Chapter 51 #2
He’s dying, I can feel his breath slow, the wet, raspy sound is something I will never be able to forget. Godfire dances in his pupils, but he isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s looking into the sky.
“Anya...” he whispers, the name a soft, broken plea. “I understand now. Please tell her... I’m sorry”
My brows knit together, a fresh wave of guilt and confusion crashing over me. My body is shaking so hard I can barely hold him. “Who?” I ask, my voice cracking. “Micah, Anna is dead. You know that.”
I don’t know if he can hear me anymore. He turns his head toward the canopy, and suddenly the forest ripples. The trees begin to sway in a wind that hasn’t touched the ground yet, their branches groaning like an ancient choir.
“No.” A small, peaceful smile touches his lips, blood staining his teeth. “She’s not gone. She’s... waiting. Just on the other side of this forest. I’ll find her. I’ll make it right this time.”
His eyes glaze over, the light in them flat and distant. He looks younger now—the lines of pain and loneliness smoothing out as the magic of the world finally lets him go.
His lips move one last time, a ghost of a sound carried by the winter air.
“A—Anya...” he stutters, his eyes unfocused. “Anna... I’ll find you. Even in the meadow. Even in... Eden.”
His body goes limp in my lap, head lolling against my arm. The weight of him is absolute, a hollow vessel for a soul that has already fled toward a different sun.
The wind dies. The blue flames settle into a low, steady hum.
I stare down at the face of my tormentor, my protector, my shadow. And as tears finally spill over, a cold, sharp clarity settles in my chest.
The man who haunted my dreams... never meant to haunt me at all.
For one treacherous heartbeat, I wonder who he might have been if he's trusted me enough to let me choose.
***
As the last of Micah’s warmth leaves his body, the weight of him becomes too much. My strength burns out, and my grip falters. I slump back onto the frozen moss, his head slipping from my lap.
Just as I’m falling—something catches me.
My chest splits open, like something clawing its way free. The world doesn’t just go dark; it shatters like fireflies in the night.
Visions flood through my broken mind.
Snow. A jagged cliff edge. The wind howling with the voices of a thousand angry ghosts. A woman stands at the precipice—dark hair whipping in the storm, eyes fixed on the abyss below.
My heartbeat slows. I’m not watching her. I am her.
Naya Rhavari.
A man appears behind me, wearing a storm-gray cloak heavy with the scent of cinnamon. No white fur. No antlers. Just a tall, broad-shouldered man with eyes like the first winter.
Caelen.
“Stay close, Naya,” he murmurs, his large hands finding mine. “The Gods are stirring tonight. Something big is coming.”
My heart knows him. It has always known him. It has beaten for him in every lifetime, under every name.
“I’m not afraid,” I whisper, leaning into his strength, “Not with you.”
Another blinding flash of light.
Hands clasped beneath a moon so large it swallows the stars. Birch trees rising like cathedral columns around us. Snowdrops tucked in my hair.
A bonding ceremony.
Ancient words tumble from my lips—a language I shouldn’t understand, but one my soul speaks fluently. My eyes snap to the tattoo on my ankle—the script. This is where it‘s from.
“Naya. My soulbond. My Sael?n.” His voice wraps around me, a vow that echoes through the centuries. He slips the pale, iridescent moonstone—the one Toffee presented me with in the bath—over my ring finger.
The memory shifts. The air turns fragile, heavy with the scent of fresh water and cedar.
Another man steps from the shadows. He is identical to Caelen, but his eyes are burning with a quiet, hollow grief.
Therin.
Caelen’s twin.
The man who saved me the day I fell from the ladder in the Great Archive.
I remember the scent of old parchment. I was reaching for a scroll of the first Ages when the rung snapped.
I had braced for the stone floor, but it was Therin who caught me.
It was his arms that shook as he held me, his heart hammering against mine.
“I have you, Naya,” he had whispered into my hair. “I will always catch you.”
He was my first friend. My first protector. Long before Caelen ever walked into the flickering light of that library. Therin had been the one guarding my shadows.
“Why not me, Naya?” Therin’s voice cracks, pulling me out of the memory. “He went off to be a warrior. I was the one who stayed just to chase you through the halls of the Archive. You were all that mattered.”
My heart cracks. I wanted to love him—I did love him—but my soul never danced with his. Not like it did the day Caelen stepped into the Archive.
I stumble back toward the cliff edge, the stone crumbling beneath my heels. I wanted to choose them both... but the bond only chose one.
“Therin, please. You are half of his soul. You are his brother.”
“And you were supposed to be mine!” he cries out in agony.
Caelen lunges from behind the trees, trying to drive his brother back, but Therin ducks at the last second. He swings at Caelen, a desperate attempt to push his twin aside—to finally stand where he belongs. But Caelen moves, and the world goes cold.
In the chaos, Therin’s hands don’t find his brother’s chest.
They find mine.
The look on his face in that split second—the mask of pure horror when he realizes that loving me—fighting for me—is what cost me everything.
I’m falling.
The sky cracks open. The wind roars in my ears.
“Noo!” Caelen screams a raw, broken wail that shatters the loud rush of water below.
Please... please don’t blame him. He just wanted to be seen.
Two shapes jump from the cliff, following me into the abyss. Both of them refusing to let me face the dark alone.
Everything goes white.
Andrik POV-
“Lumi!”
She collapses, as if her soul has been snatched from her body. I catch her just before her head hits the frozen ground, pulling her small, trembling frame against my chest.
She convulses in my arms—her eyes fluttering, lips moving in a frantic whisper, mumbling a language I’ve never heard before.
But the forest knows. The trees bow low, their heavy, snow-laden branches sweeping the ground. The wind stops breathing.
And then she speaks a name I haven’t heard in lifetimes
“Caelen.”
The mating circle disappears. The scent of Lumi and my forest is replaced with the scent of fresh water.
I’m not Andrik anymore. I’m standing on a rocky lip of a cliff, the wind tearing at my cloak. There are no antlers crowning my head. I am younger. I am human... and I am terrified.
Naya is there—standing at the very brink, looking down at something below. Her beautiful, dark hair whips behind her like a veil of smoke.
“Stay close,” I hear myself say, yet it’s unburdened by the centuries of heartache. “The Gods are stirring. Something big is coming.”
She turns, the way her face lights up when she looks at me, breaks every wall I have ever built. My chest aches with how much I love her.
The vision flashes.
A moonlit ceremony. The air is sweet with the scent of birch and the first snowdrops blooming in the frost. Her small hand is in mine. A shimmering white stone gleams on her ring finger.
“Naya. My soulbond. My Sael?n.”
The words aren’t just a wedding vow; they are a promise that transcends time, a knot tied by the Fates themselves.
She whispers back, her breath ghosting against my cheek.
“Caelen. My heart. Keeper of my breath.”
Then, the light dies. The memory curdles into despair.
Therin steps from the shadows—my twin... my curse.
“Why not me?” His voice cracks with desperation. He swings at me, a clumsy attempt meant to knock me back. I step aside, and his momentum carries him straight into Lumi.
Everything slows to a crawl. Her eyes widen, locked on mine. Her fingers reach out for us both, grasping at the thinning air.
“Caelen—”
And then she’s falling.
A scream tears from the depths of my soul, a sound of such raw devastation it should have brought down the whole fucking mountain. But it doesn’t, so I jump after her, without hesitation. For a fraction of a second, the snow stops being white and turns to ash.
Standing on the very edge of the cliff, watching us fall, is a figure that doesn’t belong in this memory. A knight. Encased in heavy armor. The sound of his movement is a steady, metallic grind—shhh-clink, shhh-clink—as if he’s carrying the weight of the whole world inside that suit of armor.
He doesn’t reach out to save us. He simply watches
“One of twelve,” a voice echoes through the visor of his helm. “The clock begins to turn.”
Just as quick as he appeared, he’s gone. The cliff vanishes. The sky opens, and snow rushes up to meet us. I reach for her—fingers stretching—desperate to catch her one last time before the end.
Our hands touch—a blue spark of fire in the freezing dusk—and then the world goes white.
I gasp, lungs burning as I slam back into the present. The clearing is back, and the scent of honeysuckles fills the air. Lumi is staring up at me, tears streaming down her face, her eyes wide with recognition.
“I remember,” she whispers. “I remember everything.”
“So do I.” My voice breaks. “Lumi—Naya—Sael?n—”
“You—you jumped. You came after me.”
“I’ve always told you,” I choke out, pulling her so tight I can feel her heart beating like it’s my own. “I’ll follow you anywhere. Through the dark. Through the fire. Through death itself.”
“We’ve done this all before,” she breathes, raising her hand to stare at the moonstone ring on her finger. “We’ve loved each other before.”
“And we’ll love each other again.” I press my forehead to hers, my eyes falling shut as I feel her warmth bleed into me. “Forever, Naya. In every life. I will always find you.”
Behind us, Micah’s body still lies in the snow—the man who loved her first, and the man who lost her twice. My brother.
The clearing goes deathly silent, before the sudden roar of godfire explodes around us. The flames climb toward the sky like a beacon, turning from blue to a shimmering gold.
A tall figure steps through the fire—neither male nor female, but a composite of light and shadow.
A god.
The snow stops mid-air. I freeze, my grip on Lumi tightening as my instincts scream in the presence of something that once took her from me.
The god’s voice fills the clearing—as if it’s coming from everywhere at once.
“You remember now.”