A relic doesn't choose twice.
Willow's words followed me long after we left the cavern.
They should have bothered me more.
Under any other circumstances, discovering that an ancient relic had broken thousands of years of expectation by choosing both Lyra and me would have occupied every thought I possessed.
Instead, I found myself staring at my hands.
Waiting.
Listening.
Mortimer had gone quiet again.
Not gone.
I knew better now.
There was a difference between his absence and his silence.
In the Earth Prison, he had been absent.
Now...
He was simply waiting.
I could feel him in the darkness.
A pressure behind my thoughts.
A shadow sitting just beyond sight.
Patient.
That frightened me more than his threats ever had.
Because Mortimer's patience always comes with a plan.
He wanted something.
And now he knew something had changed.
Maybe he didn't know what.
Maybe the mountain had protected more than I'd realized.
But he knew it involved Lyra.
That was enough.
I looked across the temporary camp.
She sat beside Willow near the remains of a fire, listening as the Earth Princess examined the strange changes in her magic.
Lyra laughed at something Willow said.
The sound carried softly through the evening.
My chest tightened.
Mate.
I still couldn't think the word without feeling as though the ground beneath me had shifted.
My mate.
She had loved me.
Before
She remembered me.
And I...
Nothing.
There was simply a hole where she should have been.
I hated that.
More than I knew how to explain.
But there was something I hated more.
The memory of my hand around her throat.
Not mine.
Mortimer's control.
Except it had been my fingers.
My strength.
My body.
Her throat.
I closed my eyes.
No.
I couldn't stay.
Not yet.
Not until I understood how to stop him.
Earth had changed something.
I could feel that much.
There were places inside my mind that seemed firmer now.
Stone where there had once been open doors.
When Mortimer pushed, sometimes I could push back.
But sometimes wasn't enough.
Not with her.
Never with her.
How noble.
I went rigid.
There he was.
I didn't answer.
Running away to protect the woman you love.
My jaw tightened.
How very heroic.
"Shut up."
You know it won't work.
I pushed against him.
Not physically.
There was no body to fight.
Only pressure.
Will against will.
I imagined the stone I'd felt inside the mountain.
A foundation.
Walls.
Something that belonged to me.
Mortimer pressed harder.
Pain stabbed behind my eyes.
I held.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
The pressure increased.
My vision blurred.
Still, I held.
Then—
Enough.
I shoved.
Mortimer's presence recoiled.
Silence.
I exhaled shakily.
My hands were trembling.
That was the part no one saw.
Fighting Mortimer didn't leave bruises.
No wounds.
No blood.
It simply exhausted me.
Every second spent forcing him away required concentration.
Every thought had to be guarded.
Every emotion watched.
A battle without sleep.
Without rest.
Without victory.
Eventually...
I would tire.
And he wouldn't.
"You're doing it again."
I looked up.
Lyra stood in front of me.
I hadn't heard her approach.
That alone told me how exhausted I was.
"Doing what?"
"Trying to convince everyone you're fine."
"I'm sitting."
"Very convincingly."
I almost smiled.
She didn't.
Her eyes moved over my face.
Then she held out her hand.
I stared at it.
"Lyra—"
"I know."
Two words.
That was all.
I looked at her.
Something passed through the bond.
Sadness.
Understanding.
Fear.
She knew.
Of course she did.
I took her hand.
Her fingers immediately curled around mine.
Warm.
Familiar in a way I couldn't remember and somehow still recognized.
She sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
The fire cracked quietly.
People moved around the camp.
Somewhere behind us, Revik was arguing with one of the guards.
Normal sounds.
A normal evening.
I wanted to stay inside it.
Eventually, Lyra broke the silence.
"You're leaving."
Not a question.
I looked down at our hands.
"Yes."
Her fingers tightened.
The bond carried the pain she tried not to show.
I hated feeling it.
I hated more that I was causing it.
"I have to."
"I know."
"You don't."
"I do."
I looked at her.
She gave me a sad smile.
"I know you, remember?"
That hurt.
She must have seen it.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
I looked toward the fire.
"Mortimer isn't safe around you."
"Mortimer isn't safe around anyone."
"That's different."
"Because I'm your mate?"
The word struck me squarely in the chest.
She said it so easily.
I still couldn't.
"Because you're you."
Her expression softened.
"I've already hurt you once."
"That wasn't you."
"It was my hand."
"Raiden—"
"My body."
My voice hardened.
I finally looked at her.
"If he takes control again, knowing what I know now..."
I couldn't finish.
I didn't need to.
She understood.
"He could use me against you."
Her thumb moved slowly across my knuckles.
"And you think leaving fixes that?"
"No."
Honesty.
Earth apparently had left its mark.
"But distance gives me time."
"To do what?"
"Figure out how to beat him."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Of course."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That was clearly something."
"You learn quickly."
I gave her a look.
She laughed softly.
Then the laughter faded.
"Things are different now."
I knew exactly what she meant.
The bond.
The truth.
Us.
"I know."
"You don't get to disappear."
"I wasn't planning to."
"You don't get to decide that protecting me means shutting me out."
"I—"
"And you don't get to make every decision alone because you've decided you're dangerous."
I stared at her.
"Finished?"
"For now."
"Good."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Because I agree."
That stopped her.
"You're right."
Surprise crossed her face.
I sighed.
"I find it irritating too."
That earned the smallest laugh.
I turned toward her.
"I need to leave."
The words hurt more this time.
"But I'm not leaving you."
Her eyes glistened.
There was a difference.
I understood that now.
Perhaps I always had.
She moved first.
Or maybe I did.
I wasn't sure.
One moment we were sitting beside each other.
The next, my arms were around her.
Lyra folded into me.
Her face pressed against my chest.
I closed my eyes.
For once, I didn't think about Mortimer.
Or relics.
Or kingdoms.
Or wars.
I simply held her.
My mate.
The woman I'd forgotten.
The woman I'd somehow found twice.
Her arms tightened around me.
I rested my cheek against her hair.
"I wish I remembered."
The admission escaped quietly.
She went still.
Then held me tighter.
"I know."
"I want to."
"I know."
"I'm sorry."
She pulled back enough to look at me.
"Don't."
Her hand touched my cheek.
"You didn't choose to forget me."
Something inside my chest cracked.
"I still wish I hadn't."
Her smile trembled.
"We'll make new memories."
Again.
Those words.
Except this time, I understood what they offered.
Not a replacement.
A beginning.
We slowly began to pull apart.
Neither of us went far.
Her hands remained against me.
Mine settled at her waist.
Our eyes met.
No urgency.
No battle raging around us.
No blood.
No desperate collision born from fear that one of us might die.
Just...
Her.
Me.
And the knowledge that morning would take me away.
I leaned closer.
Slowly enough that she could stop me.
She didn't.
Her eyes closed.
My lips met hers.
Softly.
The kiss wasn't desperate.
It didn't demand anything.
We simply stayed there.
Savoring.
Remembering.
Perhaps creating the first of those new memories she'd promised me.
Her fingers curled lightly into my coat.
I drew her a little closer.
The bond warmed between us.
For the first time since learning what it truly was, I stopped fighting it.
Stopped questioning it.
Stopped wondering why she had always felt like something I'd lost.
For one quiet moment...
I let myself have her.
Let my breath melt into hers.
And for once, there was nothing else.
No Mortimer waiting in the back of my mind.
No Earth Goddess.
No relics.
No armies waiting for us beyond the mountain.
No past I couldn't remember.Let my breath melt into hers.
And for once, there was nothing else.
No Mortimer waiting in the back of my mind.
No Earth Goddess.
No relics.
No armies.
No past I couldn't remember.
No morning waiting to pull me away from her.
Only Lyra.
Her fingers curled into the front of my coat as I held her a little closer.
The bond stretched wide between us.
Warm.
Open.
Alive.
Everything she felt poured through it.
The ache of goodbye.
The relief of having finally told me the truth.
The fear that this might be the last quiet moment we had for a long time.
And beneath all of it...
Love.
So much of it that I didn't know what to do with it.
I stopped trying.
For once, I didn't need to understand.
I didn't need to question why my body recognized hers when my memories didn't.
Didn't need to wonder how I had manag
ed to find the same woman twice.
Didn't need to decide what tomorrow meant.
Tomorrow could wait.
I kissed her slowly.
Savoring the softness of her lips.
The warmth of her against me.
The quiet little breath she released when I drew her closer.
I wanted to remember this.
If nothing else—
this.
Not a stolen memory.
Not something someone could tell me had happened.
Mine.
A moment no one could give back because no one had taken it yet.
Lyra.
In my arms.
Her lips against mine.
The bond glowing between us.
And the certainty that, somehow, against every impossible thing standing between us...
I'd found her again.
I lost myself in her.
Then everything went black—