Tied by Fate Bound by Time

The dream started soft, almost golden.

Luna stood at the edge of a cliff, wind tearing through her hair as a storm surged behind her like a living thing. Rain swept across the rocks in sheets, but she didn't feel it. All she saw was the man in front of her—his form wrapped in shadow, his face half-lit by flickering lightning.

And still, she knew him.

Not just from the present. From something older, deeper. The tilt of his mouth. The sorrow in his eyes. His voice, when he finally spoke.

"You chose this," he said quietly. "You gave up your name to save me."

She tried to speak—to ask what he meant—but her voice was lost in the wind. The sky split with light, and before she could reach for him, he stepped into it.

And vanished.

---

Luna jolted awake, heart slamming against her ribs. Her sheets were damp with sweat. Her breath came in shallow gasps.

The ring on her finger was searing hot.

"Ah—!" she hissed, tearing it off. It dropped to the floor with a sharp clink and spun once in a perfect circle… before stopping.

Pointing.

She followed its direction to the window.

Outside, the storm had passed, but the air still hummed. Mist hung low over the campus. And there—floating above the spires of the library—was the moon.

Full. Still. And glowing a strange, luminous blue.

---

The next morning, Luna barely touched her toast.

The dream clung to her like fog, thick and damp and heavy. It sat just at the edge of remembering—close enough to ache, too distant to grasp.

Across the table, Meher rambled about something that had happened in drama club, but Luna's mind drifted.

Asher hadn't shown up for breakfast. Or messaged. Or been online.

Her hand itched. She glanced down and froze.

There, on the spot where the ring had burned her, a faint shimmer pulsed beneath her skin. A sigil—elegant, angular, unfamiliar. It blinked like a star, then vanished.

"Luna?" Meher asked, finally noticing. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said automatically. "Just didn't sleep well."

---

In lecture hall B3, Professor Darius stood like a statue at the front of the room, white chalk already in hand. His presence had always been quiet—elegant in that unsettling way—but today there was something different about him. Sharper. Intent.

"Memory," he said, writing the word in large block letters across the blackboard, "is the story we tell ourselves about who we are."

He turned around, gaze sweeping the room. When it landed on Luna, it stayed.

"But memory is also a prison," he continued. "We decorate it. Justify it. Hide truth inside it like it's fragile. But some truths don't want to stay buried."

The chalk tapped the board once—hard.

Luna looked away, uneasy.

Her hand still tingled.

---

Between classes, she found herself pulled to the west wing of the library—not for studying.

For the scroll.

It was still where she'd hidden it: tucked behind a loose brick near the back shelf, where no one ever looked. The cloth she'd wrapped it in was damp, but intact. She hesitated, heart thudding, then unrolled it carefully.

The parchment shimmered.

Words began to rearrange, not fading or rewriting, but… shifting. The ancient ink moved as though alive.

Not a curse.

A vow.

The sentence burned into her mind like sunlight on snow.

A vow? What vow?

Footsteps sounded behind her.

"You shouldn't be here," a familiar voice said.

Luna jumped and spun around.

Asher stood in the shadows between two bookshelves. His hair was damp again. Rain clung to his lashes. His jacket hung over one shoulder, and for a second, he looked impossibly tired.

"You're late," she said. Sharper than she intended.

"I wasn't sure I'd come."

Luna stiffened. "Why?"

He stepped forward, gaze unreadable. "Because I knew if I saw you again, this would stop being something we could ignore."

She didn't move.

"You read the scroll again," he said.

"I had to."

He nodded slowly. "What did it say this time?"

Luna's voice dropped to a whisper. "It said it wasn't a curse. It was a vow. And I dreamed... about a cliff. A storm. You were there. You said I gave up my name to save you."

Asher exhaled, like she'd just confirmed something heavy. "It's not just a dream."

"Then what is it?"

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked at her with a strange mix of awe and grief. "Every time I'm near you, Luna… it's like something inside me wakes up. Something ancient. Something terrified."

"Terrified of what?"

"Of losing you again."

The space between them vibrated like a plucked string.

At their feet, the ring—still lying where Luna had dropped it—gave a faint blue pulse. Neither of them looked away.

---

Above them, tucked behind a carved pillar on the upper reading balcony, Professor Darius watched.

He stood motionless, one hand resting against the stone as he observed the two students below. A flicker of something passed through his gaze—curiosity, perhaps. Or recognition.

"So it begins again," he murmured.

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew a folded, time-worn page. A page torn from a book long lost.

On it, a drawing: a girl holding a glowing ring.

Beneath it, a single faded line:

> She is the key. But the door breaks the one who opens it.

Darius stared at the words for a long moment.

Then he tucked the page away and disappeared into the stacks.

---

That night, Luna couldn't sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, images bled through—memories that weren't hers. But felt like they were.

Chains of gold.

A circle of fire.

A voice—Asher's—but calling her by a different name. Desperate. Afraid.

"Not Luna," she whispered to the dark. "That wasn't what he called me…"

She sat up, reaching for the ring.

It lay silently on the desk, its gemstone now cracked with light. As her fingers closed around it, the sigil flared briefly on her palm.

And a whisper filled the room.

Not hers.

Not Asher's.

Not quite human.

> Find the other half of the vow.

Luna's breath caught.

She didn't know where the voice came from, or how it found her, but it echoed through her like it belonged. Like it had always been there, waiting.

Tomorrow, she would go back to the scroll. Tomorrow, she would confront Asher again, demand the truth, demand the memories. Tomorrow, she would find out what fire remembers.

But tonight?

Tonight, she curled around the ring, pressing it against her heart.

And for the first time since this all began, she wondered if the curse wasn't on them at all.

Maybe the curse had always been on the world they once tried—and failed—to save.

---

End of Chapter