The dream came again—so vivid it bled into waking.
It began in silence.
A kingdom stood burning behind her—towers crumbling, shadows fleeing, and blood soaking the marble stones beneath her feet. Lyra stood at the center of it all, robed in black and gold, the sigil of the moon pierced by a fang carved into her chestplate.
In front of her knelt Raven.
His eyes were the same—storm-lit, fierce, and vulnerable—but his voice was heavy with disappointment.
"You swore you wouldn't choose them this time."
She tried to speak, but her throat held no sound.
A blade pulsed in her hand—long, obsidian, whispering her name like a curse. Around her, chants echoed. Witches of a forgotten past. Rulers of an empire she didn't recognize but somehow ruled.
"End it, Lyra," one hissed behind her.
"For the realm," another crooned. "For what is written."
Tears streamed down her dream-self's face, but her hand didn't tremble. The blade rose.
"No," she managed to breathe.
But the memory was not her own to rewrite. It obeyed a different rhythm—one the Forgotten King conducted from the shadows.
Raven looked up at her one last time, not afraid.
Just broken.
"I loved you through every lifetime," he whispered. "Even the ones where you forgot."
Then she struck.
The blade sank clean into his chest.
His blood stained her hands—warm, familiar, accusing.
She screamed herself awake.
The world outside was too quiet. Her breath came in sharp waves, her fingers clutching the blanket as though it could anchor her to the present. But the King's voice crept in again, slow and serpentine.
"Truth isn't always wrapped in reality, sweet girl. Sometimes it comes in the form of remembrance. And you, Lyra, are remembering."
She clenched her eyes shut.
"No. That's not me. That wasn't me."
But the ache in her chest told a different story. The scent of blood clung to her skin like perfume, and the look in Raven's eyes haunted her even in daylight.
She kept it all inside. Hid the nightmares behind a tired smile. Avoided Raven's gaze when it lingered too long. She didn't want him to see the guilt building behind her eyes. She didn't want him to ask.
But he knew.
He didn't press. Not yet. But the shift was clear.
The way her touch had changed.
The way she winced at the sound of her name.
The way her silence tasted like fear and something worse—doubt.
She still stood by his side. But now, she flinched when their hands brushed. She spoke less. Slept less. Dreamed more.
And in those dreams, the Forgotten King stitched memory and illusion like a weaver of fates. He whispered that Raven had always been her downfall. That love was her curse. That what she carried inside her would bloom into destruction—again.
---
Back in the waking realm, the witches began to notice.
Aura tainted. Magic flickering. Eyes too cold for a girl in love.
"She's fraying," one whispered to another.
"Or being unraveled," said the oldest, "by hands older than time."
And Raven?
He simply watched.
With worry knotted in his heart and a quiet storm in his chest.
Because even if she didn't say the words, he could feel it—
The way trust was slipping from her lips like water.
And in the unseen spaces between them, the Forgotten King waited.
Smiling.