CHAPTER SIXTEEN:The Ashes Of Memory

Elianah

She couldn't sleep.

Not since she saw the symbol again — this time etched on the back of her own shoulder in the mirror, as if it had branded itself into her flesh overnight. It wasn't a tattoo. It wasn't there yesterday. It burned cold and glowed faintly when her fingers brushed it.

A crescent moon cradling a sword. The mark of the soul-bonded.

She had seen it before. In the visions. On the battlefield. On Xadriel's wrist.

And now, it was hers too.

She sat at the edge of her bed, knees to her chest, trembling under the weight of a truth her soul already knew. Tears clung to her lashes, not out of fear, but grief — grief for every version of herself that had died loving him. Grief for the silent screams of the lives they had lost. For the wars they had fought. For the worlds they had failed to save.

And still… they found each other. Again.

The knock on her window made her flinch.

She turned — slowly.

He was there.

Not at the door, but at the window. Xadriel.

Rain drenched him, hair clinging to his face, his dark shirt soaked through, and yet he looked like a boy who had lost everything except her.

She pulled open the window without hesitation.

"Elianah," he whispered, voice hoarse. "I remember everything."

Her breath caught.

He climbed in before she could stop him, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to stop any of this anymore. His presence felt like wind returning to lungs long collapsed.

"They came back to me," he said. "The dreams. The war. The vow I made before death. Elianah, I promised I'd find you in every lifetime."

She looked up at him. His eyes glowed faintly under the moonlight — gold beneath brown. Like starlight bleeding through human skin.

"They've found us again, haven't they?" she asked softly.

He nodded.

"The shadows are coming."

Her room suddenly felt too quiet, too small for the weight of this truth. Her heart pounded against her ribs like it was trying to break out.

"Then we fight," she said, lifting her chin. "But this time, we fight together."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a shard of something ancient. A piece of obsidian wrapped in leather — it pulsed the same way her mark had. When it got close to her skin, her shoulder ached like it remembered.

Xadriel stepped closer and gently placed it in her palm. Their fingers touched.

"I brought this from the past. Or maybe it brought itself," he murmured. "Either way, it belongs to you."

She gripped it tightly. A memory surged through her mind like lightning: a battlefield littered with stars, her hand gripping the shard as she screamed his name while falling into a void.

This wasn't just a love story.

It was a prophecy.

"I'm ready," she whispered, not entirely to him — but to the universe.

And in that moment, the air around them shimmered like time had stopped, and everything broken inside her clicked into place.

This life wouldn't end the way the others did.

Not if she had anything to say about it.