(Long before time bent around their names, before magic cracked open the sky, there was only breath and flame... and a promise they never kept.)
It began in a city without clocks. A place not yet cursed by memory or prophecy—just stars, salt, and sand.
Back then, Kai was named Keithen, and Elio was still Elior—both sons of divine blood, though neither knew it yet.
The city was called Solhara—a jewel in the desert, where every building hummed with sun magic and the streets whispered forgotten spells with every breeze. The people did not age here. Time stretched like honey, sweet and slow.
They met during a lunar eclipse. Of course they did.
Kaithen was a scribe's apprentice, known for translating dead languages in the cathedral's hollow library. Elior? He was a sword dancer—reckless, radiant, with a laugh that cracked walls. They should never have crossed paths. But the eclipse demanded it.
At the center of Solhara's plaza, where the moon passed directly over the sun, their shadows fused.
It was said that when two shadows kiss during an eclipse, the gods take notice.
And the gods are never merciful.
Kaithen's world had always been ink and silence. Long robes, sunburned fingers, eyes sore from candlelight. He studied the Old Tongue—the one that bled magic into every vowel. His master, a one-eyed woman named Sibyra, warned him often:
"Some words were buried for a reason. Dead spells stay dead."
But Kaithen was curious. Too curious. And on the night of the eclipse, he read aloud from a scroll that had no title, no warnings—just four words in jagged gold:
"Call what should not answer."
That night, Elior's face burned behind his eyes. A stranger he'd only glimpsed for seconds in the crowd, but whose laugh had haunted him since.
Outside, the moon bled silver. Inside Kaithen's chest, something opened.
Elior danced like he was trying to seduce the sky.
He moved through the courtyard of the Temple of Flame, bare-chested, blades spinning. Not for money. Not for praise. For rage.
He had been told from birth that fire lived in his blood. That if he did not sweat it out, it would consume him. So he danced. Every evening. Alone.
But this night, he wasn't alone.
Kaithen stood in the shadows of the temple wall, watching. Heart too loud. Thoughts too tangled.
"You shouldn't be here," Elior said, not turning.
"I know," Kaithen whispered.
Elior turned then. Sweat on his brow. Ember light in his eyes.
"You're the boy from the library. The eclipse," Elior said. "You summoned me."
Kaithen blinked. "I didn't mean to."
"Doesn't matter. You did."
Their hands touched like they'd done it a thousand times. And maybe they had.
The gods of Solhara were not kind, but they were curious.
When they saw Kaithen and Elior kiss under a blood moon, they wept into the sands and etched a curse in salt across the sky:
"Let them find each other forever. Let them lose each other every time."
But the lovers didn't hear it.
Not then.
They made love in secret. Among ruins. Beneath the bones of long-dead temples. They spoke to each other in languages they did not remember learning. Elior traced constellations onto Kaithen's spine. Kaithen carved protection runes into Elior's blade.
They laughed like gods had no dominion.
But love, as always, was loud. And Solhara was a city built on silence.
It didn't take long for Sibyra to notice the change in her apprentice.
"You're glowing," she hissed. "That only happens before a fall."
Kaithen said nothing.
But in his dreams, he began to hear voices. Whispered warnings. Strange symbols appearing on his arms, pulsing with light. Magic older than even the Old Tongue—wild, chaotic, forbidden.
He was becoming something else.
So was Elior.
The High Priests declared them cursed.
"You've awakened a cycle," one spat. "Love like this bends time, unravels fates, pulls others into its orbit. You will destroy us all."
They tried to run. Together.
To the coast. To the stars. To anywhere their names wouldn't be recognized.
But the gods had already sealed their fate.
The betrayal came from within.
Kaithen's master. Elior's brother. Both feared what the boys were becoming.
So they conspired. Fed them false hope. Led them to an ancient mirror buried beneath Solhara's oldest temple—a relic said to show the truth of one's soul.
When Kaithen and Elior looked into it, they did not see themselves.
They saw versions—warriors, demons, ghosts, kings, corpses.
A hundred lives. A thousand deaths.
And the mirror cracked.
A scream erupted—not theirs. A thing had been released.
It looked like light, but it tasted like ash.
It coiled into their lungs, their skin, their names.
And the curse was born.
Kaithen woke up days later, alone, with blood on his hands.
Elior's body was gone. His sword lay shattered beside the altar. The temple burned. The city in ruins.
From the ashes, a voice whispered:
"You will find him again. You will lose him again. Until one of you ends the other."
Kaithen screamed.
And time broke.
Kai jolted awake on a rusted train bench. Sweat-soaked. Gasping. Fingers curled into fists.
Elio stood nearby, holding two coffees. Watching them with eyes that held ancient storms.
"You remembered something," he said.
Kai looked at him like he was the beginning and the end of every war.
"It wasn't a love story," Kai whispered.
"No," Elio replied. "It was a spell."
And somewhere beneath Azrael, the Past life Archive trembled.
In the heart of the catacombs, deep beyond any mortal reach, the Master Archivist stood before a sea of time-worn glass capsules.
Each one shimmered with a different version of Kai and Elio. Some were locked in passionate embrace. Some mid-battle. Some whispering secrets across galaxies.
The Archivist, tall and spectral, moved with impossible grace. Their voice was neither male nor female—but thunder in silk.
"They're remembering too fast," they murmured to the shadows.
A cloaked assistant bowed beside them. "Do we interfere?"
"No," the Archivist said, touching one glowing capsule. "Let them remember. Let the pain stitch the truth together."
"But the Order of Erasure—"
"—Is not the only player on this board," the Archivist interrupted. "And they have forgotten that love is the strongest curse."
The capsule in their hand flickered. Inside, Kai and Elio were burning together in a pyre, their eyes still locked even as their flesh turned to ash.
The Archivist closed their eyes.
"So we begin again."
Glitch Sequence — The Vault Touches Back
Kai blinked.
The train station was gone.
In its place stood a corridor made entirely of mirrors. Thousands. Endless. Some fogged. Some cracked. Some screaming.
He didn't walk—he floated. Or maybe the floor moved for him.
Every mirror reflected a version of him:
A king with a golden mask.
A slave in chains.
A storm made flesh.
A corpse with Elio's name carved into his ribs.
He couldn't breathe.
"Stop this," Kai said.
But the mirrors whispered back: "You're remembering too slow."
One mirror shattered as he passed it. Behind the glass: Elio, eyes glowing blue, standing at the edge of a burning cliff. Reaching. Bleeding.
"Kai?"
A voice tugged him back.
Present — Azrael Station
"Kai?" Elio's hand was on his shoulder. "You zoned out. Like full-on glitch."
Kai gasped like he'd been underwater.
"What just happened?" Elio asked. "You looked into the glass like it punched you."
Kai turned, swallowing the tremor in his chest. "I saw... places. Versions. Mirrors."
Elio stiffened. "You touched the Vault."
"What?"
Elio didn't answer. He looked around sharply, then muttered, "Come on. We have to move. Now."
"Why? What did I do?"
"You pinged the Order. That kind of memory flash? They can track it."
As they moved through the crowd, Kai's palm stung.
He looked down.
A word had been carved into his skin—fresh, red, still bleeding:
"RUN."
They sprinted down crooked alleys, past potion booths and holographic priests. Magic shimmered in the air like broken glass.
Behind them, a sound began to rise—not footsteps.
A dragging.
Metal against stone.
Kai turned. A woman in red robes walked toward them, slow and unhurried, holding a scythe made of melted clocks.
"Who is that?" Kai gasped.
"Elora," Elio said, voice tight. "High Executioner. Order of Erasure. She kills loops."
Elora raised a hand. The walls around them flickered—like reality buffering.
"Split," Elio ordered. "North tunnel. Meet at the bell tower."
"No—"
"GO."
Kai ran. The world bent around him.
Behind him, Elio turned to face Elora.
"Come to break another cycle?" he asked.
Elora smiled. "No. This time, I'm here to offer a deal."
Meanwhile — Kai's Run Through the Fold
As Kai sprinted, time stuttered.
People paused mid-step.
Birds hung in the air.
His footsteps echoed into silence.
And then, a voice—not Elio's, not his own:
"You are not running from death. You are running toward a choice."
A shadow stepped out from the wall. Not Elora. Not Order. Something older.
It looked like Kai, but older. Hollowed. Holding a burning book.
"You have three lives left," it said. "Use them wisely."
Then the world snapped back.
A bell tolled in the distance.
Kai ran toward it.
And the chapter kept bleeding forward.