Tied by Fate Bound by Time

Luna's voice barely rose above a whisper.

"I didn't mean to open it."

Asher Grayson didn't move. His storm-grey eyes stayed locked on hers—sharp, unreadable. He watched her with the kind of quiet focus that made her skin prickle. Like he wasn't just looking at her, but through her.

Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly… then flickered.

Luna glanced up.

So did he.

Neither said a word about it.

"I'm not accusing you," he said at last. Calm. Controlled. But edged. "I'm asking what you saw."

She hesitated, clutching the thin file tighter to her chest.

"Inside the box?"

He gave a single nod.

"A ring. A scroll. And…" Her voice caught. "A dried flower."

Something in his face shifted—barely. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

She saw it.

She knew—that meant something to him.

"And the scroll?" he asked.

"I only read the first line," she said carefully. "It mentioned… love and loss."

She didn't mention how the words glowed when she touched them. Or how they burned behind her eyelids even now.

Asher's fingers flexed once at his side.

"That's enough."

"Enough for what?" she asked, frowning.

He didn't answer.

Instead, his gaze dropped to the file in her arms—the one stamped with his family's name in faded ink.

"You've been busy."

"It's public record," she replied, lifting her chin. "Or it was—until you showed up."

One brow arched. The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile. Just the shadow of one. The closest thing to warmth she'd seen from him.

"You're not afraid of me," he said, almost curious.

"No," she answered. Honest. Steady. "Should I be?"

A beat of silence stretched.

Then he said, voice low and not quite human:

"Most people are."

---

The quiet settled like dust. The dim archive stretched out around them—shadows layered in stories no one had read in years. Outside, rain hammered the roof in steady rhythm, like a second heartbeat.

Somewhere above, a clock chimed.

One o'clock.

Luna could still feel him watching her, even when she wasn't looking. His presence lingered on her skin like static.

"I don't know what you've gotten yourself into, Ms. Carter," he said finally. His tone was quieter now. Tired. "But that box was sealed for a reason."

"You know what it is," she said.

He didn't deny it.

"I know what it did."

The words were ice water down her spine.

He turned to leave.

She didn't know why—but something in her resisted the idea of him walking away. Not like this. Not when every instinct she had was screaming for answers.

"You said you've seen the fire," she called after him.

He stopped at the door.

"The dreams. The voice. You've had them too, haven't you?"

Asher didn't turn around.

"I stopped calling them dreams a long time ago."

---

After he left, Luna stood frozen in the archive.

The air still felt different where he'd been. Heavier. Charged.

But what twisted in her chest wasn't fear.

It was recognition.

She knew him.

Not the way you know someone from school, or passing on the street.

But the way a melody lives in your bones before you ever hear it.

The way your body remembers a touch your mind never learned.

Being near him made something inside her ache.

Like she'd been missing a part of herself without knowing it.

---

That night, sleep didn't come.

Thunder rolled in the distance—soft, then louder, rattling the apartment windows. Rain poured in thick sheets against the glass.

Luna sat cross-legged on her bed. The red box lay open in front of her.

The ring shimmered under the lamplight. Old silver. Thin, but unbreakable.

Engraved with a sun surrounded by flames.

It looked almost alive.

The scroll lay beside it, ribbon undone.

She reached for it again.

This time, her hands didn't shake.

The parchment was impossibly old—fragile, but whole. Like it had waited for her.

She unrolled it carefully.

The ink was faded, but legible. The handwriting curled like vines carved by wind.

> "Bound by flame, broken by fear,

The one who curses must shed the first tear.

What was sealed by love shall be freed by loss,

But every life it touches will bear the cost."

The words thudded in her chest.

She didn't understand them.

And yet, she did.

Her throat tightened.

Her fingers trembled.

The lamp flickered once.

Then again.

Then the room went still.

She felt it before she heard it—

> "Seraphina…"

A man's voice.

Gentle. Grieving.

Calling out to someone he couldn't bear to lose.

Luna bolted upright. The scroll slipped from her lap.

The room was empty.

But she wasn't alone.

Not really.

Because the name rang in her head long after the voice was gone.

Seraphina.

It wasn't her name.

And yet—

It was.

She had no memory of being called that.

But it struck something inside her.

A hollow place.

A wound that had never healed.

---

Across town, in a house half-swallowed by ivy and storm, Asher Grayson stood at the window.

Rain turned the city to shadow and blur.

His hand pressed flat against his chest—over a scar no one else knew about.

Its shape was unmistakable.

A sun. Surrounded by flames.

It hadn't burned in years.

Until today.

Until her.

He closed his eyes.

The pain was dull now.

But the memory was sharp:

A girl with brown hair.

A scream.

Ash.

A silver ring slipping from her fingers.

His voice breaking—furious, wrecked—

> "I curse you… until you remember what you've done."

He opened his eyes.

The face was always lost to him.

But today, in that dusty archive, when Luna Carter looked at him—

His soul flinched.

Because something deep inside whispered:

> That's her.

---

Luna didn't sleep.

She sat at her desk, the scroll unrolled beside a half-filled notebook.

Her tea had gone cold hours ago.

At one point, her cat Eira jumped onto the desk, sniffed the ring—then hissed and leapt down like it burned her.

Luna didn't blame her.

The ring felt wrong and right all at once.

By 3 a.m., she gave up trying to decode the verse. She just stared at the final line:

> "But every life it touches will bear the cost."

What cost?

Who was Seraphina?

Why did the ring feel like it wanted something from her?

And why did she feel like something inside her had already been taken?

---

Morning came grey and slow.

Luna wrapped the ring in silk and tucked it back in the box, then slid it carefully into her desk drawer.

She dressed with deliberate calm. Not because she was tired—but because everything felt heavier now.

She checked her phone.

No messages.

Still, she found herself wanting to see him again.

Not for answers.

Just… because the world felt off without him in it.

Like he was a missing page in a story she hadn't written yet.

---

In his office at the Department, Asher flipped through a file from 1893—one of the first disputes over Saint Alder's Church.

No photographs. Just brittle pages. Handwritten testimonies.

Then he saw it.

At the bottom of a witness account:

> "She begged us to bury it. Said the world wasn't ready.

Said time would fold if love met fire again."

His breath caught.

Beneath it was a name:

> Seraphina Valen

And below that—

In handwriting he knew, though he couldn't explain how:

> Grayson

---

End of Chapter