The Emperor had ordered all the lanterns in the Phoenix Palace to remain lit that night — not for celebration, but for protection.
For the first time in weeks, the veil between dreams and reality felt thin — too thin. Eira could feel it in the wind, which no longer smelled of plum blossoms, but of cold iron. She could hear it in the silence — heavy, stretched, waiting to break.
She stood alone by the window, her silk robe untouched by the fire's glow, staring at the moon rising like a blade above the mountains.
Something was changing.
Something was coming.
That afternoon, the Emperor had tightened the guards. But he hadn't told her why.
She had watched him pace the length of the study, eyes dark with something unspoken.
"You felt it, didn't you?" she had asked softly.
He nodded once. "The veil is thinner now. The past, the present — they're not holding anymore."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," he said, stopping to look at her, "that someone — or something — wants to break the cycle."
Eira swallowed. "You think… someone's trying to change fate again."
"I think they already have."
It started with a nightmare.
Eira woke gasping, drenched in sweat, her fingers clawing at the sheets. The candlelight danced wildly, and outside, the wind howled as if the world itself was crying.
In her dream, she was standing on the rooftop of the university again. Rain pelting her face. And across from her — Kai Ren, in his modern suit, his expression empty.
"Do you regret coming back?" he asked.
"I didn't choose this," she whispered.
"But you're here."
Suddenly, the scenery shifted.
She was now in a red chamber, chained to the throne, and the Emperor — no longer Kai Ren — sat beside her with blood on his hands.
The courtiers bowed to him.
But no one looked at her.
Not even him.
She screamed, but no sound came.
And then she woke.
By sunrise, she was at the Pavilion of Reflection, wrapped in a heavy cloak.
The Emperor joined her moments later, his face drawn. Neither of them spoke at first. They didn't need to.
"We're slipping," he finally said.
"You dreamed it too?"
He nodded.
Eira looked up. "Do you think this is punishment?"
"For what?"
"For wanting too much. For trying to rewrite the story."
"No," he said firmly. "I think it's the story resisting change. But we are not wrong forwanting something different."
She turned to him. "Then what do we do now?"
His answer was soft, but sure: "We write our own ending."
Later that day, strange news rippled through the court.
The Minister of War had collapsed in his study. His final words, recorded by his steward, were:
"The girl with two names… she's not from here. He's not who we think. They're not meant to live…"
The Emperor silenced the whispers. But Eira knew it wouldn't last.
They had been discovered.
Someone — or something — was trying to correct the "imbalance." To force the past into repeating itself.
But she wasn't the same girl anymore.
And this wasn't the same story.
In the ancient temple outside the city, a monk unrolled a scroll hidden beneath stone.
It was written in modern Mandarin.
"To the next who dreams — beware the third life. The first ends in sorrow. The second in blood. The third will end in choice.
One stays. One fades.
Time always takes one back."
Back at the Phoenix Palace, Eira watched the rain fall gently onto the stone steps, her reflection split in the puddle like a memory.
She didn't know what tomorrow held.
But she knew this:
If she had to choose between a lifetime of forgetting and one moment of being remembered, she would always choose the moment — with him.
No matter how brief.