Chapter 6: The Journal That Waited
Aria couldn't sleep again.
It wasn't the nightmares this time.
It was the way Damien had looked at her.
Like she was someone he had lost a long time ago—and still wasn't ready to forgive for leaving.
She lay in bed long after the city lights faded, the necklace warm against her skin. The ring still pulsed on her finger, syncing with her heartbeat like a second pulse. Not a curse, not quite a gift—just a tether. To something far older than this life.
When the sun rose, her phone buzzed.
Damien: Come to the manor. There's something you need to see.
No greeting. No explanation.
Just like always.
Westwood Manor was unlike anything she'd seen before.
Outside, it looked like a restored Victorian estate—elegant, historic, cold. But inside? It felt older. Deeper. Like the walls had seen things they would never dare speak.
An ancient quiet lived in its halls. Not eerie. Not hostile. Just… expectant.
Damien waited for her in the library.
Of course it was a library.
Books towered around them, floor to ceiling. Dust floated in the light filtering through the stained-glass windows. Aria noticed symbols etched into the woodwork—nothing overtly magical, but not normal, either.
He didn't say hello. Just handed her a worn, leather-bound journal.
Aria took it hesitantly. "What is this?"
"You wrote it," Damien said. "In your last life."
She froze.
He wasn't smiling. He wasn't being dramatic. His face was carved from stone, but his eyes—his eyes—held that storm again.
"How do you have this?" she asked.
"I've kept it," he said simply. "Through every life."
"You've done this before?"
"No. This is the first time you've remembered this much, this early. But I always hoped… someday…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
She opened the journal.
The handwriting was hers—but not. Elegant, sharp, powerful. Like ink spilled by a woman who had ruled.
The first page read:
To the one I once loved—
If you are reading this, it means time has done what I could not. Broken the seal. Shattered the silence. Returned us to the edge of everything.
I don't know if I hate you. Or miss you. Or both.
But if you've found this, you deserve the truth.
And I will give it to you.
Aria's hands trembled as she flipped through the pages.
Spell diagrams. Drawings of cities she had never seen. Names she somehow almost recognized—Velvarin, Caelith, the Courts of Ash. War strategies. Bloodlines.
And then—pressed between the pages—a dried violet.
As soon as her fingers touched it, the world shifted.
She stood in a field of purple flowers.
A sea of them, endless and soft, beneath a sky of indigo stars.
She was barefoot again, dressed in white, spinning slowly, laughing.
And Damien was there.
This time… smiling.
He tackled her gently into the flowers, and they lay tangled in each other, hearts beating against the sky.
"You'll leave me," she whispered in the memory.
"Never," he said.
"You'll change."
"So will you."
"And we'll fight."
"Yes."
"But I'll still love you," she said.
He didn't answer.
Not with words.
Just with a kiss that echoed through time.
When Aria returned to herself, Damien was sitting in the chair across from her, his gaze unreadable.
"That's the second time I've seen… us," she said softly. "Happy. Before everything went wrong."
He nodded once. "We were happy. Before the war. Before the betrayal. Before the prophecy."
She looked up. "Prophecy?"
Damien's jaw tensed. "A seer once said you would hold the balance of magic in your soul. That you would either save the world or damn it."
"And?"
"And I believed her."
She stared at him. "Is that why you loved me?"
"No," he said firmly. "I loved you because no one else dared to fight me. Because you saw the monster and didn't run. You only ever stood your ground."
"And what did I do in the end?"
"You made the hard choice," he said. "You gave up your crown, your power—us—to end the war. And in doing so… you erased yourself."
She looked down at the journal. "And you've carried this all this time?"
"Every life."
A long silence passed.
Then Aria said, quietly, "You must have hated me."
"I did," he said. "For a long time."
"And now?"
Damien exhaled, rising slowly to his feet. "Now I see you again. And I don't know who you are. Yet."
He moved toward her. Slowly. Like he was afraid if he reached too fast, she'd vanish again.
She didn't move.
When he reached her, he didn't touch her hand. He touched her cheek. Lightly. As if reminding himself she was real.
Aria closed her eyes for a moment.
Then she leaned in. Just slightly. Barely.
But Damien stepped back.
Not harshly.
Just… guarded.
"I can't," he said. "Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because if I fall again and lose you, I don't know who I'll become."
The silence that followed felt heavier than thunder.
Aria nodded once.
"I understand."
She clutched the journal to her chest.
"I'll read every page," she said. "I'll find out who I was. But when I do… you'd better be ready to face her."
Damien looked at her with something that was almost a smile.
"I've been waiting for her longer than you think."