Night at the Academy was never truly silent.
Whispers of spells drifted through the air, mingled with the rustle of parchment and the faint hum of wards that protected the campus from the outer wilds. To anyone else, it was peaceful, a sanctuary of knowledge and safety.
To Elara, it was suffocating.
She sat by the dormitory window, moonlight spilling across her desk. The pages of her notebook were filled with half-finished runes, her handwriting trembled from restless thought. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Lucien's face, the softness of his smile, the uncertainty in his eyes. The boy before the storm.
It was unbearable how kind he looked.
Elara gripped her quill tighter. "You don't know yet," she whispered to the night. "You don't know what you'll do."
And she didn't know what she would have to become to stop him.
Lyra's soft snoring came from the bed across the room, rhythmic and comforting. For a brief moment, Elara let herself listen to it, memorizing the sound. In the other world, the last time she heard Lyra breathe had been a scream.
The guilt clawed its way up her throat. She pressed a trembling hand over her heart. Not this time.
She rose, crossing to the window. The courtyard below was bathed in silver. Shadows stretched long beneath the great oak, the same one where Lucien liked to read. The leaves shimmered faintly, touched by latent magic that responded to moonlight. It was said that the oak had been planted when the Academy was founded, a tree older than kingdoms.
And tonight, beneath it, someone was standing.
Elara's breath caught. A lone figure, tall and still, gazing at the stars. The moonlight kissed dark hair, sparkling like quicksilver in his eyes.
Lucien.
"What are you doing out there?" she murmured.
Before she realized it, her feet were moving. She slipped on her cloak, quiet as a shadow, and stepped into the hallway. The air was cold, the torches dim. She knew the patrol patterns by memory, some things hadn't changed, even after time itself had reset.
When she reached the courtyard, the night wrapped around her like silk. Her boots barely whispered on the stone as she approached. Lucien didn't turn; he must have sensed her but made no move to acknowledge it.
She stopped a few steps behind him. "You shouldn't be out here," she said softly.
He smiled faintly, still watching the sky. "Neither should you."
"I couldn't sleep."
"Neither could I."
The silence between them was strange…not awkward, but charged, filled with all the words she could never say.
Lucien glanced over his shoulder, his expression thoughtful. "Do you ever think about how small we are? The stars, I mean."
Elara frowned, caught off guard by the question. "What do you mean?"
He gestured upward. "They're light from a dying past. By the time it reaches us, most of those stars are already gone. But we still look up and think they're alive. Maybe that's what hope really is."
Her chest tightened. The same words. The same philosophy. In the future, no, her past, he had said nearly those exact words before destroying the world.
"Lucien," she said quietly, "do you believe the world deserves saving?"
His silver eyes met hers. "Doesn't every world?"
Her throat tightened. For a moment, the weight of destiny pressed down again, two souls caught in a loop they could not escape.
Lucien turned away first, his breath misting in the cold air. "Sometimes I think people mistake salvation for control. They say they want peace, but what they really want is certainty. And that's the one thing the world can't give."
Elara's heart pounded. The thoughts, the philosophy…it was starting. The subtle threads of the ideology that would one day justify his ruin.
She took a slow step closer. "And what about you? What do you want?"
He hesitated, then smiled without humour. "To understand why I don't fit."
The words cut deeper than any blade. In her timeline, he had screamed that same confession as the world burned.
Elara bit her lip. "You do fit," she said quickly, fiercely. "You just don't see it yet."
Lucien turned toward her, startled by the emotion in her voice. The moonlight caught on his face, beautiful, fragile, human. "You say that like you know me."
Her chest ached. "Maybe I just… understand people like you."
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath. Then Lucien looked away again, his voice soft. "You're strange, Elara Vane."
She managed a faint, bitter smile. "You have no idea."
They stood in silence beneath the stars. Elara wanted to say more, to tell him everything, to scream that he would shatter the world, that she had killed him once and watched everything die with him, but the words stayed trapped in her throat.
If she told him now, would it change anything? Or would it only bring the end faster?
Lucien finally turned to leave, his cloak catching the wind. "Goodnight, Elara."
"Goodnight," she whispered.
As his figure disappeared into the shadows, she exhaled slowly, her pulse still racing. She had seen it, the faint flicker in his aura, like a spark of something vast and ancient stirring beneath his skin. The same magic that had ended everything.
She was sure of it now.
The corruption hadn't begun with the seals. It had always been inside him, sleeping, waiting.
And for reasons she couldn't yet understand, it was waking up again.
Elara looked toward the horizon. Dawn was creeping in, bleeding pale gold across the sky. The world looked untouched, innocent. But she could feel it, the pulse of fate beneath her feet, the hum of unraveling threads.
Her second chance had begun.
But so had his.