This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The morning mist clung to the ancient oaks like whispered secrets, each droplet catching the first rays of dawn and transforming them into tiny prisms of light. Lyralei had walked this path countless times since childhood, but today something felt different. The very air seemed to hum with an energy she couldn't quite place, as if the forest itself was holding its breath in anticipation.

She paused beside the Crystal Brook, where the water sang its eternal song over smooth river stones. Her reflection gazed back at her from the clear surface, silver hair cascading over her shoulders like moonlight made tangible. The pointed tips of her ears, so characteristic of her people, caught the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy above. At one hundred and twenty-three years old, she was still considered young by elven standards, though she often felt as ancient as the trees that surrounded her homeland of Ethereal Glen.

A sudden rustling in the undergrowth made her turn. From between the towering ferns emerged a figure she had never seen before, yet one that seemed strangely familiar. He was tall, even by elven standards, with hair the color of burnished copper that fell in gentle waves to his shoulders. His eyes, a deep forest green, met hers across the babbling brook, and Lyralei felt something shift within her chest, as if her heart had forgotten its rhythm for just a moment.

"Forgive me," he said, his voice carrying the musical quality common to their kind, yet with undertones she had never heard before. "I did not mean to startle you. I am... lost."

There was something in the way he spoke the last word that suggested he meant more than simply having misplaced his way through the forest. Lyralei found herself stepping closer to the water's edge, drawn by an invisible thread she could neither see nor understand.