Elara didn't sleep that night either.
After the shard's memory overwhelmed her, her world no longer felt real. The ceiling above her was the same, her room untouched—but the air was heavy, as if reality itself had shifted.
She sat wrapped in her blanket, eyes fixed on the window.
Something was out there.
Something had come through the veil—Kael wasn't the only one.
The pendant had glowed in warning. The shard in her hand had pulsed like a frightened heartbeat. That thing in the shadows wasn't just watching.
It was waiting.
---
By morning, the heaviness faded, but not completely.
Elara showered, dressed, and moved on instinct. At school, her friends noticed the shadows under her eyes and the way she jumped at every sudden sound. Even Mara kept glancing at her, concerned, but didn't push.
She couldn't explain this.
How do you tell people that a ghost from a forgotten life had come back, and now something from the other side might be hunting you?
---
That evening, Elara returned to the bookstore. The lights were dim, the quiet comforting. She headed straight to the back, to the small reading nook where she'd hidden her things the night before.
She pulled out the shard and pendant again, just to check—
The shard was gone.
Her heart seized. She emptied her pockets, her bag, searched the floor.
Nothing.
It was gone.
No one else had been back here. She'd hidden it inside a hollowed-out poetry book no one ever read. Panic gripped her throat.
Then, she saw it.
Carved faintly into the wall behind the shelves, almost invisible:
> "The Sealed One stirs. The cycle begins again."
She staggered backward, the words etched into the wood like a warning. Nooooooooo
Elara's boots slapped against the pavement as she ran, her breath hitching with every step. The streets were mostly empty this late, only the occasional car passing, unaware of the terror that stalked behind her.
She didn't dare look back.
The weight of its gaze followed her. Heavy. Ancient. Hungry.
Her pendant began to glow again, brighter this time, like it was trying to shield her. She gripped it tightly as she rounded a corner, slipping into an alley she knew well—an old shortcut behind the library.
Only—
It was already there.
A tall silhouette stood at the alley's end, waiting. Eyes like hollow moons. Skin flickering like smoke.
Trapped.
Elara stumbled backward—but the shadow didn't move. It just… watched. A voice slithered into her skull again, louder now:
> "You are not hers to protect anymore."
> "The binding is broken."
> "He broke the law. And so will pay the price."
Her back hit the wall.
Then—
The pendant exploded in light.
A pulse of golden fire erupted from her chest, blasting the alley in a radiant shockwave. The creature shrieked—a sound like glass shattering in thunder—and vanished into smoke.
Elara collapsed to her knees, gasping.
---
She didn't know how long she stayed there, trembling in the quiet aftermath. The light had faded. The world returned to stillness. But nothing would be the same again.
Not now.
Not ever.
Somehow… she had done that.
But she hadn't meant to.
Her pendant no longer glowed. Her body ached all over. But the words that shadow whispered echoed in her mind:
> "You are not hers to protect anymore…"
> Whose?
> What binding?
And most of all—
> Who else was coming?
---
As Elara slowly rose and began walking home in silence, far above the city, a storm gathered behind the stars.
And on the other side of the veil, Kael—bloody, furious, and trembling—opened his eyes.
"She's in danger."