"He didn't tell me his name. But I said it anyway… like I'd been saying it for lifetimes."
- - - - -
The apartment door swung open with a groan, the hallway light spilling across the hardwood like a tired yawn. Talia Cruz kicked off her heels with a grunt and flopped onto the couch, arms spread wide like she'd been slain by the weight of the night.
Liora trailed in behind her, quieter, her posture wound tight. She dropped her keys into the ceramic dish by the door, the clink louder than it should've been in the silence that followed.
"Okay," Talia exhaled, still sprawled like a crime scene. "That was officially the weirdest night of bartending we've ever had. Blackout, drunk girl on the DJ booth, and that dude who asked for a dragon fruit martini with stardust."
Liora didn't answer.
She moved like someone else was pulling her strings — stiff, mechanical. Her face was blank, but not from exhaustion. It was a silence that hummed with tension, like the moment before thunder.
Talia sat up slowly, eyes narrowing as she tracked her best friend's movements.
"You good?"
"Yeah," Liora replied too fast, too flat. "Just tired."
"Mmm," Talia said, unconvinced. "You've been staring into the void since we left the club. And your 'just tired' face usually doesn't look like you saw a ghost trying to ask you out."
Liora peeled off her jacket, tossing it onto the hook with more force than needed. She crossed to the small kitchen, opened the fridge, stared into it like salvation might be hiding behind the almond milk. But all she saw was her own hazy reflection in the steel surface.
And those eyes… they didn't feel like hers anymore.
"It was just a long night," she muttered.
"Nope. I'm not buying that, and you suck at lying when you're shook. Spill."
Talia leaned forward, elbows on knees. "What happened?"
Liora closed the fridge. Her hand lingered on the handle.
What could she even say?
Some guy showed up during the blackout. Looked at me like I was the last thing he'd been searching centuries for. Touched my wrist and my body remembered dying in his arms. And then he vanished like smoke.
Yeah. That wouldn't sound crazy at all.
"Nothing happened," she said softly.
The words didn't ring true even to herself.
She retreated to her room before Talia could press further. The door clicked shut behind her with finality.
Inside, the small space pulsed with quiet. The city beyond the window buzzed in the rain - faint, electric, restless. The thunderstorm hadn't broken yet, but the clouds were still hanging heavy, like the sky itself was holding its breath.
Liora stripped out of her bar uniform, fingers brushing across the thin strap of her tank top. The crescent.
She paused. Her eyes dropped to the mark just under her collarbone — faint but unmistakable. It had always been there. A strange birthmark. She used to joke it made her look like she belonged in a fantasy novel.
But tonight… tonight it felt hot. Not burning, not painful, just awake.
She stood in front of her mirror, towel around her shoulders, hair damp from the quick shower she'd taken to scrub off the night. Her eyes, hazel in the low light, stared back.
But something shimmered beneath the surface.
Not in the mirror. In her.
Like there was another version of her pressing just beneath the skin.
Her lips parted slightly. She leaned closer, watching her breath fog the glass. She looked tired, yes. But there was more.
Like the Liora she knew had taken one step back… and someone else had taken her place.
"What the hell is wrong with me…" she murmured.
Behind her, the lamp flickered.
Just once. Then settled.
She turned away before she could start imagining things.
Talia knocked gently once before easing the door open.
"Hey. Not to be annoying… but you're seriously freaking me out. You haven't said ten words in the last hour, and I watched you stare at the fridge like it owed you money."
Liora gave a dry chuckle, but didn't turn.
"I just… something weird happened."
"Okay, now we're talking. Spill."
Liora inhaled. Let the breath out slow.
"There was a man. On the rooftop. During the blackout."
"You mean that weird-ass tall guy who looked like he stepped out of a vampire catalog?"
Liora blinked, turning to her. "You saw him?"
Talia's brow furrowed. "I mean… I saw someone. Tall. Shadowy. Hot in that I'll-murder-you-with-my-eyes way. But when the lights came back, poof. Gone. I figured I imagined it. Or that my period's coming and my hormones were hallucinating."
Liora said nothing.
Talia stared at her for a beat longer, then her gaze dropped.
"Wait… your mark. It's glowing."
Liora glanced down.
Sure enough, the crescent shimmered faintly. A golden pulse beneath the skin, like some buried ember trying to breathe again.
"That's new," Talia said, taking a step back. "Should I call a witch? Or a doctor? Or an exorcist?"
"Don't," Liora said quickly, covering it. "It's probably just… a reaction. Stress. Or maybe the lighting—"
"Girl, that's not fluorescent lighting. That's you. You're radiating."
They stood there, the rain tapping harder against the windows, the silence stretching thin and brittle between them.
Finally, Talia backed off.
"Okay. Okay. You don't have to tell me everything. Yet. But promise me one thing?"
"What?"
"If you start floating or speaking Latin backward, give me a heads up."
Liora actually laughed — a short, breathless sound, but real. She nodded.
"Deal."
Talia gave her a last look, then retreated, closing the door gently behind her.
---
Left alone again, Liora sat at the edge of her bed.
Her fingers unconsciously brushed her mark, the heat had dulled, but it still thrummed faintly beneath her touch. Not pain. Not fear.
Recognition.
Like a name you forgot you knew. Like a memory that belongs to someone else, but lives in your bones anyway.
She lay back, arm over her eyes, trying to will her heart to slow. But every time she blinked, she saw his eyes.
Cold. Silver. Endless.
And the way he looked at her…
Like he was remembering her.
Or mourning her.
Sleep feels like falling, she thought again.
And tonight… I'm not sure I'd wake up the same.
She didn't remember falling asleep.
No conscious shift. No exhale to mark the crossing. One blink and the ceiling of her apartment dissolved into firelight and stone.
Now she stood barefoot in a great, ruined hall — a cathedral of shadows.
The air was wrong. Still, yet thick with movement. Ash drifted like snow, but it didn't fall from the sky. It rose. As if time itself had reversed.
Above her, the sky was broken a vast canvas of bleeding clouds and shattered moonlight. Stars blinked like dying embers through cracks in reality. The wind carried screams that sounded too distant to name, like a war being fought at the edge of memory.
The floor beneath her was black marble, veined with silver, smeared in what she knew wasn't water.
Liora turned slowly.
Not a dream.
A memory.
But not hers.
Not exactly.
There was blood on the altar steps ahead. A throne stood empty behind it cracked straight down the center, as though it had been split by a god's fury. Around her were statues once regal, now faceless, their features eroded by battle or time.
And then she saw him.
A man, on his knees, alone in the carnage.
The sight of him stopped her breath.
His armor was torn across the chest, metal bent inward where something massive had struck him. A silver blade had been driven into his side, sunk deep - a cruel, deliberate wound, not meant to kill swiftly.
Blood black, with a shimmer of silver pooled around him, spreading like ink across the marble. Yet he didn't fall. Didn't collapse. He remained kneeling, like some broken statue holding vigil over the dead.
And still… her feet moved.
Each step toward him felt ancient.
She didn't run.
She remembered.
Even as her mind screamed she didn't know him, her soul walked with purpose.
"You—"
Her voice cracked in her throat, soft and hoarse.
"Are you…?"
He lifted his head.
And everything inside her shifted.
Those eyes.
Silver and moonlit. Bleeding regret. They found her in the silence and didn't let go.
Recognition. Pain. A thousand lifetimes of both.
Her knees gave way, and she dropped before him, not from weakness, but instinct.
She reached for him, her hand trembling above his chest. She didn't know what she was reaching for — comfort, power, the answer to a question she hadn't known to ask.
His lips parted.
Words nearly rose.
But before he could speak—
"Kael," she whispered.
The name rolled out of her like a forgotten prayer.
His expression broke.
And it was devastating.
His hand — heavy, shaking rose and cupped her cheek, fingers smeared in blood. The moment his skin touched hers, a surge of something old and golden rushed between them.
Not just magic.
Memory.
Her. Him. Falling. Burning. Dying.
"My ruin…" he rasped, his voice a knife dulled by grief.
"You came back."
Tears stung her eyes, sudden and inexplicable.
His hand trembled where it touched her.
"I thought I imagined you this time," he whispered, voice fraying. "I thought I died with you."
"What happened to us?" she asked, unable to stop herself.
"What did we lose?"
"Everything."
The word didn't just echo — it tore through the walls.
And suddenly, the dream began to burn.
The windows burst outward with invisible force.
The banners overhead curled in on themselves, catching fire without flame.
The ground beneath them rumbled a deep, growling sound, like a beast beneath the marble awakening.
She gasped and turned.
Behind them, a wave of black fire was rushing forward — climbing the walls, devouring the sky, peeling the stars into dust.
He coughed. Blood spilled onto his lips.
Still, he held her.
Still, he looked only at her.
"You have to go," he said through clenched teeth.
"This time… you have to live."
"No," she breathed.
"Not without you."
She grabbed his wrist.
Fire met fire.
The black wave collided with the temple walls.
And the world shattered.
---
Liora gasped awake.
Her chest arched up from the bed, lungs grasping for air that no longer carried smoke. Her sheets were drenched in sweat. Her fingers ached — clenched tightly over her heart, her nails digging into the fabric of her tank top.
It was still dark.
The clock blinked at 4:17 a.m.
Rain tapped the window like fingers trying to remind her of reality.
But she wasn't in reality yet. Not fully.
Her mouth moved before she could stop it.
"Kael…"
The name came softly.
But the weight of it nearly knocked her breathless again.
She stared at the ceiling.
Heart racing.
Mind blank.
Soul screaming.
That name wasn't new. It wasn't made up.
She knew it.
Felt it.
And somewhere, deep inside her… a voice whispered:
You've always known him.
You've always died for him.
And maybe… this time, you'll live.
Rain tapped gently at the window, as if the sky itself was trying not to wake her.
The city outside was muted, no traffic, no voices, just the rhythmic hush of a storm too soft to matter but too steady to ignore. It bled through the cracks in the window frame, painting the room in streaks of blue-gray light.
Liora lay still.
Her sheets tangled around her legs, her breathing shallow. One hand gripped her pillow, the other curled beneath her collarbone fingers pressed unconsciously over the faint, crescent shaped birthmark that still pulsed like it remembered something she didn't.
"Kael…"
The name left her lips in a whisper, more breath than sound.
But even that whisper made the air around her feel heavier.
She sat up slowly, hair clinging to her temple with the heat of her restless sleep. The apartment was quiet. Talia's door was closed, her presence a distant hum somewhere beyond the wall.
And yet… Liora felt watched.
She reached for the water bottle beside her bed, hands trembling slightly. Her throat was dry, her heart still stuttering from the dream, if that's what it even was. Something about it clung to her like wet silk. Not just a memory, not quite a vision. It was something else.
Older. Deeper. Like a scar under her skin had been reopened.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Rain trickled down the windowpane, tracing lines she found herself absently following with her gaze. There was something soothing in its pattern a rhythm to the storm that almost reminded her of—
No.
She cut the thought short.
Liora stood and moved toward the mirror above her dresser. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet. She stared at herself, half-expecting someone else to be looking back.
Her reflection didn't help.
Her eyes looked… sharper. Brighter. Or maybe just more tired. Hazel, but rimmed in a ring of gold that hadn't been there yesterday. She leaned closer, blinking.
And there — just for a heartbeat — they glowed.
Faint. Barely there. But undeniably real.
"What the hell…"
She stepped back, chest tight.
The crescent on her collarbone flared briefly with warmth, and she tugged down the strap of her tank top to look. Nothing visible. Not glowing. Not burning. Just… her skin.
Still, she felt it.
Like a hum beneath her bones.
Like it was waiting for something.
She grabbed her phone, scrolled through her messages. Nothing. No missed calls. No strange numbers. No mysterious strangers named Kael. Not even in her call history. No photos from last night either — and she always took at least one. It was like the rooftop never happened.
"Did I imagine him?"
But that didn't explain the mark.
Or the dream.
Or the fact that even now, her mouth still remembered his name like it was her own.
She opened her notes app and typed the name out.
Kael.
Just seeing it sent a chill racing across her arms.
She tried to remember what he'd said. Not in the dream — at the club. On that rooftop. Right before the lights came back on. Right before he vanished.
"Found you… again."
Again.
That word echoed through her like thunder.
Why again?
She'd never seen him before — not in this life.
Not at the bar.
Not on campus.
Not in the goddamn city.
And yet…
She pressed her fingertips to the mirror, watching her reflection mimic the motion.
"Why do I know that name?" she whispered, eyes fixed on her own.
Then behind her, a door creaked.
She turned just as Talia stepped into the hall, rubbing her eyes, curls frizzy from sleep.
"You're up early," Talia mumbled. "Didn't think I'd see you conscious before eight unless the apartment was on fire."
Liora blinked. "Couldn't sleep."
"No kidding," her best friend muttered, padding barefoot into the kitchen and grabbing a mug. "You were talking in your sleep."
Liora froze.
"What?"
Talia looked over her shoulder, brow furrowed. "Yeah. Around four-ish. You were mumbling something. Like... crying? But also… saying a name."
"What name?"
Talia poured her coffee.
"Kael, I think? Kahl? Kyle? Something dramatic-sounding."
The world tilted.
Liora sat back on the edge of her bed, knees suddenly weak.
"That's not—"
She shook her head. "That's not possible. I didn't even know that name until…"
"Until what?"
Liora didn't answer.
Couldn't.
Because she didn't know when the knowing began.
All she knew was that the name was in her bones now. Like a truth that had always been there — just waiting for the right night, the right storm, the right stranger to say:
Found you… again.