(Lyra's POV)
My soul burst into a thousand golden pieces.
That's what it felt like when Kael's shadow magic crashed into my dragon fire. Not pain exactly, but like every part of me was being pulled apart and put back together in a totally different order.
And then the world stopped breathing.
Everything around us froze like someone had turned life into a picture. The frightened people became motionless statues. The fallen leaves hung in the air like green jewels. Even the smoke from the destroyed devils stopped moving.
But Kael and I could still move, still think, still stare at each other with shock and wonder.
"What just happened?" he whispered, his silver eyes wide with surprise.
I tried to answer, but suddenly I could see things that shouldn't be possible. Golden threads were everywhere, linking every person to every other person like a giant invisible web. But the link between Kael and me wasn't golden.
It was pure white light, so bright it hurt to look at.
"I can see our connection," I breathed. "It's not like other people's threads. It's... old."
Kael looked down at his hands, and I gasped. His shadow magic wasn't dark anymore. It was silver, flowing around his fingers like liquid stars. When it touched my golden fire, instead of fighting each other, the two magics danced together like old friends.
"This is impossible," he said. "Shadow and dragon magic are meant to destroy each other. They're complete opposites."
"Maybe that's what everyone believes," I said slowly. "But what if they're wrong? What if shadow and dragon power were always meant to work together?"
As I spoke, images that weren't mine started flooding into my mind. I saw a huge castle made of black stone and golden flames. I saw myself wearing a crown that sparkled with both shadow and fire. I saw Kael beside me, not as an enemy, but as my partner, my equal, my... "Husband," I whispered, the word slipping out before I could stop it.
Kael's face went totally white. "What did you just say?"
"I'm seeing memories that can't be mine. Memories of us ruling together. Of being married. Of having powers that could change entire kingdoms." I reached out and touched his face, and his skin felt familiar under my fingers. "Kael, I think we've done this before."
"That's crazy," he said, but his voice was shaking. "People don't just remember past lives."
"People don't just freeze time either, but we're doing that too." I pointed around us at the motionless world. "Something about us is different. Something that goes deeper than this lifetime."
Kael closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were sparkling with silver light. "I can feel it too. Like there's another person inside me, someone who knows you better than I know myself."
The white thread linking us began to pulse like a heartbeat, and with each pulse, more memories flooded through both of us. I saw us as children, playing in grounds filled with impossible flowers. I saw us as teens, learning magic from teachers who looked like living stars. I saw us as adults, standing together against troops of creatures made from pure nightmare.
But I also saw us dying. Over and over again.
"Someone keeps killing us," I realized with fear. "Every time we find each other, every time we remember who we are, someone murders us before we can fulfill our destiny."
"What destiny?" Kael asked, though I could see in his eyes that he was starting to remember too.
"To join the shadow realm and the dragon realm. To become the bridge between light and dark magic." I felt tears running down my face as more memories came back. "We're not just regular people who happened to fall in love. We're the reincarnation of the first Shadow King and Dragon Queen."
Kael stumbled backward like I had hit him. "The Shadow King and Dragon Queen are tales. Fairy tales parents tell their children."
"Are they?" I held out my hand, and golden fire danced across my palm. But now I could see that it wasn't just fire. It was pure creative magic, the power to make new worlds. "Look at your shadows, Kael. Really look at them."
He glanced down at his hands, and his silver magic spun around his fingers like living silk. As we both watched, the shadows began forming shapes - tiny dragons made of darkness, flying around his hands in perfect circles.
"Shadow dragons," he breathed. "I'm creating shadow dragons."
"Because that's what you've always been able to do," I said gently. "You're the Shadow King, the ruler of the world between life and death. And I'm the Dragon Queen, the guardian of the world between dreams and reality."
The frozen world around us began to shimmer, and I realized that time was getting ready to start moving again. Whatever magic had created this moment was disappearing.
"When time starts again, we'll forget some of this," I said quickly. "The memories will fade until we're ready to remember everything. But we can't let that stop us from working together."
"Working together to do what?" Kael asked.
"To stop the person who's been killing us." I grabbed his hands, and our united magic sent shockwaves through the frozen air. "Her name is Morwyn, and she's not just a witch. She's something much worse."
"What could be worse than a witch powerful enough to kill people across multiple lifetimes?"
I took a deep breath, remembering the most frightening truth of all. "She's not from our world, Kael. She's from the space between worlds, the void where magic goes to die. And she's trying to destroy all magic everywhere by killing the two people who can make new types of power."
"Us," he said softly.
"Us." I felt time beginning to move again, like a big clock getting ready to start ticking. "When we wake up from this, promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me you'll believe what you feel in your heart, even if your mind tells you it's impossible. Promise me you'll remember that we've loved each other before, and we can love each other again."
Kael's silver eyes locked onto mine. "I promise. But Lyra, what if we're not strong enough this time? What if she kills us again before we can stop her?"
I smiled, feeling more confident than I had since my return. "Then we'll come back again. And again. And again. Until we finally win."
Time snapped back into action like a rubber band, and the world exploded with sound and movement around us. People were still yelling about the demons. Guards were running toward us. The event was in complete chaos.
But I barely noticed any of it because something impossible was happening.
The older versions of ourselves - the ones who had stepped through the reality cracks - were still there. Which meant they weren't just images or memories.
They were real.
And they were walking straight toward us with expressions that mixed hope and fear in equal amounts.
"Hello, little sister," the older Lyra said again, her voice carrying power that made the air itself quiver. "I'm sorry to interrupt your awakening, but we have a problem."
"What kind of problem?" I asked, though I was pretty sure I didn't want to know the answer.
The older Kael stepped forward, his shadow crown flickering with nervousness. "Morwyn isn't just trying to kill you in this reality. She's trying to kill you in all realities. Every version of you that has ever existed or ever will exist."
My heart stopped. "That's impossible."
"We thought so too," the older Lyra said sadly. "Until we watched her erase seventeen different versions of us from seventeen different worlds."
She pointed behind her, and I saw something that made my blood freeze. The cracks in reality weren't closing. They were getting bigger. And through them, I could see other worlds - worlds where everything was on fire, worlds covered in ice, worlds where the sky was falling like broken glass.
"She's not just destroying magic," the older Kael explained. "She's ruining reality itself. World by world, timeline by timeline."
I looked at the regular Kael standing beside me, and I could see the same fear in his eyes that I felt in my heart.
"How many worlds are left?" I whispered.
The older versions of ourselves shared a look that told me everything I needed to know.
"Including this one?" the older Lyra said quietly. "Three."
And as if summoned by our talk, a new voice spoke from behind us - a voice like breaking glass and dying stars.
"Make that two," Morwyn said with a laugh that made flowers wilt and birds fall from the sky. "I just finished with the timeline where you tried to hide in the past."
I turned around to face our endless enemy, and what I saw made me want to scream.
She wasn't alone anymore.
Standing behind her were dozens of figures in black robes - figures that looked exactly like twisted versions of me and Kael from different timelines. Versions where we had failed, where the void magic had claimed us, where we had become servants of the very force we were meant to fight.
"Meet your fallen selves," Morwyn said with joy. "They're going to help me kill the last few versions of you who still think love can save the world."