CHAPTER THREE — “Marked by Memory”

The visions started the next morning.

Not during sleep this time—but while Seraphina was wide awake, seated in the middle of her first spellcraft lecture.

She’d been trying to focus. Trying not to fidget. The room was warm, the teacher’s voice a steady rhythm, the chalk tapping the board in intervals like a metronome. Students scribbled quietly around her. The air smelled faintly of old parchment and candle smoke.

Then it hit.

One blink—and everything vanished.

The classroom, the blackboard, the students—all gone.

She was somewhere else.

She stood in a tall, round chamber, lit by dozens of red candles that flickered despite the lack of wind. The light cast deep shadows across the stone walls, which were etched with old symbols that seemed to shift if you looked at them too long.

Her body felt different.

Older. Taller. Stronger.

She wore a crimson gown that shimmered like it had been woven from molten light. Her feet were bare. The stone beneath her was etched in circular patterns—runes she somehow knew, even though she didn’t understand how or why.

Her fingers were stained with something dark.

Blood.

And her own voice echoed off the walls.

She was chanting.

A language she didn’t know—but her mouth said the words without hesitation.

In the center of the chamber was an altar.

And on it—

Her body.

Still.

Pale.

Dying.

Then—another voice. Hoarse. Panicked.

Calling her name.

Lucan.

—

She gasped and jolted upright.

Back in the lecture hall.

Students still scribbling. Professor still talking.

Her pen clattered to the floor, and a few heads turned, but no one looked too concerned.

Seraphina pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart thundered against her ribs like it wanted out.

She wasn’t dreaming.

That… hadn’t felt like a dream.

It felt like a memory.

—

After class, she didn’t go to her next one.

She slipped out a side corridor, hugging the quiet wall and ignoring the knot forming in her stomach.

Lucan was already waiting.

He leaned casually against the stone near the staircase like he’d known exactly when she’d come, the same quiet look in his eyes, like he already knew what she’d seen.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer at first.

She could still feel the blood on her hands.

“I was in a red room,” she said finally. “There was an altar. A… a spell.”

Lucan nodded once. Slow. Almost sad.

“You’re starting to remember,” he said. “The life before this one.”

She swallowed hard. “That’s not possible.”

“But it’s happening.”

He didn’t look surprised. Just resigned.

His eyes drifted to her wrist.

“The rune?”

Still there.

Darker now.

Its edges more defined.

Like it had settled deeper into her skin.

Lucan held out his hand. “Come with me. There’s something you need to see.”

—

He led her down a back corridor of the academy—one she hadn’t even noticed before. The light grew dimmer the further they walked, torches lighting automatically as they passed. The air here was colder. Older.

They stopped at a narrow wooden door tucked behind a shelf that looked like it hadn’t been moved in years.

Lucan whispered something under his breath, and the door clicked open.

Inside was a small, circular room.

The walls were carved with symbols that pulsed faintly, almost like they were breathing. Dust coated every surface. The air smelled like old magic—faint lavender, wax, and something coppery underneath.

A heavy tome sat open on a pedestal in the center of the room.

Lucan walked to it, flipped the page gently, and stepped aside.

“This,” he said, tapping the parchment, “is a soul-bind sigil.”

Seraphina stepped closer.

Her breath caught.

It was the same symbol on her wrist.

A spiral wrapped in jagged lines, marked in thick black ink.

“The person who carries this,” Lucan continued, “has been marked across lifetimes. It’s not a temporary spell. It doesn’t fade. It attaches to the soul.”

She stared at the page.

“The body carrying it,” he said, “was never meant to survive after it awakens.”

Her voice came out quieter than she meant. “So it’s a curse.”

He nodded. “A curse meant to keep you from remembering who you were.”

Seraphina took a slow step back.

The weight of it hit her like a wave.

“And if I do remember?”

Lucan looked at her, his voice low.

“Then the sigil completes. And it consumes the soul.”

She looked up, eyes wide.

“Then why are you helping me remember?”

Lucan was quiet for a beat.

Then he said, “Because if you understand what you’re carrying—maybe you can change what happens next.”

Her mouth felt dry.

“Has anyone ever broken it?”

“No.”

Her chest tightened. “But you still want me to try.”

He looked at her then like she was the only thing in the room that mattered.

“I want you to live,” he said.

—

That night, she didn’t sleep immediately.

But when she did—he was already waiting.

This time, she wasn’t pulled into his world.

He stepped into hers.

Seraphina found herself inside a mirrored maze. Tall panels of glass stretched around her in twisting, endless turns. Each reflection showed a different version of herself.

One crying.

One covered in ash.

One wearing the red dress from the vision—blood blooming at her ribs.

Lucan emerged from the dark, quiet.

“You built this place,” he said, stepping carefully beside her. “To protect yourself.”

“From what?” she asked, her voice hollow.

“From remembering,” he said.

As they walked, the mirrors shimmered.

One showed her casting fire.

One showed her standing alone before a tower.

One showed her holding Lucan’s face, kissing him.

Then pushing him away.

They stopped before a mirror that pulsed faintly red.

The girl on the other side wore a blood-soaked dress and stared back with eyes hollowed by grief.

Seraphina reached out and touched the glass.

“Was I ever happy?” she asked softly.

Lucan stood beside her. “You were powerful. Feared. In love.”

“With you?”

His voice didn’t flinch. “Even when you knew I’d break your world.”

Tears burned her eyes, but didn’t fall.

She turned to face him.

“If I let you in, I lose myself.”

“I don’t want all of you,” Lucan said quietly. “Just the part that chooses me.”

He stepped closer.

Their lips almost touched.

Then—

Seraphina pulled away.

And the dream cracked.

Mirrors shattered in waves around them.

The air turned cold.

The sky above them darkened, and a new memory surged forward, uninvited.

She was on the ground.

Lucan stood over her.

Only this time—he wasn’t calling her back.

He held the blade.

And he looked afraid.

“You killed me,” she whispered, as the memory swallowed the dream whole.