The Academy's library smelled of dust and ink and the kind of quiet that made secrets feel safe enough to breathe. Elara moved between the tall stacks like someone returning to a house she once knew, fingers trailing along spines until a particular volume hummed beneath her touch. It was an old ledger, bound in cracked leather, its title faded to a whisper. When she opened it, the handwriting inside felt like a hand on her shoulder—familiar, precise, and unbearably old.
She read until the candles guttered and the moon climbed high. The ledger was a record of prophecies, not the grand, public pronouncements carved into stone, but the small, private bargains scribbled by mages who kept their work in the margins. One entry caught her breath: a line about a bloodline shadowed by a curse, a golden-eyed heir, and a soul that had walked more than one life. The words were not new to her mind; they fit into the shape of memories she had been trying to ignore. The more she read, the more the ledger stitched itself to the edges of her past.
A soft sound made her look up. Caelum stood in the doorway, framed by the moonlight, as if the night itself had decided to follow him inside. He did not startle at the sight of her; instead, he closed the distance with the slow certainty of someone who had practiced restraint for years.
"You shouldn't be here alone," he said, but his voice held no reproach. It held curiosity, and something like relief.
Elara closed the ledger and slid it into her satchel. "Neither should you," she replied. "But here we are."
He stepped closer, and the air between them felt charged, like the moment before a storm breaks. "What did you find?" he asked.
She hesitated. Telling him everything would be like handing him a blade and asking him not to use it. But the ledger's words had already loosened something inside her—a thread of courage she hadn't expected to find in a scholar's daughter.
"A prophecy," she said finally. "About a curse. About you."
Caelum's expression didn't change, but his fingers tightened around the strap of his satchel. "And what does it say?"
"That a soul who remembers more than one life can untie it," she said. "That someone who has been broken and rebuilt might choose differently."
He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer. "Do you believe it?"
Elara thought of the battlefield, of the knight's face as he turned his blade. She thought of the warmth that had carried her back to life and the small, stubborn hope that had refused to die. "I don't know what I believe," she admitted. "But I know what I remember."
Caelum's gaze dropped to her hands. For the first time since she had met him, she saw something like vulnerability in his golden eyes. "If you remember," he said, "then perhaps you can help me. Or perhaps you will be the reason I fall."
The honesty in his words was a kind of confession. Elara felt the old armor of her heart shift, not because she trusted him, but because she understood the weight he carried. They were both walking on a tightrope strung between past and future, and neither of them had a net.
They left the library together, the ledger tucked away like contraband. Outside, the Academy's courtyard was empty, the fountains whispering in the dark. Caelum walked beside her with a careful distance, as if proximity itself could be dangerous. When they reached the gate, he paused.
"Tomorrow," he said, "come to the eastern tower. There are records there the ledger didn't mention. And… bring nothing that ties you to your old life. If this is to be done, it must be done cleanly."
Elara wanted to ask what he meant by "cleanly," but the moonlight made his profile unreadable. Instead she nodded. "I'll be there."
That night, sleep was a thin, fragile thing. Memories came in shards—faces, a lullaby, the weight of a crown. She woke with the taste of iron in her mouth and the ledger's words burning behind her eyes. Somewhere in the city, a bell tolled, and the sound felt like a summons. She had been given a second chance. Whether it would save her or condemn her was a question she could not yet answer.