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A memory.
Not hers. Not his.
But something left in the veil between them.
A vision—false or fated—of Lysara and Dren as youths, side by side in the forbidden archives. Her finger brushing his wrist as they read an old prophecy aloud:
"He who dreams her pain shall die a thousand times before the end."
She laughed, then. "That's absurd."
But he didn't laugh. He just looked at her—like he already knew.
And outside, the wind howled
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The first time Lysara felt it, she thought it was her own pain.
A sudden flare behind her ribs—searing, intimate, sharp. As if a blade had been dragged along her collarbone. She gasped in her sleep, bolting upright in the high tower room they'd taken shelter in. Rain whispered against the windows, but the wind outside was silent.
Only her breath, shallow and rattling, filled the space.
Then came the second wave. A pulse. Not pain—but grief.
Not hers.
She curled forward, clutching her side. "Dren," she whispered. She didn't know why. But the name tumbled from her lips like blood from a wound.
From across the chamber, Selene stirred. "You felt it too?"
Lysara looked up, strands of damp hair sticking to her brow. "It wasn't me."
"No," Selene said quietly. "It was him."
She crossed the room barefoot, robe trailing behind her like ghostlight. Her fingers grazed Lysara's shoulder—not to comfort, but to confirm. "It's starting again."
"What is?" Lysara asked, though part of her already knew.
Selene's voice dropped to a whisper. "The bond. You've always had one, haven't you? But something's made it flare."
Lysara gritted her teeth. "It was severed. I killed it."
"No," Selene murmured. "You buried it. But you're still dreaming his wounds."
Dreaming his wounds.
Lysara shuddered.
Outside, thunder rumbled. She turned to the window, watching the black sky tremble with flashes of silver light.
Somewhere out there, he was bleeding.
Elsewhere—
Dren's breath came ragged in his chest. He knelt in a ruined chapel, palms scraped open against broken marble. The vision had come again. Not of fire, not of war.
But her.
Lysara in red, walking through ash, her voice barely above a whisper. "Come back to me."
He'd clawed at the memory like a madman, digging through layers of pain and time. Now, only silence answered him.
But the wound on his chest—clean, precise, traced across the same place where her blade had once cut him—bled fresh.
He hissed, fingers trembling. "Why now?"
A voice answered from the dark.
"Because you're both waking up."
He turned. No one. Just shadows.
But he knew what it meant.
The Thorn Crown was close. And it was stirring their bond like an old god stirring grave-dust.
Back at the tower
Later that night, Lysara stood alone in the hall of cracked mirrors, her reflection fractured into ten distorted pieces. In each shard, she saw herself differently—smiling, crying, blood-soaked, crowned.
She spoke to her reflection: "It was never about saving him."
But the mirror answered.
Then why does he still haunt your sleep?
She didn't reply.
Instead, she turned—just in time to see Selene watching her, eyes unreadable.
"We'll need everyone," Selene said. "Kaelen. Naeven. Even Caldus—if he still lives."
Lysara stared at her. "And Dren?"
Selene didn't flinch. "Especially him. If you want to control the Crown, you'll have to face the only person who knows how it thinks."
Because it once whispered to him first.