Some memories don't sleep in your mind.
They sleep in someone else's heart… waiting to wake up again.
The mark on her wrist still ached.
A soft pulse beneath her skin, like a second heartbeat she hadn't asked for.
It had been a day since the Trial of Memory. Since the thread burned into her soul and whispered her pain in fire and moonlight.
Anaya had stopped feeling like a normal girl long ago.
Now, she was something else.
And she wasn't sure if it terrified her… or set her free.
"The second thread will test what you trust," Caelum had said.
"But not all the threads live in you."
That was the problem.
Some memories, he told her, were never hers alone. They were shared.
And this one? It lived inside someone she had once trusted.
Late Afternoon – Campus Courtyard
It should have been peaceful.
Spring sun. Soft wind. Laughter. Books.
But her senses were razor-sharp now.
She could feel when something tugged at the weave of time.
And right now—
It was tugging toward someone she hadn't spoken to in weeks.
Aarav.
Tall. Familiar. Her ex. The kind of safe boy she'd once thought she could grow old with.
Before the dreams. Before the curse.
Now, as she looked at him laughing with his friends across the lawn, a sharp pull dragged at her soul.
Her feet moved before she could stop them.
"Aarav."
He turned, surprised.
"Anaya? Wow—uh… hey. You okay?"
"I need to ask you something," she said, voice low.
He blinked. "Sure?"
"Do you ever… remember dreams that aren't yours?"
Aarav froze.
She saw it.
The flicker in his eyes. The hesitation.
"Yes," he said slowly. "Since last week. There's this dream where I'm standing at a silver gate, and you're on the other side, crying… but you're wearing a crown of black flame."
Anaya's breath caught.
The same gate from her visions.
She stepped closer. "Aarav… there's something in you. Something that belongs to me. A memory."
He tried to laugh. "Anaya, what are you—"
But then, the air around them shifted.
Everything went still. Again.
Frozen Time – Memory Plane
Aarav blinked, startled. "Where—what the hell?"
They stood in a version of campus dipped in twilight and gold smoke. Everything was… slowed. Dreamlike.
"You've been marked," she whispered. "You're a carrier."
"What?"
Caelum's voice echoed from nowhere. "The Second Thread lies dormant in his memory. But it is sealed. To awaken it, you must unlock what he buried."
Anaya turned to Aarav. "Do you remember why we broke up?"
He hesitated. "You said I didn't understand you anymore. That you were changing."
"No," she said quietly. "That was the excuse."
And then—
The memory cracked open.
Flashback Fragment – 14th Life
A battlefield of stars. Anaya, wounded, bleeding threads of gold.
Aarav—no, not Aarav. A name that sounded like Arehn—stood before her, a weapon in hand.
"You're too dangerous," he had said. "You're not the Anaya I loved."
"Then you never loved me at all."
And he had turned away. Let the curse claim her.
Present
Anaya stepped back. "You betrayed me."
Aarav looked stunned, hollow. "I—I didn't know."
"You knew something," she said, voice sharp. "Even in this life, you pulled away the moment I started waking up."
He grabbed her arm. "It wasn't me. Not this me."
"You still carry the thread."
And it was time to take it back.
She reached for him—and the mark on her wrist blazed to life.
The second thread burst from Aarav's chest—silver this time—twisting violently.
He screamed.
Memories poured out between them like smoke:
A kiss stolen on a starlit bridge.
A sword dropped instead of used.
Her final scream as she fell into fire.
The thread lashed once—twice—and then curled gently around Anaya's hand.
It had returned.
And with it came knowledge.
Not of Caelum. Not of Aarav.
But of herself.
She was not born of earth. She was born of the last dying star.
She was not just cursed. She was once the gate itself.
And every time it broke… she broke with it.
The memory plane collapsed.
Time returned.
Aarav gasped, collapsed onto the grass.
Anaya stood tall now, the second thread glowing faintly beneath her skin, etched along her collarbone like liquid light.
A crescent moon.
Now a rising sun.
Caelum met her at the edge of the courtyard.
He said nothing.
Only looked at her wrist.
"You saw," she said.
"I felt it," he replied. "You didn't just retrieve the thread. You forgave the one who buried it."
She nodded. "Because hatred keeps the curse alive."
He smiled faintly. "You're remembering faster this time."
"How many more threads?"
"Three," he said. "But the next one is the hardest."
"Why?"
Caelum looked at her like it hurt.
"Because it's the one you sealed inside me."