She found a quiet ledge above the main cavern—jagged stone overlooking the abyss below. Cold wind blew through a crack in the rock, carrying with it the scent of ash and old fire.
Sarya curled her arms around her knees and stared into the dark.
Something in her chest was glowing.
Not physically—no mark, no flame—but deep inside, as if her soul had been lit like a lantern.
She could feel her heartbeat in two rhythms. Hers… and someone else's.
And worse—her memories were no longer only hers.
She remembered Kael's voice, not from the present but from lifetimes ago. Calling her Aelira. Whispering promises by candlelight. Fighting beside her. Loving her.
And dying for her.
Or maybe… she had died for him.
Her hands trembled.
"I don't want this," she whispered. "I'm not her. I didn't choose this."
But a voice stirred again in her mind.
Not a command. A suggestion.
You were never meant to be only one thing.
She clenched her jaw. "Then what am I?"
The answer came not in words but in sensation: the feeling of standing on the edge of a battlefield with wings of fire unfurled… and knowing the world would burn if she stepped forward.
She stood.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Rage churned in her belly. Not all of it was hers.
"I don't want to love him."
But even as she said it, her fingers reached for the locket hidden under her tunic.
Inside it—a tiny glyph. One Kael had carved days ago to protect her. She hadn't even realized how often she touched it until now.
Memories are only chains if you let them bind you.
Sarya gritted her teeth and crushed the glyph in her fist.
She would not be a vessel.
Not for fate. Not for love. And not for the flame that wanted to consume her.
---
Behind her, Kael had silently climbed the ledge. He said nothing.
Just watched.
Sarya felt him before she saw him. His presence stirred that second heartbeat into a crescendo.
She didn't turn. But her voice was low.
"What happens if I become her again?"
Kael's answer was soft.
"Then I'll remember how to love her. Or I'll stop you, if I have to."
She finally looked at him.
"And if I'm both?"
Kael met her gaze. His eyes flickered with fire—but not the wild kind from battle.
The controlled burn of someone learning to feel again.
"Then I'll learn who you are."
They stood in silence, two souls lit by pieces of another lifetime.
And beneath the ledge, in the tomb's depths, something began to stir.
Not the Harbinger.
Something older.
Watching. Waiting.