---
The vow called to me in my sleep.
It wasn't a whisper this time. It was a song — low, resonant, older than words. The kind of sound that could have built worlds or burned them down.
I opened my eyes into fire.
A crimson horizon stretched endlessly ahead, molten rivers threading through fields of black stone. Above, the sky swirled like liquid gold — too bright, too near. The air shimmered with heat, yet I felt no pain.
The mark on my hand burned faintly, and where its light reached, the flames bowed back.
I wasn't alone.
Lucien stood at the edge of the molten plain, his coat torn, his hair damp with sweat. He looked… younger somehow. Or maybe it was the absence of his restraint — the rawness of him exposed beneath the firelight.
He turned when he felt me there. "You shouldn't have followed me into this."
"I didn't," I said quietly. "The vow brought me."
He exhaled — weary, furious. "Of course it did."
---
The ground trembled beneath us. A column of flame rose in the distance, taking shape — a figure wrought of gold fire, faceless yet human in silhouette.
I recognized it. I didn't know how, but I knew.
"Lucien," I whispered. "That's—"
He nodded grimly. "The origin of the vow. The first one."
"The first… what?"
"The first who defied Heaven and lived long enough to make it regret mercy."
He stepped closer, his voice low. "This place isn't just memory. It's judgment. Every heir to the vow must relive what birthed it."
"And what birthed it?"
Lucien's gaze met mine. "A promise between light and corruption — a love Heaven refused to name holy."
The flames shifted, revealing two figures this time — one radiant with golden light, the other cloaked in shadow. Their hands were joined. Between them, the world itself seemed to tremble.
"They loved," I breathed.
"They swore to unite what should never touch," Lucien said. "And when Heaven tried to erase them, they sealed their bond in a vow that not even the divine could undo."
I felt it then — the echo of that ancient oath pulsing through my veins.
The vow wasn't created by gods.
It was forged by defiance.
The vision trembled, flickering faster now — their silhouettes melting into ash. And for one instant, I saw their faces.
Hers was mine.
His was Lucien's.
I staggered back, breath catching. "No—"
Lucien's hand found mine before I could fall. His grip was steady, but his eyes were wild. "You saw it too."
"They looked like us."
"Because the vow remembers," he said hoarsely. "We are the echo of that defiance."
The flames surged around us, rising higher — and suddenly, the faceless voice of the vow filled the air, whispering through fire and ash:
> "All who carry our mark will burn to love what Heaven forbids."
Lucien's eyes glowed faintly gold, the same hue as the flames. "It's binding us again," he said. "Through memory, through soul—"
"Then fight it!"
He laughed — not cruelly, but brokenly. "You can't fight the vow, Elaris. You are the vow now."
I felt it in his words — the pull, the gravity between us. The air itself trembled with it.
I took a step forward, his name on my lips. "Lucien…"
The flames obeyed the movement — swirling around us like a living crown. His breath caught as I raised my hand, my mark glowing brighter. It pulsed once, and his chest answered — a matching light beneath his ribs.
The vow burned between us — a heartbeat shared.
For one trembling moment, I felt everything: his memories, his centuries of solitude, the war in his blood between light and void. And beneath it all, something softer — a love so old it had forgotten its own name.
Then, as quickly as it came, the vision fractured.
The fire bled into shadow, and the molten plain fell silent.
Lucien looked down — the mark on his chest dimming, his voice hoarse. "Now you understand why I fear you."
I met his gaze. "Because of what I remind you of?"
"No," he said softly. "Because of what we're meant to repeat."
---
I woke with a gasp, the taste of smoke on my tongue. My room was dark, the candles long dead. The mark still glowed faintly — golden at the center, rimmed in shadow.
Thalindra's voice drifted through my mind, calm but heavy with warning:
> "Prophecies are loops, Elaris. The ones who remember them are the ones trapped within them."
I turned my hand over and watched the vow pulse again, steady and alive.
"I won't be trapped," I whispered to the silence. "I'll rewrite it."
From somewhere beyond the veil, a voice — familiar, ancient, intimate — answered:
> "Then bleed to prove it."