Chapter 119: A Memory Made of Ice
Early Morning
Selene dreamed of the sea again.
But not the sea she remembered.
In the dream, the ocean was glass — endless and still, stretched beneath a sky that pulsed with slow - moving veins of light. No wind, no tide, no horizon. Just water like a polished wound, reflecting a world that had never existed.
She stood at the edge barefoot, the cold reaching her ankles and never rising higher. She didn't move. She couldn't.
There was something in the distance. Far out, past where the world should have curved.
A figure.
Walking.
Not toward her.
Away.
She couldn't see its face. Couldn't hear its voice.
But she knew.
It was Aria.
And the farther Aria walked, the less human she looked. Her body shimmered like a candle held behind fogged glass — limbs trailing threads of light, hair blooming outward like petals caught in a current. She didn't sink. She didn't falter.
She just kept walking.
And with every step, the water froze beneath her feet.
Not a crust of frost. Not the delicate kiss of ice.
But solid, perfect, impossible ice — clear as crystal and glowing faintly from beneath. It shimmered in patterns Selene didn't recognize. Like runes. Like veins. Like something divine that had never needed worship.
Selene tried to call out.
But her mouth filled with salt.
Not seawater.
Blood.
Then came the voice.
Not Aria's.
Not hers.
Not anyone she'd ever heard aloud.
It was under everything. Under breath, under skin, under history.
A voice threaded from the marrow of the world.
"Do you love her?"
Selene flinched. Not in fear. In fury.
Of course she did.
She opened her mouth to say it — but her teeth cracked when she tried. Hairline fractures spidering through bone.
"Will you still love her when she forgets how to love you?"
Selene's chest ached. Her hands trembled. But she didn't drop her gaze.
The voice didn't speak again.
It just hummed.
And Aria stopped walking.
Just for a second.
Long enough to glance over her shoulder — not with her face, but with something deeper. Something older.
Her eyes weren't her eyes.
They were windows. And the thing looking out from behind them didn't blink.
Selene gasped — and the sound tore the dream apart.
She woke like surf breaking — sharp, breathless, aching.
The ceiling above her spun with the weight of something she couldn't name. Her limbs twitched before she could control them. Her chest felt bruised from the inside. Her mouth was dry.
And she was cold.
Not from the air. Not from the room.
From inside.
Selene sat up.
The blanket slipped from her shoulders like shed skin. Her fingers were pale. Her pulse felt like it was lagging behind her body, like her blood was trying to catch up to the shape she'd become.
She blinked hard.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that follows after something has happened — but before anyone speaks of it.
She turned.
Aria wasn't on the bed.
The sheets had been slept in, but she wasn't there.
Selene's heart beat once — hard — before logic caught up. She scanned the room. The faintest trace of frost clung to the floor near the window. Not dangerous. Just suggestive.
Her boots found the floor. Her body moved before her thoughts did.
Aria hadn't gone far. Selene knew that with the same certainty she used to fire a bullet. The instinct was bone - deep now. Her own thread, tied too tightly to ignore.
She stepped into the kitchen. Empty.
Passed the hallway. Bare.
And then she saw the open door.
The bathroom.
Light off. But the door was ajar. Just barely.
A whisper-width crack.
She pressed a palm to the frame. Felt nothing.
Not warmth. Not cold.
Just waiting.
She knocked gently once.
No answer.
She pushed it open.
Aria was standing in front of the mirror.
Still.
Her eyes locked on her reflection like it wasn't hers. Like she was trying to see past it.
She didn't flinch when Selene entered. Didn't blink.
She was barefoot, and the tips of her fingers were stained faint gray, like ash had kissed them and lingered. Her hair was damp with sweat or water or something else — Selene couldn't tell. Her skin was pale, but it glowed faintly at the throat. Like moonlight had soaked into her blood and forgotten how to leave.
"You saw it," Aria said softly.
Not a question.
Selene didn't answer right away.
Then: "I saw… something."
Aria nodded, still watching herself in the mirror.
"There was a rose," she whispered. "Upside-down. It wasn't a message. It was a key. And I touched it."
Selene stepped closer.
"Where did it lead?"
Aria didn't look at her.
"Somewhere inside."
The words hung heavy. Loaded.
Aria finally turned to face her.
Her pupils were darker than usual. Not blown wide, not magical — just… searching. Like she was reading Selene's face for a map to something she hadn't named yet.
"I remembered something," Aria said.
Selene's breath caught.
"What?"
Aria hesitated.
Then:
"It wasn't mine."
She paused.
"It was yours."
Selene froze.
Aria took another step, closing the space between them.
"I saw you standing at the edge of the ocean. I saw the ice you left behind. I saw what you gave up to follow me back."
Selene's knees almost buckled.
"That wasn't a dream," she whispered. "It was yours?"
"No," Aria said. "It was ours."
A breath passed between them. Not exhaled. Exchanged.
Selene reached up and brushed her knuckles along Aria's cheek. Not quite a touch. Not quite not.
"I don't know what I'm becoming," Aria whispered. "But the thread… it's not just in me. It's between us. It's always been."
Selene swallowed hard.
Her voice, when it came, was uneven.
"I dreamed of you walking away. The sea froze beneath your feet. I couldn't reach you."
Aria nodded.
"I had to keep walking."
"Why?"
"So I could turn back."
Selene's throat ached.
"You did."
"And I'll do it again," Aria said. "If I lose myself — if I forget — just speak. I'll remember your voice before I remember my name."
Selene leaned forward, her forehead pressing to Aria's.
Not in passion.
In survival.
In faith.
"I'll speak until my throat breaks," Selene said. "And I'll keep speaking after."
The mirror behind them flickered — just slightly. As if the reflection held its breath.
The air thickened.
Something in the walls shifted.
Aria and Selene didn't move.
Their shadows merged on the floor.
Two figures.
One thread.
And in that hush — beneath language, beneath blood — a new word began to take shape behind Aria's tongue.
A name.
Not human.
Not spoken.
But waiting.
Still blooming.