The silence after the vision is not silence at all.
It is a buzzing.
An echo.
A pressure in her chest as if her own heart were beating at two different rhythms.
Lunaya walks.
Not because she wants to.
Because she has to get away.
Kael let her go, only because she promised him she wouldn't go too far.
Erynd said nothing.
He just looked at her as if every step she took... killed him a little more.
She doesn't know which of the two she is running from.
Maybe both.
Maybe herself.
The silent clearing
She finally stops at the edge of a creek.
The water flows gently, indifferent to human chaos.
She crouches down.
Runs her hand through the water.
Her skin trembles.
Not because of the cold.
Because of... him.
The other her.
She sees the images again, too clear, too real.
An ancient forest.
Erynd's young eyes.
His kiss, which was not a kiss of now, but a farewell from before.
Lunaya feels her breathing slip.
"It wasn't me..."
But yes.
It was her.
A version of her.
Another life.
An echo.
"It wasn't me..." she whispers again, but the river neither contradicts nor reassures her.
Her fingers tremble harder.
She plunges her hands into the cold water to anchor herself, but the vision continues to superimpose the two realities.
A furious, trembling Kael, holding her in the present.
A young, luminous Erynd, losing her in the past.
A pain in the middle of her chest.
She sits down in the grass, her knees pulled up against her.
She doesn't cry.
She can't even manage that.
It's worse.
Her heart beats in two ways:
a warm, wild beat, Kael
a cold, deep beat, Erynd
As if two rhythms were trying to overlap in the same body.
She puts a hand to her chest.
"Stop... she whispers.
Please..."
But neither of them hears her.
It's happening inside her.
The fear she dares not speak.
She inhales.
Exhales.
Repeats.
But nothing calms down.
A question strikes her, brutally:
Who am I?
The Lunaya who grew up in a human world?
Or the Lunaya from this vision, who knew Erynd... too well?
And even more:
What did they do to her?
Why this connection?
Why this role?
Why this prophecy?
She curls up a little more.
"What if I'm just a tool...?"
The truth falls like a knife into the water of the stream.
If the ravens in the vision held her back...
If a ritual erased her...
If Erynd was bound to her against his will...
Then nothing she is experiencing today is due to chance.
Not Kael.
Not the crossing.
Not the Resonance.
Nor what she feels.
Everything could have been orchestrated.
Imposed.
Manipulated.
She trembles.
The Kael problem
She closes her eyes and remembers.
Kael, his voice broken:
"Lunaya, look at me. I won't let you go."
His forehead against hers.
His hands seeking her, reassuring her.
The warmth.
The instinct.
The love, even if he never said it.
And she...
She kissed him.
She wanted it.
She wanted him.
Nothing was forced.
Nothing was manipulated.
It was real.
And yet...
"How am I going to tell him this...?"
That she shared a past with someone else.
That she felt something indescribable.
That she saw a future buried in Erynd's eyes.
Kael...
Kael, who is afraid of losing her every second.
This thought stabs her so hard that she has to take a breath to keep from suffocating.
The Erynd Problem
She opens her eyes again.
The surface of the stream reflects the moon,
but not her face.
No.
The shadow of Erynd's feathers crosses the water,
like a memory that refuses to fade.
She shivers.
This feeling...
an attraction that isn't physical.
Not instinctive.
Not passionate like with Kael.
Something more serious.
More ancient.
More dangerous.
"Why do I feel like I have to... go to him?"
Her hands clench the grass, as if she's afraid of slipping.
It's not a desire.
It's not a choice.
It's a call.
The same thread she felt vibrate during the kiss.
The same energy that awakened Erynd.
She raises a hand to her voice, as if to hold back something that wants to come out of her.
"It's not me," she whispers.
But it is.
A part of her.
A sealed part.
A silenced part.
A presence.
A twig cracks behind her.
She jumps, but it's not Kael.
She would know instantly from his warmth.
From his smell of earth and forest.
This... is something else.
A more discreet breath.
More airy.
She turns slowly.
Erynd.
He stands two meters away from her.
At a respectful distance.
His hands visible, open.
His wings slightly lowered, so as not to intimidate her.
He looks at her.
Not the Lunaya of today.
The Lunaya of before.
He whispers:
"You shouldn't have faced this alone."
She swallows.
"But I did."
He nods, gravely.
"I know.
And that's why I came."
He crouches down.
Still at a distance.
Still with that strange respect...
as if he were afraid to touch her.
Or to touch himself.
He adds:
"You can ask me... any questions you want."
Lunaya closes her eyes for a moment.
When she opens them again, a tear finally falls.
"So...
who was I to you?"
Erynd freezes.
His eyes darken.
And when he speaks, his voice breaks.
"The only thing...
I wasn't allowed to love."