Location: The Outer Edge of the Perennial Forest✧
Time: Cycle 129— Before the Forest Chose Us
Sairon didn't mean to hold a soul. Not really.
He was seven spans old. Hiding under the crooked ribs of a dead moon tree, dirt in his mouth, blood on his sleeve. His clan had just finished their "lesson" again—the one where they reminded him he was too soft. Too silent. Too wrong.
He was always wrong.
The jar was just something he found. Cracked glass, a broken neck, something sharp he could hold without anyone noticing. Something that wouldn't yell back.
And then it appeared.
A soul. Tiny. Flickering. It floated through the dusk like it was lost, like it had wandered out of a story no one wanted to finish. No bigger than a firefly. No heavier than a breath.
He didn't scream.
He just... opened the jar.
"You don't have to go," he whispered.
It listened.
It curled into the glass like it had been waiting for him. Like it knew he wouldn't ask it to be anything else. It pulsed—gold and quiet, like a heartbeat he could finally hear.
He didn't know what he'd done. Not then.
All he knew was that something broken wanted to stay with him.
He kept the jar in his room. Buried it behind spell-scorched books and discarded memories. He talked to it sometimes. Maybe that was weird. Maybe that was all he had.
No one noticed.
No one ever did.
Until Nyelle.
She found it by accident—because of course she did. She was the kind of girl who touched everything, smiled at ruins, danced where curses slept. And for some damn reason, she talked to him.
She stared at the jar.
Then at him.
And said, "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
She meant the soul.
She didn't mean him.
But he pretended she did.
That's how it started.
Her, bright and impossible. Him, shadows and silence. They weren't friends. Not really. They were something messier. Something dangerous.
And deep down, he knew.
One day, he'd have to choose between keeping her…
Or keeping everything else from falling apart.
Because souls aren't meant to be bottled.
And love? Love's the most dangerous spell of all.
They'd call him the Soul Keeper someday.
But once... he was just a boy with a jar, and a secret he didn't understand.