Kaylin dreamed in gold.
Not the polished, sharp-edged gold of crowns and fire, but something softer. Dust caught in sunlight. Music echoing through a hollow chapel. The shape of a hand in his. A white dress moving like water.
He was standing in front of someone.
Someone radiant.
He couldn't see her face. Every time he tried, the image dissolved, like the memory had been smudged out by time or cruelty. But he knew he loved her. That much remained. His chest ached with it.
A breeze moved through the scene. Not the scorched wind of the world he lived in now, but something gentler, fragrant with lilies and grass.
There were people around them, seated in rows. Their faces were even less real. Blurred silhouettes in the corners of his mind. But all of them were watching. Waiting. Holding their breath like the moment mattered.
His hand reached forward.
Hers met it.
The whole world seemed to hold still.
Then came the words. Not spoken aloud, but etched into him like a scar.
"I choose you. Across every life. Even if I forget, even if the stars burn out… I'll find you."
He tried to reply, but his mouth didn't move. His body felt locked in amber. The light around them flared too brightly.
Then…
Screaming.
Not hers. Not his. Not even human.
The sky cracked open.
The dream ended in flame.
Emres woke with tears drying on her cheeks. Her fingers clutched the edge of her silk bedsheet like it might vanish if she let go.
The dream again.
Always the same dream.
She was standing beneath an arch of roses, veiled in white. Someone stood across from her. A man. Broad shoulders. A quiet warmth that melted the air between them.
But his face was blank. Like light had swallowed it.
She had wanted to reach for him.
To kiss him.
To remember.
But then the moment would shatter.
Every time.
It felt like a cruel riddle she had been solving for centuries.
She rose from her bed and crossed to the window. The divine city sprawled below in perfect lines, glowing softly in the starlight. Everything here was too precise. Too eternal. No room for longing. No room for dreams.
Her hand drifted to her chest.
That place where, even now, something pulsed. Something small and human. Something she should not have kept.
She had once believed the dream was a prophecy.
Now she wasn't sure it wasn't a memory.
She whispered into the quiet.
"I chose you too. Whoever you are."
A soft wind moved through the curtains.
Below the heavens, far below, in the dark realm of ash and iron, Kaylin whispered the same thing.
Neither of them heard the other.
Not yet.