Lyra hadn't meant to stay out this late.
The forest had grown darker than it should have. The usual shimmer of witchlight that hummed low beneath the roots was gone—silenced. Her breath was uneven, cold mist blooming in the air as if something was leeching the warmth from the world.
The moon was crimson again.
Not fully. Not like the legends warned. But tinged enough to make her fingers tremble as she pulled her cloak tighter. She glanced up at the sky, half-expecting it to split open.
This wasn't just weather. This wasn't natural.
The crackling static in her palms returned, worse now, harder to contain. Every step she took, the ground seemed to pulse beneath her, as though the realm itself was warning her—run. But there was nowhere to run to.
Something was waiting.
And she knew, without understanding how, that he was watching again.
Across the realms, Raven felt his throat close when the blood-moon light touched his window. It wasn't the time for a red moon. The cycle wasn't due. Yet there it was—hovering like an omen above the dying lands.
His people had started to whisper again. The old ones spoke in hushed tones, their voices laced with fear and excitement. The prophecy stirs. The rift trembles. The dark has found its mirror.
But Raven knew what was different now.
He was no longer just dreaming of her. He could feel her.
When she stumbled in the forest, he felt the jolt in his chest. When her breath hitched, his lungs stuttered. And now, standing beneath that cursed sky, he felt something else.
Pain.
Lyra fell to her knees, clutching her chest. A burning symbol flared just beneath her collarbone—a mark she'd never seen, never been taught to fear. A circle pierced by thorns, etched in pale flame. It pulsed with the same energy she felt in her dreams, in the pull toward Raven.
"Why now?" she whispered through gritted teeth, eyes wide. "What are you?"
The veil rippled.
For a moment, just one heartbeat, the air shimmered in front of her—and there he was. Raven. No longer just a shadow in her visions. His eyes, deep and dark, locked with hers across the shimmer of broken space.
She gasped.
He took a step forward, instinctively. But the moment shattered.
The veil screamed.
A flash of light exploded between them. Lyra was thrown back. Raven reeled as the world snapped shut again. And the mark on Lyra's chest glowed brighter—searing like it had been waiting all along to be awakened.
She lay on the cold earth, the air buzzing with the aftershock. But this time, when she looked up, there was no fear in her eyes.
Only certainty.
They weren't just bound by chance. Something ancient had chosen them. And whatever it was—it was done waiting.