Silence falls.
Not an empty silence.
A dense silence, filled with invisible things.
Memories that are not hers.
Emotions that do not come from her.
Lunaya feels the air change around Erynd, as if the light were naturally darkening to surround him, not to swallow him up... but to reveal him.
Kael stiffens.
He doesn't like what's happening.
He doesn't like what's coming.
Erynd takes another step closer, just enough to be heard, just enough for his voice to be an icy caress against her skin.
"What you have awakened, Lunaya...
began before you were born."
Her eyes widen.
Kael exhales sharply:
"Stop your riddles, Corbin."
But Erynd doesn't even turn his head.
He continues as if Kael were just background noise.
"A long time ago... a very long time ago,
something was taken from me.
A memory.
A connection.
A name."
His gray eyes darken, turning the color of burnt ash.
"A fragment of me that belonged to someone else."
Lunaya swallows, her throat dry.
"Someone like me?"
Erynd stares at her, and for a moment, his mask slips.
He looks... hurt.
Mortally.
"Someone who had your soul."
Kael turns abruptly toward her.
"No. Don't listen to him.
Lunaya, he's playing with your mind."
Erynd took a step back, not out of fear, but out of elegance, leaving his feathers quivering behind him.
"I'm not playing, Wolf.
I just know how to hear what you living people refuse to see."
Kael growls, his jaw clenched, his muscles tense to the point of trembling:
"You're not going to fill her head,
with your stories of reincarnation."
Erynd smiles. Not a real smile.
A tragic smile, as if the world weighed heavily on him.
"I'm not talking about reincarnation.
I'm talking about an echo."
He turns his face toward Lunaya.
"You feel it too, don't you?
That shiver...
That dizziness...
That self that doesn't belong to you, but wants to exist within you?"
She remains silent.
She can't lie.
Not about this.
Because she has felt it, yes.
Like a memory she never experienced.
Like a nameless nostalgia.
Erynd moves his hand slightly forward, not to touch her,
but as if to offer her a choice.
"If you let me show you...
I can help you understand what Kael doesn't see."
Kael stands in front of her, furious:
"If you touch her, I swear..."
"I won't touch anything without her consent, Erynd interrupts him.
And you, Kael... you should ask yourself,
why you're shaking so much."
Silence falls.
Brutal.
Heavy.
Kael lowers his eyes imperceptibly, as if doubting himself, but only for a fraction of a second.
Erynd turns back to Lunaya.
"You're not just the one who resonates with him.
You are the one who can awaken what was taken from me."
Lunaya takes a difficult breath.
"And... if I refuse?"
Erynd tilts his head, and his silver feathers quiver with unexpected gentleness.
"Then I will leave.
But something inside you will continue to call to me...
...until the echo becomes too loud to ignore."
This time, there is no coldness in his gaze.
There is... sadness.
Deeply ancient sadness.
Kael breaks the silence by brushing Lunaya's hand, not to guide her, but to remind her that she is not alone.
"You don't have to do anything, he says slowly.
Not with him. Not with me. Not with anyone."
Lunaya closes her eyes for a moment.
Everything trembles within her:
Erynd and his shadow-like gravity.
Kael and his wild warmth.
And that something... that thread pulsing deep within her belly like an ancestral call.
She opens her eyes again.
"Erynd."
The Corbin gently raises his head.
"Show me."
Kael whispers her name with brutal despair:
"Lunaya..."
But it's too late.
The decision has been made.
Erynd places a hand on her heart, not his, hers, without physically touching her.
A symbolic gesture.
Ancient.
Almost ritualistic.
And whispers:
"Then prepare yourself...
Because what you are about to see does not belong to you."
The forest darkens.
The ground vibrates.
The world tilts.
Lunaya falls into a memory that was never hers.