Chapter 45
Myth is never merely myth. In every legend, the pulse of history beats.
—A History of Magick, Vol. I
Parents’ Week comes to a close with hugs and handshakes, teary smiles and gentle touches. My mother and I both cry as we say our goodbyes. Noa’s parents make me promise to visit them in Virginia when I’m home for the summer holidays. My mother demands that Gavrail come stay with us for part of it.
Once the excitement of visitors is over, Gavrail and I pore over every word of Tales from the Breath of Stone.
The book is full of haunting stories wrapped in mythology—witches and warlords, dragons and mermaids, kings who bargain with the elements and lovers who don’t survive their devotion.
The stories are beautiful in the way storms are beautiful: awe-inducing, inevitable, and always threatening to end in ruin.
Gavrail lent me the book, hoping one of us might find something the other doesn’t—Noa having now been roped into helping us with our research.
I sit cross-legged on the rug in my suite’s common room, the ancient book open in front of me.
Noa lounges on the couch behind me, one arm draped along the backrest, his hand idly resting at my shoulder.
The fire crackles low in the hearth, casting shifting light over the worn leather cover.
Tales from the Breath of Stone smells like dust and smoke and something older still—pages yellowed and soft at the corners, as though they’ve been turned by generations of hands.
I trace my fingers along the inked title of the chapter: “The Twins’ Unraveling.” The script shimmers faintly in the firelight.
“This one’s clearly about elemental fusion, Magick to Magick. It’s a warning, I think, about when it doesn’t go right.” I begin to read aloud:
There were once two mages—sisters born under the same moon, but to different elements.
One wielded water, the other sunlight.
They believed their bond made them unstoppable.
In defiance of the old codes, they attempted the Rite of Convergence, seeking to fuse their powers into something no world had seen before: frozen light, solar radiance encased in stillness, a perfect weapon for truth—or destruction.
But they forgot the first law of fusion: balance.
One craved control, the other chaos.
When their magick met, it did not blend—it battled.
Their bodies unraveled into streaks of frost and solar flare, and the mountain where they stood shattered from within, creating a cliff over which a torrent of frozen water now forever screams into the void below.
And the sisters’ voices, they say, can still be heard—arguing in endless echo, forever frozen in time.
I flip to another chapter, carefully skimming through the pages. “This one doesn’t say embodiment outright,” I murmur, “but I think this poem is referring to it.” I start to read again.
There once lived a tide-born daughter,
born where rivers meet the sea.
She fell in love with a fisherman,
but with a love that could never be.
For he was land and she was water,
forever destined to be apart.
Her grief was so vast, it made the sea swell with tears,
nothing able to heal her broken heart.
She fractured into droplets,
dissolving into mist,
the rain now carrying her whispers,
every storm now holds her kiss.
Moving as one with the current,
ships vanishing beneath her wails,
her tempests destroying everything,
a lesson when love does not prevail.
I finish the page quietly.
Noa leans forward, elbows on his knees. “It says she dissolved into mist. That sounds similar to what you can do.”
I don’t answer right away. My pulse flickers. “She didn’t return to her body,” I finally say. “Can that happen?”
Noa’s gaze drops to the book. “Myths hide truth in plain sight,” he says slowly.
A beat. “But yes—if this refers to embodiment, it reads like there is a point of no return.” He frowns, glancing down at the next page.
“Here’s another: ‘The Heart Beneath the Mountain,’” he says, his voice cautious now.
It is said that where the mists coil through forests of iron and peaks of stone, where the bones of the earth rise to touch the stars—there, Sarn of the Iron Vale buried his heart.
A warrior born of mountain blood and battle cry. He feared no man, no beast. Only Time. For Time is the one enemy no sword can slay.
He wandered into the deep places of the world—beneath roots thick with forgotten magick, past rivers that ran black with memory—until he found a hollow, where the bones of the mountain meet the breath of the world.
There, he tore his heart from his chest and buried it beneath the stone, believing that without it, Time could never find him.
And for a while, it was so.
When he returned to his people, he was invulnerable—but changed. Skin hard as granite, so thick that no blade could pierce him. Eyes that no longer reflected light. A voice that echoed as if spoken from within a cave. Each step he took cracked the stone beneath him.
He was becoming too much earth, and not enough man. Soon, his blood thickened to shale. His breath turned to dust.
At last, afraid of what he had become, he traveled to the mountain, seeking to reclaim his buried heart.
But the earth does not return what it was freely given.
He collapsed beside his heart, his limbs crumbling like ancient cliffs.
His body broke into six—six shards scattered, all reaching toward each other, and toward the heart they now protect.
And deep in the eldest range, his heart still waits—forever beating, sealed beneath the mountain, guarded by the blood of stone and earth’s black memory. The cliffs still echo with his name.
A warning and a promise:
Immortality always comes with a cost.
“Sarn,” Noa mutters. “Sounds like a tragic idiot.”
I glance at him. “You don’t think it’s real?”
“I think it’s a metaphor disguised as warning.
You want to become unbreakable? Immortal?
Fine. But you’re not coming back as you once were.
” Before I can answer, Noa leans casually against the armrest, one hand absentmindedly stroking my back.
“I found another one,” he says. “‘The Flame That Devoured a Crown.’”
I look up as he begins reading:
Virelda, the flame-born princess, was born not to rule—but to burn. The Heart of Fire sang to her, its call rising in her blood as her elemental power grew beyond all bounds.
When her form became flame, neither wall nor will could contain her, and her people despaired, then conspired.
It is said that they lured her through an old stone tunnel beneath the southern mountain, where earth meets sea and fire breathes from the deep.
There, beneath the peak that never sleeps, she found the origin of fire itself—an eternal flame that held her close.
Because flame remembers its own. And what it claims, it claims forever.
When she discovered her people’s treachery, she devoured them, until nothing remained in the cavern and tunnel but blood and ash.
She stands within the heart’s flame still, bound and burning, her hunger and vengeance endless. And it is told: should the eternal flame ever call to another, they too must face her fire—or be forever lost to it.
The fire hisses softly as if listening, smoke curling toward the ceiling.
“Hm.” He frowns, thumbing through the next page. “This one’s… torn.” He angles the book toward the firelight. The parchment edge is streaked, not simply ripped, as if something tried to drown the words it carried. Ink has bled in strange constellations—half remembered, half erased.
He reads slowly, his voice low. “When the heavens ruled from above and the elements from below… something ancient returned to the world. And where the stars fell, a child was found.”
A chill moves through me.
He pauses, searching. “Starlight lived within her eyes, and from her hands, magick flowed in endless—”
His voice falters as he scans for what remains.
“… an impossible choice.”
Then he turns the page gently—and the rest is gone. Just more water-stained pages.
He studies the top margin, jaw tightening. “The title isn’t fully legible. Just ‘ST—’ and then it’s missing.”
The ink bleeds outward, as though the word itself tried to escape the page.
The air in the room seems to thin.
Only one faint line of the myth remains, pressed into the bottom margin like an afterthought. The words shimmer when the firelight hits them as he reads it aloud.
“The world saved by what it could not keep.”
For a moment, neither of us move.
It feels less like a myth and more like a warning.
Noa exhales. “Someone ripped this out on purpose,” he murmurs. “You can see the tear—too clean to be an accident.”
My pulse stirs, uneasy. “Why?”
“Either someone didn’t like the story…” He looks up, gaze locking on mine. “Or didn’t want anyone else to read it.”
I tell myself it’s just a story, another myth swallowed by time. But as the fire pops sharply in the hearth, something deep in my chest responds, like a memory that isn’t mine, waking.
I reach over to close the book slowly, my fingers lingering on the cover.
This isn’t a book of happy endings.
“Tell me again how embodiment is supposed to be a gift?”
Noa stares at the fire, watching as a log breaks from the flame at its center. “It’s not a gift. It’s a… transformation.”
“It sounds like a curse,” I say. “To become what you wield is to be ruled by it.”
Noa looks down, thoughtful but serious. “I know what fire wants. It doesn’t stop. It only consumes.”
A silence settles over us.
“So what does that make me?” I ask quietly. “Water remembers everything. If I become ruled by it… what if I remember so much that I forget myself?”
Noa’s voice softens. “If you forget yourself—even if you forget me—I’ll find you. And I’ll remind you who you are.” He leans down to kiss me, soft and tender, his lips warm and full as I kiss him back.
The fire crackles, but we don’t speak again. Words are no longer needed for what we are both wanting. A reminder of life, of self.
I stand and take his hand, leading him toward my bedroom, silently thanking Teo for asking Roz out again tonight. Inside, I walk over to my bedside table to take out a carefully wrapped package in gold paper.
His eyebrows rise in surprise, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “What’s this?”
“Happy birthday, Noa.” I smile at the look of surprise on his face. “Finn told me. I wanted to do something… just for you.”
He sits on the bed, unwrapping the package carefully. Inside is a small silver charm—meant to be sewn into a uniform, tucked somewhere private, where no one else will ever see. It’s a mermaid in profile, hair flowing, one sapphire eye catching the moonlight through the window. Me.
“So I can be with you,” I whisper, “even when I can’t.”
Outside the window, rain begins to fall—slow, steady, and silent as memory.
“It’s perfect.” He traces the outline of the charm with his fingertip. Then he looks up at me suddenly. “I don’t even know when your birthday is.”
I laugh softly. “End of September. I’m not big on birthdays, so I didn’t really tell anyone.”
He reaches out and pulls me toward him, his hand warm around mine. “I promise next year, we’ll celebrate.”
Next year.
The words land like both a gift and a plea.
He kisses me. Feather light. Deliberate.
We take our time. Not the usual fire and heat between us—something quieter. An anchor to each other in the rising tide of change.
He undresses me slowly, like he’s savoring every piece of me. And I do the same.
We stand at the foot of my bed, before he lifts me, laying me down with reverence.
The rain taps against the glass as he kisses me like he has all the time in the world. His eyes say what neither of us wants to acknowledge.
He’s leaving.
The Service. Graduation.
The distance that’s already started.
Tears sting my eyes. He kisses them away, his face betraying the quiet war within him. Worry for me. For himself.
The weight of us is drawn deeper—toward some darker part of a lake we can’t yet see.
He follows the trail of my tears with his lips, murmuring soft comforts to chase the thoughts away.
He kisses my cheeks, my lips, my chin, my neck…
lower still, worshipping me like he’s trying to memorize the way I feel beneath his mouth, his skin.
His warm hands glide down my body as if I’m made of silk.
I gasp as I feel his fingers slide into me at the same time his tongue circles my breast. The heat of him is a balm against the chill lacing the air.
The rain now drips silently down my window, like the tears he kissed away.
He moves up to kiss me again, his fingers still moving with a gentle rhythm that makes me moan against his mouth.
The wave begins to build—rising, cresting.
“Noa… please,” I beg.
He nods and moves between my thighs, his hard length pressing against me, moving so agonizingly slow that I stop breathing for a moment.
He eases into me, his hand cupping my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek as he watches me with unwavering focus.
“I love you,” he whispers, a breath away.
I say it back—not just with words, but with my body. My soul.
I take what I can. Give what I can. We move like that—slow, then faster. Deep, then deeper still.
We make love through the night, finding our release, returning to each other again and again. Both chasing the chance of forever we are afraid might not come.
In between, there is laughter. Soft teasing. Stories of his childhood and mine. Lives we’ve lived. Lives we only dare to dream of. We speak of the change pressing in around us—his future bound in flame and oath, mine unraveling with every tide.
I tell him the truth I barely admit to myself: that I’m afraid I’ll be swallowed by the water. That I’ll become current and memory, lost to drown in something ancient, vast and merciless.
At that, he grips my chin and turns me to face him. “You could drown the stars and wipe the sky clean… and I’d still find you. Still love you. Even in the dark.”
I kiss him again, long and lingering.
And when the dawn breaks, sparkling on the crystals the rain left behind, we drift to sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Because, for a little while, we still have this.
Because tomorrow is not today.