I didn't mean to hold a soul.
Not really.
I was seven. Hiding under the crooked ribs of a dead moon tree, dirt in my mouth, blood on my sleeve. My clan had just finished their "lesson" again—the one where they reminded me I was too soft. Too silent. Too wrong.
I was always wrong.
The jar was just something I found. Cracked glass, a broken neck, something sharp I could hold without anyone noticing. Something that wouldn't yell back.
And then it appeared.
A soul. Tiny. Flickering. It floated through the dusk like it was lost, like it had wandered out of a story no one wanted to finish. No bigger than a firefly. No heavier than a breath.
I didn't scream.
I just... opened the jar.
"You don't have to go," I whispered.
It listened.
It curled into the glass like it had been waiting for me. Like it knew I wouldn't ask it to be anything else. It pulsed—gold and quiet, like a heartbeat I could finally hear.
I didn't know what I'd done. Not then.
All I knew was that something broken wanted to stay with me.
I kept the jar in my room. Buried it behind spell-scorched books and discarded memories. I talked to it sometimes. Maybe that was weird. Maybe that was all I had.
No one noticed.
No one ever did.
Until Nyelle.
She found it by accident—because of course she did. She was the kind of girl who touched everything, smiled at ruins, danced where curses slept. And for some damn reason, she talked to me.
She stared at the jar.
Then at me.
And said, "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
She meant the soul.
She didn't mean me.
But I pretended she did.
That's how it started.
Her, bright and impossible. Me, shadows and silence. We weren't friends. Not really. We were something messier. Something dangerous.
And deep down, I knew.
One day, I'd have to choose between keeping her…
Or keeping everything else from falling apart.
Because souls aren't meant to be bottled.
And love?
Love's the most dangerous spell of all.
They'll call me the Soul Keeper someday.
But once—I was just a boy with a jar, and a secret I didn't understand.