The first light of dawn crept across the stone floor, turning the edges of the cottage gold.
Isolde sat on the edge of her kitchen counter, hands wrapped around a lukewarm mug she hadn't yet touched. She hadn't changed from the night before—hadn't even pulled her hair back. Her braid had loosened sometime in her sleep and now tumbled around her shoulders like moonlight shaken loose.
She wasn't thinking about tea.
She was thinking about him.
About the dream.
Around the corner, Alaric stood near the window, bare-chested, arms folded tight over his ribs like he was bracing for a blow that hadn't yet landed. His eyes were fixed on the woods beyond, but Isolde could feel that he wasn't truly watching anything.
He was remembering.
So was she.
It was Alaric who broke the silence first.
"I've had pieces of dreams before," he said, voice rough with sleep and something else. "Images. Feelings. Never people."
Isolde didn't answer right away. Her fingers tightened around the cup.
"What did you see?" she asked finally.
He turned.
"You."
A long pause stretched between them.
"You were different," he added. "But you were… you. And I was… someone else. Someone I recognized and didn't at the same time."
Isolde drew a breath. "You reached for me. In the dream."
"You reached back."
She nodded. Looked down into her cup like it might offer answers.
"I felt something," she said quietly. "Like a name I should've known. Like I'd lost you before."
Alaric stepped closer, slowly, carefully—as if afraid to shatter the fragile thread of truth hanging between them.
"I think we've done this before," he said.
Isolde looked up. Her eyes met his—green, searching, afraid to believe.
"This?" she asked. "You and me?"
He nodded.
"I think the Moon's tied us together. Across time. Across lifetimes. And I think every time… something tears us apart."
She swallowed. Her throat ached.
"That's what your curse is, isn't it?" she whispered. "Not just deathlessness. Not just memory. It's loss. Over and over."
His jaw clenched. He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
She stood, setting her cup aside, and walked to him.
They were close now. Closer than before. Closer than should be possible for people who didn't even know each other's middle names—but who remembered how the other one died.
"What do we do with this?" she asked. Not pleading. Just… tired.
Alaric looked down at her—into her, it felt like.
"I don't know," he said.
Then, softer: "But I'm not leaving this time. Not unless you make me."
The weight of those words fell heavy between them. Not romantic. Not yet. But true.
Isolde nodded once, eyes shining with things she didn't say.
"Then stay," she whispered.
The words hung in the air like a vow.
Alaric didn't move. Didn't speak. But something in his shoulders eased—just slightly, as if a weight had shifted that he hadn't realized he'd been carrying.
Isolde reached past him to set her cup down on the windowsill. When her arm brushed his again, that soft hum from the night before returned, quiet but undeniable. She felt it in her ribs. Her pulse.
Alaric noticed too. She could tell by the way he stilled.
"I don't understand what this is," she said softly. "This... thread between us."
"Neither do I," he admitted.
His voice was low, more breath than sound. "But I've spent too long pretending I don't feel it. Like something pulling just beneath the skin."
She tilted her head, studying him.
"I thought I was going mad," she said. "The dreams. The sense that something was always just out of reach. And then you—" her throat tightened. "You showed up, and it was like a door opened I didn't know was there."
Alaric looked down at his hands, then back at her. "I've woken in places I shouldn't have survived. With wounds that should've ended me. And sometimes… in those first moments after, I swear I hear a voice."
She tensed. "What does it say?"
He hesitated. Then:
"Find her."
A silence fell again, thick as fog.
"I never knew who she was," he added, more to himself. "Until now."
Isolde turned from the window, walking slowly back toward the centre of the room, needing to move. Needing space to think—but not distance from him. Never that.
"Do you think we're fated?" she asked. "By the Moon?"
Alaric followed her with his eyes. "I don't know if it's fate. Or punishment."
That pulled a soft breath from her.
"You're afraid," she said.
He gave a ghost of a smile. "Of you? No."
"Of what you remember when you're near me, then."
Alaric nodded once. "Yes."
Isolde stopped at the firepit. Rested a hand on the stones. "So am I."
He came to stand beside her again, not quite touching. "But I don't want to run from it."
She looked up, met his gaze. "I don't want you to, either."
His jaw flexed like he wanted to say something more—something heavier. But instead, he reached out, slow and careful, and tucked a loose piece of her braid behind her ear. His knuckles brushed her cheek. That hum deepened—strange, electric, comforting.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For not asking me to leave anyway."
A faint smile ghosted her lips. "I thought about it."
He arched a brow.
"But only for a second," she added. "Before I realized I wouldn't mean it."
They stood there a while longer in the dim golden morning, neither of them ready to name the thing blooming between them.