CHAPTER TWELVE:Pieces Of Us In The Wrong Time

Elianah

She didn't know how to explain what was happening to her.

The dreams.

The feelings.

The ache in her chest when Isaiah looked at her like he'd seen her die before.

There was a moment during lunch — just a second — when she reached for a spoon and their hands brushed.

And suddenly, the cafeteria melted away.

She saw a dimly lit ballroom.

Candles. Silk. Gold.

A violin playing something haunting in the background.

Isaiah was across the room, dressed in midnight blue, watching her with eyes full of sorrow.

And she… she was laughing with another man.

The memory slammed into her with such force she gasped aloud.

Back in reality, her spoon clattered to the floor.

Isaiah stared at her.

Eyes wide.

Jaw tight.

> "You saw it too," she said.

He nodded slowly.

> "That was one of us. One of the lives."

> "Then why did I feel guilty?" she whispered. "Why did it feel like I hurt you?"

Isaiah didn't answer.

Not because he didn't know.

But because the truth already lived in both of them.

---

Isaiah

He stayed behind in the art studio after school.

He couldn't breathe around people anymore. Their voices felt too loud. Their laughter too fake.

He painted — not a sketch, not a study. A full canvas, furious and fast.

When he finished, he stepped back and stared at what he'd created.

It was a battlefield.

Not with guns. With vows.

A woman standing in white, torn and weeping.

A man kneeling in front of her, bleeding from his chest.

Behind them — a red-haired girl with fire in her eyes.

Cassia.

> "You remember everything, don't you?" he muttered under his breath.

---

Cassia

She sat on the windowsill of the library tower, flipping through the pages of an old spellbook — the kind of book you weren't supposed to find anymore.

There was a binding ritual inside.

Not for love.

For claiming.

A soul could be locked in time.

Could be pulled away from a path it was meant to follow — if done right.

She traced the words with her finger, already memorizing the steps.

> "I won't lose again," she whispered.

Below her, the bell rang for dismissal.

None of it mattered anymore.

She wasn't here for school.

She was here for war.

---

Narrator

Not all soulmates are meant to be gentle.

Some are storms that find each other again and again.

Some are fires that burn through every life they touch.

Some are broken things trying to remember what it felt like to be whole.

Elianah and Isaiah had found each other again.

But in the shadows, something old and unfinished stirred awake.

And this time…

it wanted a different ending.