You can bind a soul in fire.
You can seal it in stars.
But you can't keep it from the one who named it.
The wind died at dawn.
No birds.
No rustle in the trees.
Even the lake had stilled, its surface like polished obsidian—waiting.
Anaya opened her eyes slowly.
The fifth thread still shimmered faintly across her skin, fading now into her veins, a memory in the making. Her chest felt both heavier and lighter, as if gravity had been rewritten inside her.
Caelum sat quietly beside her, eyes fixed on the horizon.
But even he was tense now.
Because something had shifted.
And it wasn't just her.
"Do you feel it?" she asked.
He nodded. "The gate between realms... is bleeding."
Anaya touched the place where all five threads met—the crescent moon, the rising sun, the constellation, the phoenix, and now, the fifth: a ring of broken stars.
Together they pulsed.
And somewhere beyond the sky, he had awakened.
The one who had cursed her.
The one who had loved her.
The one who remembered her true name.
Elsewhere – The Citadel of Ice and Bone
The Soulkeeper stirred.
He sat upon a throne carved from the remains of all who had tried to rewrite fate.
His fingers moved across the air, stroking invisible lines of the ancient Web of Souls.
Each thread was visible to him.
And hers now blazed like wildfire.
"She remembers," he whispered.
"Then we have failed," hissed a voice from the shadows—one of the three Seers who once bound Anaya's fate.
The Soulkeeper smiled, but it was a joyless thing.
"No. She has only just begun to forget."
"She carries all five threads—"
"But she has yet to remember the Name of Ending."
The Seers stiffened. "If she says it—"
"Then time unravels. Then I am undone. Then we all are."
Back at the lake
Caelum stood suddenly.
His voice sharp. "He's coming."
Anaya didn't ask how he knew.
She felt it too.
A pressure in the air—like a scream trapped between two realities.
She turned to him. "Then we don't run."
He looked at her, pain flickering behind his eyes. "You don't know what he was to you."
"I know what he is now."
"No," he said softly. "You don't."
Flashback Fragment – Sealed Memory
A winter temple.
Anaya standing before a man cloaked in shadow, starlight wound around his arms.
"You're the only one who sees me," he told her.
"That's because I named you," she replied.
"Then say it again," he begged. "Say my name so I'll know who I am."
She smiled sadly.
"If I say it, you'll remember who I was to you."
"Is that bad?"
"It's worse," she whispered. "Because then I'll have to forget you."
And she stepped into fire.
Again.
Present
Caelum was holding her arm.
Tight.
Like he could feel what she had just seen.
"You named him?" he asked, his voice barely audible.
Anaya nodded. "Before the curse. Before the threads. I gave him a soul."
"That makes him yours."
"No," she said. "That makes me his maker."
Sky Above
The clouds split open with a silent roar.
A tear formed above the lake—ribbons of light and shadow unraveling.
And then—he stepped through.
The Soulkeeper.
Cloaked in deep obsidian. A face half-veiled in silver chains.
Eyes that glowed like dying stars.
And as he stepped onto the water—
The lake froze.
Anaya couldn't breathe for a moment.
He was beautiful.
But wrong.
Like something remembered in a nightmare.
Caelum stepped forward, sword drawn.
But the Soulkeeper didn't look at him.
He looked only at her.
"You spoke your vow," he said. "And I woke."
She said nothing.
"You lit the fifth thread," he continued. "And still you have not remembered the name."
"What name?" she whispered.
He smiled gently. Tragically.
"Your own."
Silence.
A rush of wind. Snow began to fall, though no clouds had formed.
The Soulkeeper lifted a hand, and behind him, the lake cracked—not just in water, but in time.
A mirror rippled into view.
And within it—
A version of Anaya.
Eyes glowing. Wings torn. Standing alone before the gates of all the realms.
She was the end.
And she had said the name.
"Why are you showing me this?" Anaya demanded.
The Soulkeeper's voice was almost tender.
"Because you will either become her... or save her."
"But only if you say the name before the full moon."
"And if you don't—"
"The curse binds you again. Seventeen more lives. And I fall asleep again… waiting to be named."
Anaya turned to Caelum.
Confused. Fractured.
Caelum gritted his teeth. "He's manipulating you."
"But he's right," she said. "There's something missing."
Caelum held her face gently.
"Whatever name you gave him, it was before time was time. But the name you carry now—that's the one that will save us."
The Soulkeeper stepped back.
"I'll return on the night of the blood moon."
"By then, you'll either remember…"
"Or you'll die before the gate again."
He vanished.
The mirror shattered.
The snow stopped.
And the silence was unbearable.