Chapter 8 Dreams Beneath the Ruins

Kaela's POV

When viewed from afar, the remnants appeared no more than an abandoned sanctuary covered in twisting plants and lost in time's endless tapestry. When we stepped inside the building, it felt different than the space beyond. Thick. Still. Almost reverent.

My footsteps crunched across the time-worn mosaic as I stood beneath the crumbling shrine entryway. I stooped to examine a faded mosaic which showed an irregular crescent moon surrounded by unknown symbols that demanded my understanding for some reason.

I lowered myself to the ground while gently wiping away accumulated dust. My fingers trembled. A quiet whisper left my lips as I recognized where we stood.

The moment Ash turned toward me, I still used his original name, Rael. The red irises in his eyes shone with both suspicion and interest. His eyes moved across the broken colonnades as he declared his first assessment of my presence. The shrine disappeared following the final Lunar War. Not even my father knew of its exact location."

I shook my head. "Not in this life."

He stilled.

There. I'd said it.

The words sliced through my tongue like broken glass, but I held on to them because there was no going backward. The truth fought for my tongue's release after we departed the castle and rose to the surface through these surrounding memories, which haunted me.

A small voice emerged from my lips as I shared my childhood vision of visiting this shrine. I stood in the moonstone dais's center while bleeding like I had dreamed when I was little. Crying. Screaming someone's name."

Ash moved closer, the crumbled stones crunching under his boots. "Whose name?"

"I don't remember." My voice caught. "But I know it hurt. I know I died here."

He didn't scoff. Didn't call me mad. Just stared at me for a long moment before speaking. "The Lunar Shrine was sacred," he said finally. "Only the Moon's Chosen could enter it without being... torn apart."

I touched the jagged rim of the dais. "And yet here I stand. Alive."

Lightning cracked somewhere in the distance. Not a storm-magic.

Ash stepped beside me, arms folded. "You told me the Moon is broken."

"It is," I said, rising. "Or at least... it was. But I think this place holds a piece of it. A memory. A shard."

"Kaela," he said softly, too softly. "Who are you?"

I turned to him. "I think I used to be someone else. Someone powerful. Someone the world feared. Maybe even someone you feared."

A gust of wind swept through the ruins, then carrying with it whispers too faint to decipher. The vines around the pillars trembled as though remembering something, too.

Ash didn't move away. But he didn't speak, either.

"It's why your magic doesn't affect me," I said. "Why the spell you cast at the battle washed over me like rain."

He exhaled sharply. "You shouldn't know that."

"I know more than I should. I've just been too scared to admit it. But this place-these stones-they remember me."

I closed my eyes.

And suddenly I was there-not standing in a ruin, but in the past.

The dais gleamed silver, whole and glowing. My robes were white and blood-stained. My chest burned. Someone held me, crying out, his voice hoarse with grief-

My eyes snapped open. I stumbled back, heart thundering.

Ash caught me.

"What did you see?"

I looked up at him. "You," I whispered. "Holding me. Crying."

His jaw clenched. "That's impossible."

"Is it?"

For a second, something broke through his mask-pain. Raw and untamed.

Then he stepped back, letting go. "You're the Moon Shard."

I nodded. "I think so."

Silence hung between us like a blade. Until he said, "If that's true, Kaela, then we are enemies in every lifetime."

My chest ached, but I lifted my chin. "Maybe. Or maybe we're just two people cursed to always find each other too late."

And this time, he didn't deny it.