Erynd doesn't move.
Not a flap of his wings.
Not a breath.
His words float between them like an open wound.
Lunaya feels as if the air has been knocked out of her lungs.
"The one thing you weren't allowed to love... she repeats, barely audible.
"Why? Why me?"
Erynd closes his eyes.
When he opens them again,
the pain he is holding back is almost palpable.
"Because loving someone like you... is betraying my people."
An icy wind blows through the trees.
Lunaya shivers.
"Betray how?"
"By forgetting my duty."
"Which was...?"
Erynd hesitates.
Then his voice drops, grave, fatal:
"Guardian."
She waits for him to continue.
He swallows.
"I was the guardian of your forgetfulness."
Lunaya's heart skips a beat.
"My... forgetfulness?"
"Yes."
"What did they do to me?"
Erynd lowers his head. His feathers tremble.
"They tore you away from yourself."
Lunaya gasps, as if stabbed.
Erynd continues slowly, as if speaking of a crime he committed with his own hands.
"You were the key."
"To what?"
"To a power that the corbins feared as much as they desired."
"And you? Did you fear it?"
His silence is answer enough.
"You were... too important. Too brilliant. Too dangerous for them."
He finally looks up at her.
"For me."
Lunaya felt something crumble inside her.
"So you... erased me?"
"Not me. Never me."
He shook his head, almost fiercely.
"I would have given anything to protect you from it.
But they decided. And I had to... accept."
"Without fighting?" she whispered.
The blow hits harder than expected.
Erynd closes his eyes, as if the sentence had split him in two.
"I fought."
His voice breaks.
"I failed."
An awful silence settles in.
Then Lunaya blurts out, her voice trembling:
"And that kiss, in the vision... what was that?"
Erynd breathes slowly, as if each word will kill him.
"It was a farewell."
"Farewell to what?"
"To you."
His voice breaks.
"Because once it was erased... you wouldn't know me anymore.
And I had no right to remind you."
Lunaya's heart screams.
"Then why now?"
"Because you called me," Erynd said, suddenly hoarse
"I didn't ask you for anything."
"Your soul did."
She shook her head.
"I love Kael."
Erynd closed his eyes as if she had just struck his heart.
"I know."
"And I don't want...
Her voice trembled.
I don't want this connection with you.
I don't want an imposed past."
"I understand," Erynd said.
But her hands clenched on the ground.
"But the connection isn't imposed. It has been awakened."
"By what?!"
Erynd's feathers quivered with a dark glow.
"By your kiss."
Lunaya's blood runs cold.
"With Kael?"
"Yes."
"But... why?!"
He whispers, almost horrified by his own words:
"Because your heart was bound to me even before Kael existed.
And when you chose to surrender yourself...
it awakened everything you stole from me in another life."
Lunaya's legs give way.
She falls backward, but Erynd doesn't dare touch her.
He reaches out a hand, then pulls it back violently.
"Don't touch me," she says weakly.
Erynd nods, his eyes burning.
"I will never touch you without your consent."
Silence.
Then Lunaya whispers:
"Tell me the truth, the whole truth:
What was I to you?"
He looks at her.
Really looks at her.
Without a mask.
Without distance.
Without fear of breaking something that is already broken.
His voice falls, torn:
"You were...
He breathes in, trembles.
My destiny. And I had no right to love you.
But I did. And I was punished for it."
Lunaya feels a weight crushing her heart.
Then everything changes.
Her ears ring.
Her breath catches.
A cold wave runs through her body, as if a foreign memory were trying to surface.
Erynd takes a step forward, panicked.
"Lunaya?"
"I... I feel something..."
"Don't try to fight it!"
"It burns... it burns in my chest..."
She collapses to her knees.
Erynd reaches out an arm, not daring to touch her,
and whispers:
"It's your memory trying to come back."
"Cut it off...!" she moans.
"I can't."
"Then help me!!"
Erynd closes his eyes for a moment.
When he opens them again, his wings unfold in a breath of silvery shadow.
"Forgive me, Lunaya."
And he finally places his fingers against her forehead.
The Resonance explodes.
The tree behind them trembles.
The river rises an inch.
The shadows stretch as if they were breathing.
And far behind them...
Kael suddenly raises his head.
He senses something.
Something cold, sharp, too close to her.
"Lunaya?"
His heart breaks.
"LUNAYA!"
And he runs.
Towards the clearing.
Towards her.
Towards something that may be too late to stop.