The courtyard rang with the clash of steel on steel, the morning air sharp and bitter with cold.
Seris moved through the sparring drills with deadly precision, her blade a blur of silver light. Every strike was a battle against herself, every parry a scream she dared not give voice to.
Faster, harder.
She drove her soldiers back with the ferocity of a storm, her breath misting in short, furious bursts.
Still, it wasn't enough.
No matter how hard she fought, she couldn't shake the weight pressing down on her chest, the echo of Kael's voice, the ghost of his touch lingering against her skin.
She remembered things she shouldn't. Laughter in the rain. Fingers tangled in wildflowers.A kiss almost shared, then stolen by war.
Every memory struck her harder than any blade could.
When the training bell rang, Seris sheathed her sword with a snap and stalked off the field, ignoring the wary glances of the guards.
She needed to breathe. She needed to forget. But forgetting had become impossible.
In the darkness of the dungeon, Kael waited.
The shackles bit into his wrists, cold and cruel, but he barely felt them. His mind was elsewhere, focused, burning with purpose.
He had seen it in her eyes yesterday: the spark of memory, the beginning of something beautiful and terrifying. He couldn't stop now, he wouldn't.
She remembers me, he thought, a savage joy rising in his chest. Even if she doesn't want to, her soul knows.
It was the only weapon he had left.
And he would wield it with all the fury of a man who had loved her across lifetimes.
That night, as the castle slept under a shroud of ice and shadow, Kael stirred awake.
The guards came for him, silent and grim, ordered by someone higher than the warden.
No explanation, no warnings.
Chains rattling, he was led through back corridors he didn't recognize, deeper into the bowels of the fortress.
As they moved, Kael closed his eyes, reaching out with the thin thread of connection between him and Seris.
It wasn't strong, not yet, but it was there.
Like a whisper against her dreams.
Remember me, he thought fiercely and come back to me.
Seris's Chambers
Seris tossed and turned, tangled in the heavy blankets.
The dreams came again, wilder this time, breaking through her walls like fire through brittle wood.
She stood at the top of a ruined tower, the wind ripping at her hair, her cloak snapping behind her like a broken flag.
Below, the world burned. And before her, Kael knelt, bloody, broken, but alive.
"I swore," he said, reaching for her. His voice was rough, desperate. "I swore I'd find you."
Tears streamed down her face as she stumbled toward him. Their fingers brushed, the world exploded into light.
Seris woke with a gasp, clutching the sheets to her chest.
Her heart hammered wildly, her skin damp with sweat.
She could still feel the roughness of his hands. The heat of his body. The promise in his voice. It wasn't just a dream. It was a memory.
Before dawn broke, Seris was already moving.
Armor forgotten, she pulled on a simple cloak and soft boots, moving like a ghost through the halls. Her body acted on instinct, her mind still clouded with fragments of another life.
The guards at the dungeon entrance bowed, their faces unreadable. She didn't notice the tension in their shoulders, the way they avoided her gaze.
Not until she reached Kael's cell, and found it empty. For a moment, Seris just stood there, staring at the abandoned chains.
A cold, hollow ache opened up inside her, so wide and deep it nearly swallowed her whole. He was gone, they had moved him, without telling her.
A betrayal, a theft.
Her fists clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms. Why does it matter? she demanded of herself. He is a traitor. A prisoner. Nothing more.
But the answer trembled through her blood like a living thing. Because he wasn't just a prisoner. He was hers.
He had been hers long before the empire crowned her Commander, long before they stole her name, long before she forgot what it meant to love without fear.
A guard shifted nervously behind her.
"Commander Valen," he said. "Per the council's orders, the prisoner has been relocated for... questioning."
Seris turned slowly, her voice sharp as the blade she no longer carried.
"Where?"
The guard flinched. "We were not informed, my lady. Only that he was no longer to be under your jurisdiction."
A thin, dangerous smile curved her lips, not under her jurisdiction, they had taken her memories, her life, and now they dared to take him too.
The emptiness pressed against her like a physical force.
Seris took a single, trembling step into the cell.Her fingers brushed the cold iron where Kael's chains had hung, and a jolt of memory ripped through her.
Arms wrapped around her in the rain.A kiss stolen in the ruins of a fallen temple.Two souls, clinging to each other when the world fell apart.
She staggered back, heart hammering so loudly she could barely hear. He had been here, fighting and waiting for her.
A part of her, buried deep beneath years of obedience and duty, screamed to life.
Find him, it whispered. Find him before it's too late.
For a terrifying moment, Seris thought she might break.Her carefully built walls, the years of loyalty to the crown, the chains she had locked around her own heart, they trembled.
If Kael had remembered her first...
If he had waited this long...
How could she turn away now?
Memory Flash
A cold river under a moonless sky.
Their bodies pressed together, shivering, laughing, promising.
"If they tear us apart," Kael whispered, "I'll tear the world apart to find you."
And she had believed him, because she had promised the same.
Present
Seris stood very still, the torchlight flickering over her pale face. The storm that brewed inside her was no longer quiet, it roared.
You are Seris Valen, the empire had told her. Commander of the Crown's Blades.
But that was a lie, a mask. Underneath it all, she was still Lyra, still the girl who had once held a rebel boy's heart in her hands, and given him hers in return.
And she would not lose him again.
That night, the snow fell heavier, blanketing the castle in silent white. But inside Seris, nothing was still.
Inside her, a wildfire raged, and its first ember had been lit by the prisoner who wore no crown, but who ruled her heart all the same.