The world did not return with light instead, it returned with sound.
The faint crackle of firewood.
The distant sigh of rain against tall windows.
And then, a slow, trembling inhale not her own, and yet it was hers.
Pillyse's eyes fluttered open to a haze of gold and shadow. Her lungs fought for breath as if relearning how to live. Every exhale was a question, every heartbeat a protest. The ceiling above her loomed impossibly high, dressed in crimson velvet and flickering candlelight. It was nothing like the sagging beams of her childhood room, the one where her father's boots had thundered and her mother's silence had screamed.
She sat up too quickly. Pain didn't greet her, disorientation did.
Her hands trembled before her eyes...
They weren't hers!
Her fingers slender, pale, unscarred trembled like candle flames. The familiar calluses were gone. The bruises on her wrists, the faded burns on her arms, the signs of survival erased, as though the world had rewritten her entirely.
"What…?" Her voice faltered. "What is this?"
The mirror across the room answered first.
A stranger's face stared back. Beautiful. Fragile. Eyes the color of stormlight blue-gray, deep, ancient. Her reflection looked noble, regal even, framed by soft curls and dressed in a gown she had never owned. But beneath the surface shimmered something else a grief that mirrored her own.
Her lips parted, trembling. "This isn't me…"
A deep voice, calm, and familiar drifted through the silence.
"You are safe now."
She gasped and spun around, her pulse quickening. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere like wind threading through glass, intimate and unearthly.
"Who's there?" she whispered, her words shaking but her mind sharp, already searching for reason, for truth.
A shadow moved in the corner. Then a man stepped into the firelight.
He was unlike anyone she'd ever seen or rather, unlike anyone alive she had seen. His clothes spoke of another century. A black velvet coat with silver embroidery, a cravat tied neatly at his throat, hair pulled back in a ribbon, and eyes… eyes that burned like dying stars fierce, knowing, sorrowful.
He bowed slightly, his voice low and steady."You heard me before, Pillyse."
Her breath caught."You… you were the voice in the darkness."
"Yes," he said. "And you are the soul I sought across lifetimes."
She stared at him, heart pounding. "I don't understand. I died — didn't I? I felt it. I stopped breathing"
He nodded gently. "You did. And yet, your story refused to end."
Her eyes narrowed, her voice gaining steadiness. "You brought me back."
"I called you," he corrected softly. "And you answered."
Her mind, logical, keen, and unafraid to question began to race. "So this body...this shell....whose is it?"
"A woman who no longer wished to stay," he said, each word slow, deliberate. "When her spirit left, there was room for yours. I pulled you across the veil. It was the only way to save you."
She rose from the bed, her bare feet meeting the cold wooden floor. The sound echoed, grounding her in this strange, ornate world. She studied her reflection again, eyes narrowing with restrained fury and reason.
"So you stole her life to give me mine."
"No," he said, pain flashing through his expression. "I gave life to what was already empty."
"And what if she wasn't?" she challenged, stepping closer. "What if she's still here watching, screaming beneath the surface?"
Her words cut like glass, sharp and intelligent, filled with the weight of every injustice she had endured. And for a moment, his gaze faltered not from guilt, but from admiration.
"You are as I remember," he said quietly. "Curious. Fearless. Defiant."
She froze. "You speak as though you've known me."
He smiled not with his lips, but with the ache in his eyes.
"I have. You once wore a crown of white lilies and laughed at the rain. You called me by another name."
A flicker not of memory, but of emotion sparked within her. Faces, laughter, moonlit dances they surged like echoes against glass, just beyond reach.
"I remember…" she whispered. "You were—"
"Your husband," he finished, voice heavy with longing. "Once. Before time broke us."
Her pulse thundered in her chest. "Then this—this body, this second life is part of that promise?"
"Yes," he said. "You died too soon. I swore to find you, no matter the cost."
Her eyes softened but only slightly. "And now you've brought me back… to what? To haunt old promises? To repeat our mistakes?"
His voice trembled. "To finish what we began."
The storm outside deepened, wind moaning against the windowpanes like a lament. Pillyse sank into a chair near the fire, her mind a tempest of reason and emotion. The white gown she wore shimmered faintly, its black hem trailing like mourning silk.
"Tell me your name," she said after a long silence.
He looked at her, hesitation flickering. "It has changed many times since you last spoke it. But once, long ago, you called me Elarion."
Her lips moved around the name, soft and reverent. "Elarion…"
He smiled faintly, and for a moment, the distance between them vanished.But the warmth that bloomed in her chest came with pain, the ache of everything she could not remember, and everything she somehow did.
"Elarion," she said again, voice trembling. "If you truly knew me, you'd know I cannot just accept a mystery. I will uncover it even if it breaks me."
He laughed softly, a sound both fond and sorrowful. "You always were relentless."
"Good," she said, meeting his gaze. "Then tell me everything."
"I cannot," he admitted. "Not yet. Some truths, when spoken too soon, destroy what they're meant to heal."
She tilted her head, the flicker of intellect behind her sadness. "Then I'll find them myself."
He stepped closer, his presence wrapping around her like warmth and shadow. "And when you do, remember not all ghosts wish to be forgotten. Some simply wish to be forgiven."
Their eyes met her defiance against his devotion, her logic against his longing.Between them, the air shimmered, fragile and electric.
And then, for the first time, she saw it faintly reflected in the mirror behind him. A woman, dressed exactly as she was, standing in the shadows. Watching. Waiting. Her expression unreadable.
Pillyse's voice dropped to a whisper. "Elarion… who is she?"
He didn't look. His jaw tightened."The past," he said quietly. "And the price of your return."
As thunder rolled beyond the windows, Pillyse understood life borrowed was never freely given, and love rekindled could burn even brighter… or destroy them both.