Rain taps gently against the arched windows of the East Wing, as if the sky itself is holding its breath.
It's quiet.
Too quiet.
---
Haera and Cairos sit in the old music room, the one long abandoned after a fire a decade ago. Dust rises like memory, and a cracked piano rests in the corner like a forgotten shrine.
> "Why here?" Haera whispers.
> "Because this is where it ended once," Cairos says. "One of the lives… you died here."
She shivers, but doesn't look away.
---
He crosses the room, lifts the piano lid. Plays one note.
It echoes too long — like time doesn't know where to place it.
---
Haera walks to the center of the room. A mark is burned into the wood — a charred spiral, just like the one above them during the eclipse.
She kneels beside it.
Touches it.
Pain.
But not hers.
Not this version of her.
Someone else's.
Another version, bleeding out on the floor, whispering "I'm not ready to go."
---
> "We have to end the fear," she says. "I don't want to live running from every memory, waiting for the next me to die."
---
Cairos nods. "Then we rewrite the ending. Here. Now."
---
He opens the ledger.
It's glowing.
And not just any page — the page with her death. In this very room. 1923.
---
She places her hand on the parchment.
> "No one dies tonight," she whispers.
The ink melts.
The page fades.
And where her death once was… a new memory blooms:
---
A girl playing piano, laughing.
A boy watching her with eyes full of wonder.
And outside, no fire. Just stars.
---
> "It's gone," she says.
Cairos exhales. "One death erased. One thread rewoven."
---
But just then — a knock.
Three sharp raps.
They turn.
At the door stands Noelle.
Tears streak her face.
She's shaking, holding a torn piece of paper.
---
> "I think… I remember something."
Haera blinks. "What?"
> "Not everything. But enough. There was… a fire. And I couldn't save her. You."
Cairos steps forward. "What made you remember?"
She hands Haera the paper.
---
It's a page from a different ledger.
Older.
Not Cairos's. Not Haera's.
Noelle's.
---
> "We weren't the only ones repeating," Haera murmurs.
---
And in the dim light of the room, Haera realizes:
The cycle isn't just about two souls.
It never was.
It's about all the lives tangled with theirs.
Every saved soul pulls another thread.
Every rewritten ending echoes across time.
---
And suddenly, the mission becomes clear.
> "We have to find them," Haera says. "The others. The forgotten. The ones who remember just enough to be haunted."
---
Cairos nods. "And give them a new story."
---
Outside, the rain slows.
The stars return.
And for the first time in any lifetime —
they are not alone.