"The heart remembers what the mind forgets even when it no longer beats as its own."
The air inside the church turned heavy, thick with the scent of ash and iron. Every breath I took tasted like smoke. The last Warden stepped closer, his face hidden beneath the cracked halo of light hovering above him.
Elias moved in front of me, one arm outstretched as if his body alone could block the world. His wings flickered, damaged but still beautiful, their edges trailing embers that burned without heat.
"That shard," he muttered, his voice low and tense. "It doesn't belong here."
The Warden's smile was a wound. "Neither does she."
And before I could react, he hurled the shard straight at me.
I didn't think. I reached out instinct, panic, both and caught it in midair.
The moment my fingers touched its surface, everything went silent.
The church vanished.
The rain. The candles. Even Elias's voice.
All gone.
Instead, I stood on a battlefield of glass and fire. Armies clashed in the distance not of this era, not of any era I knew. A sea of banners, each marked with a sun split in half.
And there, on a hill of bones, stood her.
Lady Ariselle.
My heart stopped.
She looked just like the fragments I'd seen in dreams armor torn, silver hair matted with blood, her sword glowing faintly in the storm.
When her eyes met mine, it was like falling into a mirror that remembered everything I wanted to forget.
"You shouldn't have taken it," she said softly. Her voice wasn't angry it was mournful. "That shard binds what was meant to stay undone."
"I didn't mean to"
"You always say that."
I froze. "What?"
She stepped closer, and the battlefield rippled like a reflection in disturbed water. "You always say that, every time the cycle begins again. Every time you find him."
I felt my throat tighten. "Elias."
Her expression softened. "You loved him once. You will love him again. And each time, the world suffers for it."
The words struck deeper than any blade.
"Why?" I asked. "Why does it have to be like this?"
"Because love," she said, "was the only thing the gods could never control so they cursed it instead."
The battlefield trembled. Cracks spread beneath our feet, light spilling from them like veins of molten gold.
"Ariselle!" I shouted. "If I'm you, then why am I still me?"
She looked at me, and for a brief moment, I saw the flicker of pity in her eyes.
"Because you haven't remembered everything yet."
Then the world shattered.
The light rushed back, slamming into my chest, burning like liquid fire. I gasped, collapsing onto the cold stone floor of the church. The shard lay in my palm, pulsing faintly.
Elias was kneeling beside me, his hand on my shoulder. "Aiden! Talk to me."
I opened my eyes, vision swimming. "She was there. I saw her."
His expression turned sharp. "Ariselle?"
I nodded weakly. "She said the shard binds something that should've stayed undone."
Elias's jaw tightened. "Then it's worse than I thought."
"What do you mean?"
He glanced toward the Warden or what was left of him. The man had turned to ash, his halo broken into dust. Only the faint echo of his last words remained in the air.
"You've already lost her once this time, she stays buried."
Elias looked back at me, eyes burning. "They're not trying to kill you, Aiden. They're trying to seal you again."
My pulse quickened. "Seal me?"
"Your body," he said grimly, "isn't just a vessel. It's a lock. And that shard" he pointed to the crystal glowing in my hand "is the first key."
I stared at it, the weight of his words settling like stone in my chest.
"I don't want this," I whispered. "I didn't ask for any of it."
"I know." Elias's voice softened. "But fate doesn't ask. It just chooses."
The rain outside had stopped, but thunder still echoed faintly in the distance, rolling like an old god turning in its sleep. Inside the abandoned church, only the soft hum of the shard filled the silence.
Elias crouched in front of me, eyes focused on the faint glow between my fingers. "That crystal shouldn't even exist anymore," he murmured. "The last time it surfaced, it nearly tore the veil open."
"The veil?" I asked.
He hesitated before answering. "The boundary between what lives and what remembers. Between this world and the echo that still clings to it."
I blinked, trying to steady my breath. "You mean the past?"
"I mean her," he said quietly. "Ariselle's essence your essence was supposed to fade. But the shard anchors it. Keeps it alive inside you."
I stared down at my hands. They were shaking. The glow from the shard reflected in my skin, painting veins of gold across my palms like cracks in glass.
"So I'm her ghost?" I whispered.
Elias shook his head. "No. You're both. That's what makes it dangerous."
He stood, pacing toward the altar. His coat brushed the stone floor, leaving faint scorch marks where his boots touched. "When you awakened that power earlier, it wasn't just magic it was memory trying to take control. If Ariselle's consciousness fully merges with yours, you won't just remember her life. You'll become her again."
I felt the weight of the words settle inside me, heavy and cold. "And what happens to me if that happens?"
He turned, his expression unreadable. "You disappear."
The silence between us stretched long and thin.
I wanted to be angry, to shout that none of this was fair but instead, a quiet sadness filled me. Because deep down, I already felt it happening.
Every dream, every flicker of emotion that didn't belong to me it was her whisper, growing louder each day.
"I saw her," I said again, my voice trembling. "On a battlefield. She looked at me like she already knew this would happen."
"She always does," Elias said softly, almost to himself. "Every life, every time, she reaches for me and the curse starts again."
He stepped closer until he was only a breath away. "That's why I tried to stay away this time. Why I fought it. Because I know how it ends."
His eyes burned, the gold in them pulsing like dying embers. "You die, Aiden. Every time, you die saving me."
The words cut deeper than any magic. "And you still saved me," I whispered.
"Because I'm weak," he said bitterly. "Because even knowing it's doomed, I can't stop."
His hand rose as if to touch my face, but he stopped halfway. His fingers trembled, hovering in the air between us. "You have no idea how much I've missed you."
Something inside me cracked open at that. Without thinking, I reached up and took his hand, pressing it against my cheek. It was warm too warm, like holding a flame that didn't burn.
For a heartbeat, everything was still. The shard dimmed. The candles flickered softly.
Then lightning flashed outside. The glass windows shattered inward, shards raining down like a storm of knives.
Elias spun, his wings flaring open to shield me. But the air had already changed. The temperature dropped, frost crawling up the walls of the church.
A voice echoed through the hall, familiar yet wrong.
It was the same voice that had spoken from the shard.
"You were warned, Thorn. The lock has been broken, and now the door will open again."
The altar split in two. Beneath it, an old stone sigil began to glow a circle of runes burning white.
Elias's face went pale. "No," he breathed. "Not here."
"What is it?" I shouted over the rising wind.
"The seal," he said. "They're breaking the second one."
The shard in my hand pulsed violently, as if responding. The glow crawled up my wrist, burning patterns into my skin. I tried to drop it, but it wouldn't fall it was fusing to me.
"Elias!"
He grabbed me, his arms wrapping around my shoulders. His heartbeat was erratic, panicked. "Listen to me, Aiden. No matter what happens, don't let go of yourself. You hear me?"
Before I could answer, the sigil flared. A column of light erupted from the floor, swallowing us both.
For a single instant, I saw everything the war, the fire, the crown of light on Ariselle's head as she fell, Elias kneeling beside her, covered in blood.
And then darkness took us.