Tethers to Gaia (Book)

Prologue - Dream of Spirals and Stars
I knew I was dreaming; the way part of your mind can stand aside and watch the rest unfold. In the dream I stood in an endless dusk, barefoot on warm stone etched with faint lines. No—spirals. Hundreds, locking together across the stone like a sleeping labyrinth. Each whorl glowed a soft silver, as if lit from below by embers that never cooled. The light beat in a slow rhythm, like a heartbeat older than my own.

Above, the sky was a blue so deep it nearly tipped into black. Pinpoints of starlight burned in unfamiliar constellations; a swirling band of pale light—almost like the Milky Way of old legends—stretched from horizon to horizon. I felt small beneath that sky, smaller than I’d ever felt, as if I were standing at the very edge of the universe. Yet I wasn’t afraid. An undertone rose through the stone into my feet, carrying a warmth that quickened my heart. It was the same feeling I’d get when Nyla pressed close for reassurance, or when I laid a hand on her flank: a sense of connection, invisible but alive.

In the far distance, something shimmered. I squinted, and the stars above me spiraled downwards, coalescing into a shape. A figure? It was impossible to tell how far away or how large it was. One moment it seemed a towering silhouette at the horizon; the next, as small as a figurine turning in my hand. Its edges were blurred, made of the same shifting light as the spirals under my feet. Not human, was my only thought. The outline was wrong—too elongated, and crowned with what looked like horns or antlers of branching light. It raised an arm (or was it a wing?) and the spirals on the ground flared in response, turning from silver to a pale, shimmering gold. The vibration in the stone climbed, resonating up my legs, through my chest, until it was in my skull and heart at once.

The figure of light leaned closer. I couldn’t see eyes, couldn’t see a face—just a brightness shaped like a person, standing at the center of a vast spiral. When it spoke, the voice was everywhere and nowhere, a whisper inside my blood: “Awakened…” The word echoed, not in the air but in me, ringing down the spiral lines like a bell tone. I tried to speak back, to ask Awakened what? but my throat made no sound. The golden spirals quickening now, matching the thunder of my heart. I took a step forward, hand outstretched toward the distant figure.

Suddenly the ground cracked. Thin fissures snaked out from where my bare foot had pressed too hard on the glowing design. Light burst from the breaks in the stone—blinding white light that lanced up around me. The undertone snapped into a sharp chime that made my teeth ache. I stumbled, throwing up an arm to shield my eyes. For an instant, I saw those cracks in the ground as something else: veins of memory, like shattered mirror-glass, each one writhing with images I didn’t understand. A great beast’s eye, closing for the last time. A line of figures standing under a torn sky. Four pillars of light on a field of black. They flooded my mind faster than I could hold them.

I gasped and woke, my chest heaving.

Dawn light was filtering through the canvas of my tent, painting everything in familiar amber. My blankets were tangled around my legs, damp with sweat. I sat up slowly, running a trembling hand over my face. Just a dream. My heart was still pounding, and when I pressed my palm to my sternum I half expected to feel that strange warmth under my skin. But it was only my own racing heartbeat.

For a few breaths I just listened to the morning: canvas ropes creaking, a few early birds chirping in the bramble thicket nearby, the soft snort of a creature somewhere outside (probably one of the tethered mounts stirring with the sunrise). All normal. All real. I inhaled, the air cool in my lungs, and exhaled the last of the panic.

I tried to recall the fading details of the dream—the spirals of light, the silhouette in the sky, that single whispered word. Awakened. What had it meant? I couldn’t grasp it fully now; it slipped away like dew drying under the sun. Only an echo of that warmth in my chest remained, and the faint impression of those swirling patterns on stone. I shook my head, as if I could shake off the unreality clinging to me.

“Just a dream,” I murmured under my breath, pushing aside the bedroll. My legs still felt unsteady as I stood. Outside, someone was stoking a fire and the smell of morning broth drifted in. In the waking world, today was important—no time to dwell on strange nightmares. I splashed a bit of water on my face from the basin, letting the cold shock me fully alert. The reflection that blinked up from the water rippled and resolved into my own brown eyes, nose, mouth—ordinary and determined.

No mysterious figures. No glowing spirals.

I rubbed my forearm absently as I dressed, fingers tracing an old birthmark there—a faint circular mark on the inside of my left arm. It had always been there, a tiny spiral-shaped blemish half-hidden under my sleeve. My mother used to joke it meant Gaia gave me a “thumbprint” at birth. As I laced my tunic, I realized I was tracing that little spiral over and over without thinking. I forced myself to stop and rolled my sleeves down tight. Enough. The morning chill was dissipating, and reality felt solid beneath my boots again.

By the time I stepped out of my tent to greet the day, the dream had already begun to fade from my mind, unmentioned and soon forgotten.