The forest seemed to thin as they approached the clearing. The air smelled older here, heavier, like it had been waiting for centuries. Leira stepped forward first, boots crunching over the leaf-filled ground. Every instinct in her body screamed caution, but she pushed forward anyway. The ground seemed to hum underneath her boots, a low vibration she almost mistook for her own heartbeat.
The trees around the clearing leaned in, their branches stilling as if they were listening. Even the wind felt muted, curling around her ankles like something alive, something curious. She swallowed, trying to ignore the sudden dryness in her mouth. Whatever lay ahead wasn't just old, it was aware. Watching. Waiting.
Cassian followed silently, his cloak brushing against the underbrush. Normally, he would have been quipping, teasing, or smirking at her impatience. But in this moment… nothing. Just quiet.
The moment they stepped fully into the center, the atmosphere shifted. The wind seemed to pause in mid air, as if even the forest was waiting to see what would happen next. Leira's chest tightened slightly, as if the ground itself were inhaling. She looked at Cassian. He had stopped mid-step, eyes locked on the center of the clearing.
"What is it? What are you looking at?" she asked, voice sharp, though curiosity tugged at her.
"Keep walking," he said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes. "Why? What's going on?"
"Leira. Move." His voice cracked just slightly, but enough for her to hear it. That was the first warning.
She stepped forward, cautiously, each footstep feeling heavier than the last. Cassian followed, silent but tense, like a predator on a leash.
Then it happened. The air shimmered, subtle at first. No sound. No sudden light. Just a faint distortion, like heat rising off the stone. And Cassian froze completely. The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. The birds that had been chirping moments before vanished into stillness, as though the entire forest understood something she didn't.
A faint ringing pressed at the edges of her hearing, soft but insistent, like a distant warning bell. Leira's fingers twitched toward her dagger out of habit, even though she knew a blade was useless against whatever had taken hold of him.
The air around Cassian tightened, as if wrapping him in an invisible grip.
His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, unfocused. His lips parted slightly, like he was trying to speak but couldn't.
Her stomach tightened at the sight. This wasn't the cold general she knew, this was someone stripped of all his walls.
"Cassian?" Leira whispered.
No response.
"Cassian. Can you hear me?" Her voice was firmer this time.
A shallow inhale, a shudder in his shoulders. Then one word, barely audible:
"No…"
It was young, terrified, and it made her stomach twist.
Leira's hands clenched. "Cassian, snap out of it. You're not there. You're here."
Nothing. His hands trembled violently beneath his cloak, making the fabric ripple. His body leaned slightly forward, as if reaching for something invisible.
She didn't know why, but the sight unnerved her more than the trap itself. Cassian was never gentle, never hesitant, never… reaching. The motion held a strange tenderness, almost protective, like he was trying to cradle something in his arms that wasn't there.
A cold prickle crawled up her arms. Whoever he thought he was reaching for, it wasn't her. It wasn't now. She stepped closer, her breath unsteady, trying to ground herself.
"Not again… please, not again…" The voice came from him, but it was someone else too. Shattered, haunted, and raw. The air around them felt heavier, almost metallic on her tongue, like the clearing was forcing her to taste his fear with him.
Leira's heart skipped a beat. She took a careful step closer. "Cassian… who are you talking to?"
No answer, only the whispers of the memory breaking through:
"…please… don't die…"
"…I didn't mean to… I didn't… please…"
Her skin prickled. The sound, the tone, it was his voice, but broken, lost.
Then one whisper made her blood run cold. It was her name. "…Leira…" Not the way he said it when alive, or annoyed, or frustrated. This was different. It was heavy. Weighted with grief.
A sudden flicker, a visual flash, tore through the edges of her vision. Cassian in another life, holding her limp body against his chest. It was brief, fragmented, but enough. Enough to know that he hadn't just been hunting her, killing her and waiting to start it all over again, he had also been mourning her.
Present Cassian flinched as if the memory had physically struck him. His reaction was sharp, violent, like someone had yanked a thread straight through his spine. His face twisted, fear, anger, grief, all tangled into one raw expression she had never imagined him capable of. For a moment, he didn't look like the Cassian she had ran from, fought, and hated. He looked younger. Softer. Breakable. The version of him that existed before the shadows took whatever they had taken.
Against her better judgment, Leira stepped closer instinctively. "Cassian… stop. You need to come back. Release it." Her fingers hovered just above his arm, close enough to feel the trembling in him even before she touched him. His breath came out in short, sharp bursts, barely holding himself together.
He shook his head violently, still frozen in place. "I can't… I can't lose her again…"
Leira's breath caught. She swallowed hard. "Cassian… look at me."
Slowly. Painfully. His gaze dragged toward her. His eyes were wide, glassy, lost in some past horror.
"You died…" His voice trembled. "And I killed you…"
The moment lingered, razor-sharp, suspended in the humid air of the clearing.
Leira put her hands firmly on his shoulders, not tenderly, but directly. "You didn't kill me. Not this time. I'm here."
His eyelids fluttered. The shallow shakes of his chest became a little steadier. She leaned closer, steadying her voice. "Look at me. I'm alive."
His chest finally released in a shaky exhale. The trap fractured, the tension snapping like thin glass. A faint ringing hung in the air, slowly fading. She could smell the damp soil beneath them, grounding her back into the present as she watched how hard he tried to steady his shaking hands.
Cassian fell forward, hands digging into the dirt to steady himself, knees hitting the ground. He gasped, like someone pulled him from water too deep.
Leira stayed frozen, unsure whether to reach for him or back away. His breathing was uneven, ragged, each inhale scraping like it hurt. Sweat clung to his hairline despite the evening chill. She watched the dirt crumble between his knuckles, watched the subtle tremor in his arms. The Cassian she knew didn't tremble. He didn't show pain. Seeing it now felt like witnessing a secret she wasn't meant to see.
Leira crouched a step away, hesitant.
"…Well. That was… uncomfortable," he said finally, his voice casual, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him.
"Uncomfortable?" she asked, flabbergasted. "You just…"
"I'm fine," he interrupted, sharper this time.
"No, you're…"
"I said I'm fine."
He shoved his cloak straight, wiping the emotion from his face like it was dirt, masking the fear he'd just displayed.
Leira stayed quiet, watching. She knew the truth. He wasn't fine.
And whatever he had seen that she didn't, whatever had haunted him in those flashes of memory, it wasn't something he was ready to speak of.
They moved forward in silence. The clearing stretched ahead, ancient stones etched with symbols, glyphs crawling along the edges in subtle relief. Leira slowed her steps without meaning to. The stones felt older up close, their surfaces cracked and worn like they had survived a hundred storms and still refused to fall. Moss grew in the grooves, glowing faintly with a pale green sheen that didn't come from the setting sun. The air smelled different here too, less like forest and more like forgotten places. Dust, old magic, and something faintly metallic, as if the ground remembered spilled blood.
She kept glancing at Cassian. He walked stiffly, shoulders tense, but not his usual arrogant self. Not teasing. Not mockery. Just… wounded, quiet, haunted.
The shadows of the trees lengthened, twisting in ways that felt deliberate, almost stalking. She felt the faint tug in her chest again, the lingering reminder that the ground was old, and it remembered. It wasn't a painful tug, but a familiar one, the kind that made her ribs tighten as though a thread inside her was being gently pulled.
She pressed a palm flat against her sternum, trying to steady herself. The sensation wasn't emotion; it was something external, something calling to her. For a moment, she wondered if the ritual ground recognized her too, recognized the power she carried, the choices she hadn't made yet, the death she had already lived through.
The moss under her boots seemed to have life, vibrating with a low intensity she wasn't sure if she was imagining. Every sense she had felt stretched thin, as if the forest was watching them both.
Her mind flicked back to the memory she had just witnessed, fragments of him she had never expected to see. The panic, the grief, the desperation in his voice, stripped of arrogance or charm.
And a single thought crossed her mind, dark and sharp:
She saw Cassian kill her over and over again, she saw the shadows turn him into this monster, but what about the man in there? What happened to him every time he had to watch her die? Every time he killed her?
She shook the thought away, forcing herself forward. They had to get to that particular circle…the one where Ari died.
Cassian's gaze remained fixed ahead, and every so often she caught him letting his hands tremble beneath his cloak, hidden from her. He had fought to keep them steady, but she had seen. She had seen the fragility of him that she didn't think still existed.
He didn't stop walking, he was silent, guarded... dare say…human, at last, in ways he would never admit. She wondered if this version of him, this raw, shaken man, had been there all along, buried beneath centuries of hardness. And that thought left an ache she didn't want to name…