My bones rattle when the thunder cracks.
Not the distant kind that rolls politely across the sky—the kind that sounds like the heavens have split open and something enormous is forcing its way through.
A half second later, the world detonates.
Rain slams the forest so violently it feels like the sky is shattering in sheets. Wind howls with feral hunger, ripping branches loose and hurling them through the dark. Lightning forks overhead in jagged white fractures, turning the night into war-flashes that leave afterimages burned behind my eyes.
The storm doesn't surround us.
It consumes us.
Cold punches straight through my skin and into bone—so sharp it almost burns, like needles driven under flesh. My teeth chatter uncontrollably. Every breath tastes metallic, charged, wrong.
"No, no, no, no, nooo…" he murmurs in just a whisper.
Will lifts his face into the chaos and roars into it—not a prayer.
A demand.
"GRANDFATHER— I NEED MORE TIME!"
The wind twists inward.
Not randomly.
Not violently.
Deliberately.
The storm bends, warping toward us like something alive that just heard its name. Lightning slams down again, so close the pressure thuds against my ribs and my teeth ache from the shockwave. The air hums like it's been pulled too tight.
Grandfather.
The word lands inside my skull like a bell struck too hard.
Zeus.
I should laugh. I should call this insanity what it is.
But my body doesn't reject it.
Instead, what leaves my mouth is a splintered whisper.
"I need to go home."
Will's head snaps toward me.
One heartbeat. One look.
And something in him breaks.
That expression—raw, stripped, devastated—hits me like I've reached into his chest and torn something vital out with my bare hands. Not anger. Not control.
Loss.
"I'm sorry," I choke. "I just—I need time. To think. To breathe. I won't do anything stupid. I'll be careful. I just… I need time."
The words tumble over each other, thin and useless against the storm.
His shoulders tense like he's bracing for impact. He drags in a breath that looks painful, like it scrapes on the way down.
If I keep looking at him, I will believe everything.
Every impossible memory.
Every terrible truth.
Every lifetime staring back at me through his eyes.
So I run.
I tear myself away while he's still shouting at the sky.
The storm lashes me in knives—rain, wind, debris. Mud sucks at my sneakers. I slip, slam hard into the ground, breath punched from my lungs, then force myself up again. Branches rake my arms. Leaves and grit sting my eyes. Water blinds me. Every inhale is a choke.
I don't stop.
My mouth still tastes like him. My skin hums like it remembers him—like that kiss wasn't affection, but a key turning inside a lock.
I hate it.
I hate that I can't think past his hands on my face. His voice breaking.
Come with me. Believe me.
I can't.
I run harder.
Roots twist underfoot like they're trying to trip me. Lightning shreds the dark into fragments. The world strobes. I fall twice. The third time, panic is the only thing that drags me back up.
By the time I reach the lattice beneath my window, I'm sobbing without realizing when I started.
Rain or tears—I don't know which.
Did I expect him to chase me?
To force me to stay?
To prove something?
The storm screams louder—
—and something inside me snaps.
Enough.
Enough of the thunder. Enough of the sky tearing itself apart. Enough of gods and memories and him.
Enough.
The word isn't loud.
It's final.
The world answers.
The rain stutters—mid-fall.
The thunder cuts off mid-roar—severed.
Clouds peel apart as if invisible hands are ripping them open from the inside.
Moonlight spills down—soft, silver, unnervingly still.
The forest freezes.
For one impossible breath, I feel it.
Power.
Not borrowed.
Not granted.
Mine.
The storm didn't calm.
It obeyed.
The realization hits so hard my knees nearly buckle.
Was that me?
Or did Zeus answer Will?
The question terrifies me enough that my mind crushes it flat.
My hands shake as I climb the lattice. My grip slips. Muscles scream. Splinters bite into my palms. I drag myself through the window and collapse onto the floor, the air punching out of my lungs in a sharp, broken gasp.
I curl in on myself, knees locked to my chest, and sob until there's nothing left but dry heaves and shaking.
When it finally passes, I sit with my back against the wall beneath the window, like the plaster is the only thing holding me together.
My thoughts grind and rattle—glass in a dryer.
If Will is telling the truth, then my life—my memories—were never mine.
And the lullaby rises in my mind.
I reach blindly for the music box on my nightstand. Chipped unicorn. Worn paint. The kind of thing you trust because it's always been there. I wind the key with fingers that won't stop trembling.
The melody spills out—soft, sweet, wrong.
Sleep now, my darling, while starlight above
wraps you in quiet and all that I love…
My chest loosens before I can stop it. Just a little. Like my body recognizes the pattern and leans into it on instinct alone.
Close your eyes, let the night keep you near,
when morning comes, you won't remember your fear…
I almost let it happen.
Almost let the edges blur. Almost let Will's words dull, soften, slip out of reach. The way they always have.
Hush now, my heart, let the dark softly stay,
dreams will protect you till first light of day…
My breath catches—not because I'm afraid, but because it's working. Because forgetting would be easier. Because for one selfish, aching second, I want it to take everything back.
Rest, little soul, let the shadows unspool—
love will remember what you are meant to lose.
My blood turns to ice.
Not comfort.
Instruction.
A lullaby designed to teach a child which memories to loosen first.
The final note thins, trembling in the air.
I snap the lid shut before it can finish the job.
And then—
I hear breathing.
Not thunder.
Not wind.
Slow. Measured.
Close.
Outside my window.
Every muscle in my body locks so hard it hurts. My lungs seize. My heart pounds so violently I'm sure it can be heard through the walls.
It stops.
Then—
A scrape.
Not claws.
Not nails.
Bone.
The sound crawls straight up my spine and into my skull.
My pulse detonates. I slide backward on shaking limbs, inch by inch, pressing myself into the corner like distance might save me, holding my breath until my chest burns and my vision spots.
Silence thickens.
Then a whisper.
Careful.
Testing.
"Ae… the… ria…"
My stomach drops so hard I nearly retch.
No one calls me that, other than Will.
Another whisper. Closer. The glass fogs faintly, as if something exhales against it.
"You slipped away… again…"
A shape glides across the window—too tall, limbs bending where joints shouldn't exist, neck angling wrong, shadow stretching in ways light doesn't allow.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Not knocking.
Testing the barrier.
Then I see them.
Not all of them.
Just the eyes.
Three sets.
Stacked vertically.
Unblinking.
Reflecting moonlight like shattered mirrors.
Empty.
Hungry.
"You were not meant to be found."
The shape tilts its head, listening—like it can hear my heartbeat, like it's memorizing the sound.
Then—
Thunder rolls in the distance.
But the sky is clear.
The Ker withdraws.
Not afraid.
Obedient.
The darkness peels back into the trees, breaking apart like smoke until there's nothing left but silence and the faint echo of bone against glass.
I am shaking so hard I can barely sit upright.
A memory slashes through me—
Frozen stone.
Chains biting skin.
A wedding dress in tatters.
A whisper in the dark: You can run from gods. Not from us.
I don't know if it's memory or madness.
But I know this: Will wasn't lying.
The Keres are real.
And they are hunting me.
The music box clicks as the mechanism winds down.
In the sudden quiet, my fear feels too big for this room—too big for the girl I thought I was.
"I'm not ready for this," I whisper.
But something presses awake behind my ribs.
And it isn't going back to sleep.