Born to Ava and Gabriel aboard the Haven’s Vanguard, Aeris spends her early years in peaceful exile on Aurora’s edge—until her parents vanish, forcing her into a new life under a hidden name. Raised by Jenna, her mentor and second mother, Aeris navigates suspicion, legacy, and awakening powers in a world recovering from mutation, where identity can be both a shield and a curse.
The wind carried no spores here. Only frost.
It swept over the decks of the Haven’s Vanguard, a ship drifting above the world’s scars. There, a girl was born to a mother and father who had survived more than most and finally chosen rest. Her first memories were of recycled air, the low hum of engines, her mother’s hands guiding her through narrow halls, her father double-checking the locks each night.
In time, they left the carrier for the outskirts of Aurora—a settlement carved from snow and stone, where life was quieter and days were measured by small joys: a greenhouse coaxed to life under UV lamps, neighbors who nodded in passing, friends who understood the value of silence.
Here, Ava and Gabriel were not legends, but parents. Their daughter grew among people who remembered the old stories, but who chose not to ask questions. In Aurora, trust was a kind of currency, and for a time, Aeris’s life was simple, her family whole.
But peace in Aurora was always fragile.
One winter, her parents were gone—called away, or lost, or taken. The truth was never clear. Afterward, it was as if the season had changed overnight—her parents gone, routines scattered, the silence in their rooms colder than the snow outside.
Afterward, Aeris was sent back to the Vanguard, this time as Jenna’s ward. It was there, among new rules and unfamiliar faces, that her history was quietly erased.
Jenna called it protection. At first, it felt like exile. But Jenna’s steady presence became something gentler—a guide, a protector, almost a mother. It was a bond neither of them named, but both began to trust.
Years later, Aeris returned to Aurora—not as a child, but as a student among strangers, living beneath the quiet weight of a new surname, a new identity. She moved through corridors and classrooms, another face in the crowd—never the girl from stories, never the daughter of anyone special.
Neighbors called her quiet. Teachers marked her present.
No one ever asked about the missing years, or the names she’d left behind.
She learned to bear the weight of two lives.
The one she was given.
And the one she could never let anyone see.
Because in a world stitched together by memory and frost, some secrets are too deep to thaw.