She Chose the Wrong Hero

It started with the birds.

Elira noticed it the moment she stepped out of the academy's south wing.

There were no sounds.

No wings fluttering in the trees. No early morning caws. Even the wind was too still, like it was waiting for something to fall.

Aeren stood beside her, silent as ever, his hands folded behind his back as he stared toward the horizon.

"Do you feel it too?" she asked.

He nodded once.

"The air's wrong," he said.

The capital sat like a half-finished painting below them—sharp rooftops, thin rivers, faint curls of smoke from merchant fires. At first glance, it looked unchanged.

But Elira's magic was stirring.

Not as a warning.

As a grief.

A slow, heavy ache just under her ribs, like the city itself was mourning something it hadn't lost yet.

She whispered, "Something happened last night."

Aeren looked at her again.

"Kael," he said. It wasn't a question.

Elira didn't answer at first. She didn't need to.

There had always been a thread between her and Kael. Not love—not anymore—but something older. Something shaped from shared pain and destiny and the weight of being chosen when you didn't ask to be.

And this morning, that thread was burning.

"I think he opened a door," she said softly. "I don't know which one."

Aeren didn't flinch.

He simply said, "Then we need to find out what's behind it."

They made their way to the library—the true library, buried beneath the academy's front hall.

Most students didn't know it existed. Even the instructors avoided it. It wasn't forbidden, exactly. Just forgotten.

Too much dust. Too many truths.

The guards at the top of the stairwell let them pass without question.

Elira could feel the magic pulsing stronger now, like it was pulling her downward. Aeren didn't speak, but he stayed close enough that their shoulders almost touched on the descent.

It was quiet. Heavy.

She didn't realize she was holding her breath until they reached the final step.

The door to the archives was already ajar.

Elira froze.

"Aren't these doors always locked?" Aeren asked.

"Yes."

She stepped forward carefully.

Inside, the light was dim, but not dark. Lanterns burned low. The dust had been disturbed. Some scrolls were moved.

Elira crossed the room slowly, heart pounding, and stopped before the oldest sealed section—the blood-marked texts.

Someone had broken the ward.

"Kael," she whispered.

The parchment on the nearest table was still warm to the touch.

She ran her fingers across the ink. The seal symbol was sketched in the center, surrounded by five cardinal markers—north, south, east, west… and one unmarked.

Not a direction.

A name.

Elira bent closer.

It wasn't written in ink.

It was carved into the paper—so deeply it had torn the parchment.

"Virein."

Aeren came up beside her, reading the word aloud. "What is that?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "But it wasn't in the last timeline."

Her hands shook.

The timelines were splitting further apart. That wasn't supposed to happen yet.

She looked at Aeren.

He was already watching her—not afraid, not angry.

Just listening.

"Someone's changing the future," she said. "Not just me."

Aeren's voice was quiet.

"Kael?"

"I thought I was the only one who remembered what came before," she murmured. "But if he knows too…"

She didn't finish the sentence.

Because if Kael remembered—if he was walking the past with her—then he was hiding it. And that meant he was changing more than fate.

He was changing intent.

They left the library in silence.

But outside, the city was no longer still.

A column of smoke was rising from the northern quarter.

Elira stared at it for a long time.

She didn't feel surprise.

She only felt the thread between her and Kael pull tighter—and colder.

Aeren placed a hand on her arm.

Just briefly.

She didn't pull away.