before Branwen could protest, Rhiannon took one step forward.
The air shifted. The world fell silent — the kind of silence that feels like a held breath.

For a fleeting moment, she saw it: an almost imperceptible shape in the mist. A line of wood. A faint arching curve.

A bridge.

Then Branwen’s hand yanked her back, and the vision dissolved.

They ran without looking back until the fog thinned, until the fields turned to gold again and the rooftops of their village came into view.
Only then did Rhiannon glance down. Her hand was still clutching the amulet like a lifeline. Its glow had faded — but not completely.

That night, when her mother called her name in her sleep, Rhiannon awoke to find the window wide open — and the humming mist rising invitingly beyond the sill.

Closing reflection

Some doors do not merely open — they are alive with ancient memory.
And when the mist stirred, Rhiannon’s story began to awaken.

Thank you for reading…✨

If this little story brought you a moment of stillness, I’m glad.
I believe silence is a kind of grace, and that stories, too, can offer us rest.

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Lia