The fall had no end.
Kian tumbled through silence, through colorless air, through flashes of faces he barely recognized — his father's, his first kill, his own reflection streaked with blood. Then the darkness caught him gently, as if the world itself had hands.
He opened his eyes to light.
The forest was gone. In its place stretched a wide, moonlit field — silver grass swaying in a wind that carried no scent. The air was too still, too clean. It wasn't the real world. It was memory.
Kian rose slowly, every sound distant, every heartbeat echoing twice. The mark on his wrist glowed brighter here, responding to something unseen. Ahead, a figure stood with her back turned — hair like midnight, shoulders straight, still.
"Lyra?"
The figure turned.
It was her — or at least, she looked like her. But her eyes were not silver now; they were the soft brown he had first fallen into. The warmth of the old world.
She smiled, the kind of smile that twisted his heart. "You finally came."
He took a cautious step closer. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere between what you remember and what you've forgotten." She reached out a hand, fingers brushing the air. "Does it matter?"
He wanted to believe it didn't. The field around them shimmered with warmth, sunlight breaking through where no sun should exist. The air smelled of rain and pine — the scent of home.
It was too perfect.
Kian's throat tightened. "You're not her."
The false Lyra tilted her head, smile unbroken. "Aren't I? I remember everything. The night you swore to protect me. The moment you turned away. The way you said my name like a promise."
Her hand touched his chest, and warmth flooded through him — memory, desire, longing — every emotion he had buried rising like a tide.
"Tell me," she whispered, "if I'm not her, why does your heart still answer mine?"
He closed his eyes, the bond burning under his skin. Every part of him wanted to believe this — to reach out, to hold her, to erase the pain. But beneath the illusion, he felt it: wrongness. A pulse that didn't match his.
He stepped back. "Because love remembers truth."
The world flickered. The warmth shattered.
The field dimmed into a storm. The false Lyra's eyes turned silver again — cold, wild, glowing like a blade in moonlight.
"You shouldn't have resisted," she said softly. "The Vale doesn't like defiance."
Lightning split the sky. The ground cracked open, and shadows poured out — wolves, twisted and eyeless, moving like smoke, circling him.
Kian drew his blade. "Then they'll learn to hate me more."
He fought without thought — every swing, every movement guided by instinct older than reason. The shadows lunged, claws meeting steel, their howls shaking the air. The mark on his wrist blazed, each heartbeat spilling light that cut through the dark.
One by one, the creatures fell, dissolving into ash and sound.
Then silence.
The false Lyra stood at the edge of the fading light, watching him. "You can't save her," she said. "The real Lyra is bound to the moon's will now. Each moment you chase her, you strengthen the curse."
Kian lowered his blade, panting. "Then I'll break it."
She smiled sadly. "And if breaking it means breaking her?"
The world trembled. The question hung between them like a blade. Before he could answer, the Vale itself seemed to breathe — the wind reversing, the light bending inward.
The illusion shattered completely, and Kian was falling again, through silver and black, through the sound of a single heartbeat — not his.
When he landed, it was on stone.
He opened his eyes to a cavern lit by shifting light. The pool he had fallen through glimmered above him like an inverted sky. He was back — or somewhere close.
Only now, he wasn't alone.
At the far end of the cavern stood Lyra — the real one — her silver eyes glowing faintly in the half-dark. She looked calm, almost serene, as though waiting for him.
"Kian," she said softly.
He took one step toward her. "Lyra—"
But something in her tone — the cold echo of her voice — made him stop.
"Do you know what happens," she said, "when the moon chooses twice?"
The air shifted. A ring of pale light rose from the ground, circling her like a crown. Her hair lifted in the unseen wind.
Kian's heart pounded. "Lyra, stop. Whatever it's making you do—"
She smiled faintly. "It's not making me."
The light flared, bright enough to blind him.