The enchantments held… at first.
For days, the whispers ceased. The shadows no longer curled around Lyra's sleep like vines with poisoned thorns. The witch had done what she could—binding protective runes beneath Lyra's ribs, lacing her breath with salt and silver, chanting until her voice broke into silence. For a while, peace returned.
But peace never stays long where the Forgotten King lingers.
It began again—not with a voice, but with a feeling. A pull. Like gravity, or hunger. In her sleep, she wandered realms of bone and starlight, always toward a throne she could never see. His face never showed, but his presence was absolute—like winter pressing into the corners of her soul.
By day, Lyra carried on. She laughed with Raven. Fought beside him. Loved him in the quiet, fleeting ways their world allowed.
But by night… she forgot.
Who she was. Where she belonged. And sometimes, even who he was.
The witch knew.
She watched the light in Lyra's eyes dim, her pulse trembling at the wrong moments. The sigils began to rot beneath her skin. No spell could hold back what had already been invited in. The King was patient. And Lyra, even unknowingly, had opened the door.
Raven didn't see it. Not truly. The Forgotten King was clever, keeping his pull quiet, gentle. Like a second heartbeat growing louder only when alone.
Lyra tried to hide it. She told herself it would pass. That dreams were only dreams, and love—real love—would be enough to tether her.
But the shift had begun.
And some seeds bloom only in darkness.
The kind that feeds on silence, festering in the parts of Lyra no one could reach. In her sleep, the world changed. Time unraveled. She forgot the shape of Raven's hands, the sound of his voice—replaced by things that weren't words but felt like commands. His commands.
In the dream-realm, she stood at the center of a broken circle, surrounded by reflections of herself—each one colder, hungrier, crueler. They whispered things she once swore she'd never do. They told her he was the enemy. That love was a lie. That destiny demanded sacrifice.
Every morning, she woke in a cold sweat, fingers curled like claws, whispers still dancing along the curve of her ear. And each time, the line between dream and memory blurred just a little more.
The witch tried. Gods, she tried. Blood magic. Memory wards. Ancestral pleas.
But what is written cannot always be unwritten.
"She is being rewritten," the witch whispered once, her voice brittle with dread. "Not possessed. Persuaded."
And Raven, ever the shadow-keeper, felt something was wrong—but not enough. Not yet. Lyra still smiled. Still touched him like he was home. Still kissed him like she meant it.
But sometimes she woke staring at him like he was a stranger. Like something ancient inside her was asking: Why haven't I killed him yet?
The truth was bitter and crawling: her fate was no longer wholly her own. Something was coiling within her, shaping her into what the prophecy needed. The same prophecy they had never been told in full. The one no witch dared to recite aloud.
One would love.
One would fall.
One must die.
And the Forgotten King—he waited. Watching. Dreaming. Smiling.
Not because he feared the outcome.
But because he had already won the moment she stopped running from the dreams.