Dawn came quietly, soft and golden, washing the world in a light too gentle for what it hid.
Elara stood at the window long after the first bell rang, watching the horizon as if she could see destiny written in the clouds.
She pressed a hand against the glass. It was cool beneath her fingers, grounding. Real.
And yet, every breath felt borrowed.
Lucien's aura had changed last night, she was certain of it. The spark she'd seen beneath his skin, the faint shimmer of unstable magic… it wasn't imagination. It was the beginning.
And if that was true, time wasn't giving her a second chance.
It was giving her a warning.
"Elara?"
Lyra's voice broke through her thoughts. Her friend yawned from her bed, hair a halo of sunlight. "You're up early again. What's wrong? Don't tell me you're memorizing runes before breakfast."
Elara forced a small smile. "Habit."
"Your habits are terrifying," Lyra said, stretching. "Come on, you'll miss the morning call."
Elara hesitated only a moment before grabbing her cloak. As they stepped into the corridor, sunlight poured through stained glass, scattering colour across the marble floors. Students moved past in clusters, laughing, alive. The sight twisted something sharp in her chest.
They were all ghosts waiting to die, they just didn't know it yet.
****
The morning lectures passed in a blur. Elara couldn't focus on the instructor's voice or the neat script forming across the board. Every whisper of chalk, every flicker of spell-light felt distant. Her gaze kept drifting to Lucien, two rows ahead, exactly where he always sat.
He listened intently, one hand resting against his chin. But the air around him shimmered faintly, like heat on stone. No one else seemed to notice. No one ever did.
She gripped her quill tighter. She could feel it again, the pull between them, invisible but real, a current threading through time. The more she tried to ignore it, the stronger it became.
When the bell finally rang, she gathered her books and followed him as he left the hall.
The corridors were emptying fast, footsteps echoing down the long marble spine of the Academy. Lucien turned toward the courtyard, unaware of her trailing presence.
At the great oak, he stopped. The same spot. Always here.
She watched from the archway as he leaned against the trunk, sunlight slipping through the leaves to catch the silver in his eyes. His aura was clearer in daylight, like threads of starlight woven through shadow. It was beautiful. And terrifying.
Something brushed against her thoughts…a whisper, a hum…faint but unmistakable.
Magic.
Alive and ancient.
Her pulse spiked. She stepped forward before she could stop herself. "Lucien."
He looked up, startled. For a heartbeat, sunlight poured between them like glass.
"Elara," he said slowly. "You were watching me."
"I—" She hesitated. "You were glowing."
His brow furrowed. "Glowing?"
She gestured faintly. "Your aura. It's—"
She stopped herself. Careful. In this timeline, he wasn't supposed to know she could see auras at all.
Lucien tilted his head. "You sound like you've seen something strange."
You have no idea.
"I must have imagined it," she said quickly. "Sorry."
But Lucien didn't look convinced. He studied her, eyes narrowing slightly, as though he could see right through her denial. Then his gaze softened, curious instead of suspicious.
"You're strange, Elara Vane," he murmured. "You notice things others don't."
"You keep saying that," she said. "Maybe you're the strange one."
"Maybe," he admitted, his mouth quirking in that quiet almost-smile. "But I think we both are."
The words hung between them, heavier than they should have been.
A faint breeze stirred the leaves, and for just an instant, Elara felt it again… a pulse in the air, a thread pulling at her soul. Her vision blurred. She saw flashes, not of now, but of what was: the battlefield, the seals, the blinding light. And Lucien, standing where he was now, his hand reaching toward hers as the world died.
Her knees went weak. She staggered.
"Elara!"
Lucien caught her before she fell, his hand closing around her wrist. The moment his skin touched hers, everything stopped.
The hum grew deafening.
Magic pulsed, wild, blinding, familiar.
Light flared between their hands, forming a sigil that burned against her palm, an ornate spiral of gold lines wrapping around a single point of silver. She gasped, trying to pull away, but the mark pulsed like a heartbeat.
Lucien's breath caught. "What—what is this?"
Elara tore her hand free, clutching it to her chest. The sigil glowed through her skin, alive, moving.
"I don't know," she lied.
But she did.
She'd seen it before, at the very end, when she'd plunged her sword through his chest.
The same light had poured from the wound.
"Elara," Lucien said softly, his voice shaking now. "That symbol… I've seen it too."
Her eyes snapped up. "Where?"
He pressed a trembling hand to his heart. "In my dreams."
Her stomach dropped. "Dreams?"
"I don't remember much," he said, staring past her, voice distant. "Just flashes. The sky falling. You—standing in fire. And me, dying."
Lucien looked at her again, confusion and something like fear in his gaze. "Tell me the truth. Who are you really?"
Her mouth went dry. The truth trembled on her tongue…I'm the girl who killed you. I'm the one who failed you.
But she couldn't. Not yet. Not when everything was so fragile.
"I'm just someone trying to make things right," she whispered.
Lucien studied her for a long time, then nodded slowly. "Then maybe… we're both trying to do that."
He stepped back, the sunlight catching the faint shimmer still clinging to his skin. "Whatever that was — between us — we should keep it quiet. The Council would never allow this kind of magic."
Elara swallowed. "Agreed."
But as he turned to leave, she looked down at her palm again. The spiral was still glowing faintly, its threads shifting like living gold, and, deep in the center, a single glimmer of silver.
A thread of fate.
Connecting her to him.
And no matter how hard she tried, she could already feel it tightening.