The Binding Mark
Lyra didn't sleep that night.
She couldn't.
Even after the stranger disappeared into the mist once again, his words echoed through her skull like ancient bells.
> "You were everything."
And that look in his eyes—it wasn't just love. It was grief. Centuries of it.
---
The next morning, the village was its usual self. Markets, laughter, smoke curling from chimneys.
But Lyra moved like a shadow among them.
In her hand, she clutched the broken mirror shard she had found. It now pulsed with a faint silver glow, as though it had absorbed moonlight… or memory.
When she returned to her cottage, she drew the curtains, locked the door, and held the shard under sunlight.
Suddenly, the runes began to shift.
One by one, they rearranged themselves into a symbol—a crescent moon with a crack down the center, and a name carved beneath it:
> Caelum.
Her breath hitched.
She didn't know that name. And yet… it pulled on something deep, buried beneath lifetimes.
---
That night, he came again.
But this time, Lyra was ready.
"I want answers," she said before he could speak. "Why do I keep dreaming of blood? Fire? A crown I've never worn?"
He looked at her for a long moment, and then—slowly—he pulled back the sleeve of his coat.
On his forearm, the same symbol was branded into his skin. The cracked crescent.
> "Because you were Queen of the Second Kingdom," he said softly.
"And I… was your Knight Bound."
> "My what?"
> "In our world, a Knight Bound is not just sworn to protect their queen.
They are bound by soul, by memory, by fate itself."
Lyra stepped back, her mind racing.
> "Then why do I remember nothing?"
> "Because when you died, your soul refused to return. It shattered."
"Now that the Second Moon has risen, the fragments are waking."
---
A wind stirred the room, though the windows were shut.
The mirror shard in her palm lifted on its own… glowing brighter.
"Each piece of your past is scattered," Caelum said. "And I will help you find them."
She stared at him, heart pounding.
> "And if I don't want to remember?"
His gaze grew distant.
"I would walk through a thousand lifetimes… even if you never remembered me.
But I believe you will. Because your soul… it still knows me."
---
Suddenly, the mirror shard cracked.
Light burst from it, flaring silver, then plunging into Lyra's chest. She gasped, clutching herself.
And then—
She saw herself, standing in an obsidian throne room…
wearing a crown forged of stars…
and kissing Caelum, blood on both their hands.
Then darkness.
She collapsed.
---
When she opened her eyes, Caelum was holding her.
"Your memories are returning," he whispered. "One by one. But there's a cost."
She looked up.
"What cost?"
He hesitated.
> "They'll come for you. The ones who killed you before…
They know you've returned."
---
To be continued...
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