The air in the High Mage’s study always smelled of dust and storms. Even when the windows were shut and the hearth flickered low, it carried that strange pressure—as if something unseen waited just beyond the walls, breathing magic through the stone.
Kai stood beside me, arms folded, his face paler than usual. He hadn’t spoken since we entered, and the silence stretched like a wire pulled too tight.
High Mage Ariston emerged from behind one of his tall shelves, a rolled parchment in hand. He nodded at us, expression unreadable. "You came sooner than I expected."
Kai raised a brow. "You sent the summons."
"Yes," Ariston said, stepping into the lantern light. "But visions of ancient forests and thrones of roots aren’t always answered promptly."
I shifted. The dream still clung to me: the rooted throne buried beneath moss, being swallowed whole by my own water ability.
Ariston laid the scroll flat on the table. The same one we’d seen before. A crowned woman. Two children. Crimson and gold magic lacing their fingers.
But this time, ink had been added.
"I found partial translations," Ariston said, his voice low. "The language is older than temple script. Older even than the First Dynasty. But a few fragments..."
He pointed to the symbols beneath the figures.
"The name here," he tapped the woman’s crown, "is Alora. But beneath that, faded... something older. Maeriel."
The name settled in my chest like a shiver. Maeriel. The goddess from old prayer songs. A myth wrapped in story and flame.
Kai frowned. "So she was both?"
"Or she became both," Ariston said. "There’s more. These two words here?" He tapped the children. "'Reclaimed blood.' And here: 'Light reborn.'"
I leaned closer. The script was elegant and strange, curling like vines. The ink shimmered faintly.
Ariston looked up. "I believe this is a record of reincarnation. Not prophecy. Not legend. A memory."
Something cold opened inside me.
Kai asked quietly, "And you think... we’re them? The children?"
Ariston met my eyes. "The magic you both carry isn't mortal. Not entirely. And your vision—shared, no less—is a tether. You're remembering what once was. And perhaps... what will be again."
I swallowed hard. The name still echoed in my head—Maeriel.
A goddess. A mother. A memory that didn’t feel like it belonged to someone else anymore.
"What… what are we supposed to do with that?"
Ariston offered a tired smile. "You keep living. And let the truth unfold."
I left the study in silence. When I glanced back, Kai hadn’t moved.
I wandered to the moon garden, letting the cool hush of twilight settle over my shoulders. The stars had begun to pierce the sky, faint at first, then brighter as the last blush of sunset faded. I tried to still my thoughts, but Ariston’s words wouldn’t stop echoing.
Reborn.
Cycle.
Twins.
I was so lost in thought I didn’t realize anyone else was there until I caught a flicker of silver between the yew trees.
"You look like you’re about to argue with the moon," Sylas said.
I turned to find him leaning lazily against the ivy-wrapped pillar, his hair wind-tossed and coat half-buttoned, like he’d dressed in the dark and decided he liked the look.
"Maybe I was," I said. "She has a lot to answer for."
He tilted his head, studying me with one gold eye and one wine-violet. "Want company? Or shall I retreat with dramatic flair?"
I hesitated.
"Stay."
He approached, slower now. Not with his usual performative swagger, but something quieter. The kind of movement that came when a person knew silence had weight.
We sat together on the low stone ledge near the reflecting pool. The garden was hushed, the only sound the soft rustle of night wind and the trickle of the fountain.
"You’re different tonight," Sylas said.
"So are you."
He glanced down at our hands, close but not touching. "Do you ever wonder who you might have been, if you weren’t... this?"
"This?"
He looked at me, and his voice was softer than I’d ever heard it. "A symbol. A legacy. A girl made of magic and duty."
I swallowed. "All the time."
A long pause stretched between us.
"If I stay here long enough," Sylas murmured, "I might start hoping for a different future."
Something about the way he said it made my heart lurch.
"And what future is that?" I asked.
He smiled faintly. "One where you look at me the way you look at stars. Like I could be something more than a passing shadow."
My breath caught. I wasn’t sure what to say. What I could say.
Then, slowly, gently, he reached out and brushed a stray hair from my cheek. My heart hammered in my chest, warmth spreading through my cheeks.
"You’re blushing," he said, teasing but reverent.
"No I’m not," I lied.
He grinned, and the weight in his gaze didn’t lift, but it softened.
"Goodnight, Sylas," I whispered.
He stood, paused like he wanted to say more, then just bowed low. "For you, always."
I barely remembered the walk back from the garden.
The corridor leading from the garden was quiet until it wasn’t.
"Kira," Adrian’s voice called behind me.
I turned. He strode toward me in a navy tunic, slightly breathless, like he’d been searching for me.
"I’ve been looking for you all evening."
His smile was apologetic, eyes soft.
"I wanted to say I’m sorry. For being too forward at the lake. I just—"
He stepped closer.
"I care about you. I want to protect you too. I know I’m not your brother or your guard or—"
He hesitated.
"But I can still be someone you trust. Someone who sees you."
His fingers brushed my sleeve. Just barely. My heart stuttered.
I opened my mouth to answer—
And caught a flicker of movement over his shoulder.
Soren stood in the archway across the hall. Half-shadowed. Watching.
His jaw was tight. His eyes unreadable. When he realized I’d seen him, he turned and walked away.
I stepped back from Adrian.
"Thank you," I said, voice quieter now. "But I need to go."
His smile faltered just slightly, but he nodded. "Of course."
The nobles hadn’t even waited until the trial was over to start whispering again.
I was walking the gallery corridor when I heard them—two women half-hidden behind the statue of some old war hero.
“I heard his hands glowed like embers in the council chamber,” one of them said.
“The girl’s no different,” said the other. “They say she touched his hand and the fire calmed. Like she commands it.”
“A cursed pair.”
“That kind of magic belongs in chains.”
“Funny,” a new voice said, clear and sharp. “I was just wondering how loudly a person could talk before the palace echoes it straight into the ears of someone who might burn for less.”
Sylas stepped into view, every inch of him elegant menace. The women froze.
“You know,” he continued, “I come from a kingdom where gossip like that gets you turned into a toad. Or a political hostage.” He smiled, cold. “Here, we’re more civilized. We just exile traitors. Or try them for slander.”
They curtsied, trembling.
“We were just—”
“Rehearsing,” Sylas said lightly. “For a play. I know.”
He waved a hand. “Find a quieter stage. And new material. If I hear either of you speak her name with venom again…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
They fled.
He turned—startled to see me at the far end of the hall.
“You heard that?” he asked.
“I did,” I said.
His gaze softened. “I would’ve let you destroy them yourself, but I figured you deserved a night off.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” he said, and this time the grin reached his eyes. “But I wanted to.”
For a moment, I didn’t feel quite so alone.
I watched him walk away—shoulders squared, head held high like he was still guarding something.
Not the palace. Not the crown.
Me.
And for the first time in days, the palace didn’t feel like it was pressing in to crush me.
My thoughts tangled themselves in knots — Sylas’s voice echoing in my mind, soft and teasing and serious all at once.
“If I stay here long enough, I might start hoping for a different future.”
That stupid, beautiful line had unraveled something in my chest I didn’t know was frayed.
I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling. But I did. I do.
My hand still tingled where he’d brushed it. Still ached, stupidly, where I hadn’t pulled away.
And worse—part of me didn’t want to.
I slipped into my room and leaned against the door, trying to gather myself.
“Well,” came a voice from the dressing alcove. “You look like you’ve either kissed a boy or seen a ghost. Possibly both.”
I groaned. “Fennie.”
She emerged with a towel slung over one arm and an amused glint in her eyes. “I came to turn down the bed, but this is better.”
“Please don’t.”
“Oh, I won’t say a word,” she said, tossing the towel onto a nearby chair. “But your face is shouting.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I muttered, pulling off my gloves with more force than necessary.
“No?” she asked lightly. “Then why are you clutching your chest like the moon just winked at you?”
I scowled and flopped down onto the settee, burying my face in my hands. “It’s not fair.”
“What isn’t?”
“Sylas. Adrian. Magic. Everything.”
Fennie sat beside me without a word. After a moment, she reached over and gently pulled my hands away from my face.
“Do you like him?” she asked. Not with judgment. Just curiosity. Just care.
I stared down at my lap. “I don’t know. I think… maybe I like who I am when he looks at me.”
She tilted her head. “And the other one?”
“Adrian?” My mouth twisted. “He sees me too. Just… a different version.”
Fennie was quiet for a beat. Then, softer: “And who do you see, when you look at you?”
I didn’t have an answer. Not yet.
She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “When you figure it out, let me know. I’ll make sure your dress matches.”
I let out a broken laugh, leaning my head against her shoulder.
“You always know what to say,” I murmured.
“It’s in the maid training,” she said dryly. “Right after ‘how to fold linen without cursing.’”
And for a little while, we just sat there in the quiet. No court. No magic. No boys.
Just me and Fennie, and the soft sound of the palace settling in for the night.
The room had fallen still again.
I crossed to my desk, fingers trailing over the cover of the book I’d left open days ago — the one Bonnie had tucked beneath my arm with that unreadable look in her eyes.
I hadn’t touched it since. Not really. Just skimmed the first few pages before the storm of everything swept me up again.
But tonight, something pulled me back to it.
The pages were older than I expected, soft at the edges. Margins filled with notes from long-dead scholars or rebels who hadn’t known they were writing a lie. I turned them slowly, eyes scanning lines of ink and myth. War. Fire. A crown balanced on a woman’s brow like a blade.
And then, tucked between two sprawling paragraphs about her trial, a line stood alone — smaller, as if whoever wrote it had been trying to hide it from the page.
I wish my father would look at me just this once.
Why can’t I be loved like Emerson?
The words blinked up at me, quiet and plain.
I stared at them for a long time.
They weren’t part of the narrative. Just… a whisper. A confession folded between the cracks of history. A girl’s voice, buried under the weight of legacy and legend.
My chest ached.
I closed the book.
Not because I didn’t want to read more.
But because I’d already heard enough.
I reached for a scrap of paper from my desk drawer and scribbled three words, barely breathing as I wrote them.
Find the truth.
Then I tucked it beneath the book’s cover—so I wouldn’t forget.
Sleep came slowly.
But when it did, it wasn’t empty.
I felt it first — the warmth of skin against mine, a steady heartbeat beneath my cheek. The softness of fabric scented with crushed flowers and starlight. I was smaller somehow. Small in a way I hadn’t felt since childhood. Smaller than that, even.
I blinked.
The world glowed around me, warm and silver-soft, like moonlight through water.
I was in someone’s arms.
She held me as if I were made of glass, cradled close against her chest — her voice a quiet hum that I couldn’t understand but felt deep in my bones.
Her hair was soft silver-gold, like spun moonlight brushed with honey. Loose waves spilled over her shoulders, catching glimmers of pink and sea-green where the light kissed them. A crescent mark shimmered faintly just beneath her collarbone — the Moonbrand, glowing in time with her pulse.
She wore layered robes in pale lavender and seafoam, embroidered with gold thread and sigils I didn’t recognize — flowing temple cloth that shifted as if weightless. The air around her shimmered, too, like the memory of divinity hadn’t fully left her.
And her eyes…
Her eyes were vivid green, deep and luminous, like light through leaves after rain — flecked with gold that seemed to shimmer as she breathed. They were kind. Sad. Ancient. Eyes that had cried for centuries and still hadn’t emptied.
I turned my head and caught movement at her side.
A boy — maybe six or seven — sat curled beside her legs, his head tilted upward as he listened to the quiet conversation unfolding between the woman and the man standing before her. He had ash-black hair and bright emerald green eyes that gleamed like shattered glass in the light.
His fingers rested gently on the folds of her gown, like he needed the contact to stay grounded.
I knew him. I didn’t know how, but I knew him.
My twin.
The man speaking stood tall — regal, dressed in silver armor that shimmered like water under moonlight. His face was handsome, sharp, but his eyes carried shadows. He spoke softly, but urgently. I couldn’t hear the words — not really. They came like echoes down a long corridor, muffled and slow.
But I saw the way the woman’s fingers curled tighter around me.
I saw the flicker of something in her face — sorrow, love, fear, strength.
I felt it in her arms.
I didn’t want to let go.
The boy looked up at her, green eyes wide. “You won’t leave us?”
Her expression shattered me — not because she looked away, but because she didn’t. Because she smiled, even with tears in her eyes.
“I will never leave you,” she whispered, kissing the crown of my head. “No matter what form I wear. No matter what name I bear. I will always come back to you.”
And just like that—
Light.
A blinding flare.
The scene scattered like petals in the wind.
I gasped awake, breath caught in my throat, heart pounding.
My chamber was quiet. Still dark. The book still lay closed on the desk.
But something inside me had shifted. Something old and buried and waiting.
My skin tingled like it still remembered the glow of her arms. I pressed my fingers to my head still wishing to feel the warmth of her kiss on my head.
I didn’t know who she was.
But I had the unshakable feeling she had known me.
And I had loved her.
Once.