It began with a scent.
Burnt flowers.
Lucien stood in the echo of a dream, except this dream wasn't his. It didn't feel imagined — it felt remembered.
The soul inside him stirred.
"This is the day you died."
---
The vision bloomed.
Lucien — or rather, Riven — stood in a bloodstained courtyard. Bodies lay around him. Soldiers. Nobles. Even children. The sky above was a strange, angry red.
A palace burned behind him.
He held a blade of black steel — and at its end, a king knelt, wounded and gasping.
The king's face…
Lucien's breath caught in the present.
It was the Emperor.
Not the man as he was now, older, colder — but the same soul. Eyes cruel, lips twisted in defiance.
"You won't change anything," the Emperor spat, coughing blood. "Another will rise. Another crown will take its place."
Riven's voice had been soft. Almost broken.
"I never wanted your throne. I wanted your mercy."
He raised the blade.
But he hesitated.
And that's when the arrow pierced his back.
Lucien collapsed in memory, feeling the pain of it again — searing, final.
He hit the stone. The sword clattered beside him. The Emperor rose, bleeding but alive, whispering something.
A spell.
A soul-binding spell.
Lucien screamed — not in the vision, but here, in the present, as the pain lanced through him.
And the voice inside him whispered:
"He took your death… and made it a prison."
---
Lucien shot awake, drenched in sweat. The sigil on his chest was glowing violet now — a color it had never shown.
Power crackled through the air.
A knock.
Then Elias burst into the room, breathless, robes wet from rain.
"I felt it," he said. "Something inside you… shifted."
Lucien looked up slowly, eyes wide, haunted. "He killed me."
Elias froze. "What?"
Lucien rose on trembling legs. "Not just in this life. In the last. He stabbed me in the back and bound my soul with magic older than this kingdom."
Elias stepped forward. "Lucien—if that's true, it means he didn't just summon you. He's been feeding off you."
Lucien nodded. "Rebinding me in every lifetime I escaped."
Elias reached for him — and this time, Lucien didn't stop him.
Their fingers met. Warm. Shaking.
"I can help you go deeper," Elias said. "But it's forbidden."
Lucien stared. "How?"
"There's a ritual," Elias whispered. "It lets me enter your subconscious. Not just memories — but the soul itself."
Lucien paused.
Then said softly, "Take me there."
---
That night, in the sacred chamber beneath the Flame Temple, Elias drew the circle.
Lucien lay inside it, eyes closed, chest bare, the sigil pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Elias cut his palm and touched Lucien's forehead. "I enter by will, not by force. I seek the truth, not power."
The world tilted.
The chamber vanished.
---
They stood inside Lucien's soul.
A vast, shifting space of obsidian mirrors and burning vines.
In the center stood a version of Lucien — younger, barefoot, terrified. Around him stood hundreds of versions — each with a different death in their eyes.
Lucien gasped. "These are…"
"All the times you tried to live," the voice echoed.
"All the lives he stole."
Elias trembled. "This is unnatural. You've been trapped for centuries."
Then — the mirrors shattered.
A great flame rose from the center.
A form emerged — tall, draped in molten robes, eyes like twin suns.
The true soul within him.
It looked at Elias.
"You don't belong here, priest."
Elias stood his ground. "He deserves to choose."
"He already did. When he let me in."
Lucien stepped forward. "But I didn't understand the cost."
The soul's flames dimmed.
"Then learn it now. One body, one will. If you merge fully, you'll become what you were always meant to be. But you'll lose what they love about you."
Lucien hesitated.
"I'll lose… me?"
"You'll become more. But never… only human again."
---
They awoke together, both gasping, both changed.
Elias touched Lucien's cheek. "I saw it. All of it."
Lucien closed his eyes. "I was a weapon… who wanted peace."
Elias whispered, "You still can be."
But Lucien wasn't sure anymore.
Because deep inside, the soul within him was already preparing the next memory — the finalpiece of the puzzle.
And it was one even Lucien didn't want to see.