The two moons hung heavy in the alien sky, one blood-red and the other silver like a shard of ice. Elira sat near the edge of a jagged cliff, her body still humming from the explosion of power she'd unleashed back in the Tower of Veyrun. Her hands trembled as she stared into the distance, trying to make sense of the world she was now a part of.
Kael crouched beside her, wrapping his long black coat around her shoulders.
"Cold?" he asked gently.
She nodded, not answering with words. Her mind was spinning with too much—Seraphyne's face, the chains, the raw magic, and Kael's voice calling her back from the brink.
He sat next to her in silence. The wind carried the scent of minerals and starlight, strange and unfamiliar.
"Back there," she finally said, her voice low. "I didn't know I could do that. I didn't even try to. It just… happened."
Kael looked at her with a mixture of awe and wariness. "That's the power of the Crystal Heart. It doesn't just lie dormant inside you. It lives. It grows. And now that it's in its native realm again… it's waking up."
She swallowed hard. "What happens if I can't control it?"
"Then others will try to control you." His voice darkened. "Just like they controlled your father. Just like they tried to control me."
Elira turned to him, heart thudding. "Kael… what were you before we met? Who are you, really?"
He hesitated.
For a moment, the mask he wore—the calm, calculated protector—slipped. His jaw clenched, his eyes shadowed with a storm of memory.
"I was one of them," he said softly. "A Reclaimer."
Elira's breath caught.
"My mission was to find those who escaped from the magical realm. Slaves, rebels, anyone with traces of forbidden power. I was raised in the dark castles of Morvae, trained to believe freedom was treason. I hunted your kind, Elira. And I was very, very good at it."
She stared at him, unsure whether to step closer or further away.
"Then why save me?" she asked.
"Because you were different," he said. "And I was broken. I saw something in you I never saw in the others I hunted—innocence. Fire. A kind of strength I had long lost in myself."
Kael stood and looked over the cliff, wind pulling at his cloak.
"I fell in love with the one I was supposed to deliver."
Elira's heart ached.
"But Kael… if they find out—"
"They already know," he said. "Seraphyne knew I betrayed my order the moment she saw me with you. There's no going back now."
Elira stood too, moving beside him. "Then we don't go back. We go forward. We find the truth about the Crystal. We find my father's trail. And if we can… we destroy whatever it is they're building with this power."
He looked at her, a slow smile forming. "That's a dangerous promise."
"I'm done being afraid of danger," she said. "Let's end this."
Just then, a sound reached them—soft, rhythmic, unnatural. Kael turned sharply, drawing his blade in one smooth motion.
From the mist came a figure. Cloaked in gold-stitched robes, her face was hidden behind a porcelain mask shaped like a tear-streaked moon. But her voice was unmistakable.
"You wear your father's rage well, Elira."
Elira's breath hitched. "Who are you?"
The woman removed her mask slowly.
And Elira staggered back.
She looked just like her—or a version of her. Older. Wiser. Stronger.
"Your mother," Kael whispered in disbelief. "But that's not possible."
The woman stepped forward, eyes glistening. "Not dead. Just hidden. Like the truth."