The rain had stopped hours ago, but the air still trembled with what it left behind — silence, heavy and expectant. Shyla lay awake, eyes tracing the faint cracks on the ceiling. The city outside had gone still, but inside her, everything pulsed with restlessness.
She hadn't taken the locket off. Not yet.But its warmth against her skin wasn't comforting tonight. It was restless — like it wanted to speak but was holding itself back.
Her thoughts wandered, uninvited, to Ash. The way his eyes had found hers at college earlier that day, steady but distant. How he'd asked if she was fine, as though he already knew she wasn't. How his voice had felt like gravity — something she couldn't step away from even when she wanted to.
And yet… he'd left. No explanation, no glance back. Just distance — deliberate, aching distance.
She turned onto her side, gripping the blanket tighter. "He's avoiding me," she whispered into the dark. "And I don't even know why."
For a long while, there was no reply. Then the locket flickered faintly, gold light slipping through her fingers like breath.
"You do know," Leo's voice murmured, low and distant. "You just don't want to believe it."
Her breath caught. "Leo… what are you talking about?"
"Ash isn't running from you, Shy. He's running from himself."
She frowned, sitting up. "Because of Alishya?" The name tasted like ash on her tongue. "He still wants to bring her back, doesn't he?"
The locket's glow pulsed once — affirmation.
"But he won't use you," Leo added softly. "He fights it every time. You don't understand what that means for him… or for you."
Shyla felt her chest tighten. "Then why does it feel like I'm the one caught between whatever he wants and whatever he's trying to stop?"
The silence that followed was colder than the rain.
"Because fate is not done with you yet."Leo's tone had changed — heavier, slower, as if the words cost him something.
"Leo," she whispered. "What are you not telling me?"
The locket grew warm — almost hot. The air in the room shifted, trembling faintly with a presence she couldn't see.
Then came the words that froze her where she sat.
"You are not his to lose, Shyla. You were never meant for Ash."The locket's light flared brighter, outlining her trembling hands."Your bond... your future—is tied to someone else. His name… is Nickolas."
The name echoed through her mind like thunder muffled by glass. Nickolas.The sound of it felt foreign and familiar all at once, like something she'd heard in a dream she couldn't remember waking from.
Shyla shook her head, whispering, "No… that can't be right. I don't even— I've never met—"
"You will," Leo interrupted, the warmth in his voice edged with sorrow. "When the time comes, he will find you. And everything you think you know will begin to shift."
Her heart pounded hard enough to drown out the rain's memory."Then what about Ash?" she asked, almost shouting. "What am I supposed to do with all of this... with him... if my fate belongs to someone else?"
The light dimmed. Leo didn't answer at once.
Finally, a whisper: "That's the question destiny doesn't answer. It only waits to see what you'll choose."
Shyla stared at the faint shimmer of the locket, her reflection ghosting in the glass of her window. For a second her reflection flickered. A mark, faint and silver, glowed against her collarbone before fading away.
Her fingers brushed the spot, cold against her skin.
"Nickolas…" she breathed, the name trembling out of her.
"Sleep now," Leo whispered. "The storm hasn't even begun."
Outside, the sky was pale and restless... dawn waiting just below the horizon.And as she drifted into uneasy half-sleep, Shyla felt two names echo against each other in her mind Ash and Nickolas like twin stars colliding in the dark.