CHAPTER ONE:The Soul Oath

Kael

He knew the stars weren't just stars anymore.

They were fragments of lives — and some of them still burned for him.

The night after the dream, Kael woke up in sweat and starlight.

On his wrist was something new: a faint, glowing mark.

It looked like a circle split by a line — a symbol he had drawn since childhood but never understood.

Now, it pulsed. Warm. Ancient. Alive.

And somehow, he knew:

She had awakened too.

Elianah

Everything had changed since the dream.

Not just inside her — but around her.

Clocks slowed when she passed.

Mirrors whispered her name back.

Birds watched her too closely, like messengers remembering something she had forgotten.

But most of all — the ache was gone.

She no longer felt empty.

She felt ready.

The world was... waiting.

And so was he.

The Reunion

They met again not in the past, but in the now.

Under a full moon.

By the lake that didn't exist before last night.

Neither of them spoke at first.

The air was thick with recognition.

Then Kael stepped forward.

"Elianah," he said, as if saying it brought breath to the name again.

She touched his hand. No shiver this time. Only light.

"I know who we are now."

Kael nodded. "And I know what we were born to do."

They stood in silence.

And then, together, they whispered the words that had followed them through every life:

> "Whatever the fire,

We return.

Whatever the time,

We remember.

And whatever the cost—

We find each other again."

It was not just a vow.

It was a soul oath.

And the sky above them cracked open — a ripple in time.

A new timeline had begun.