The scroll fell open in her lap like the wings of a bird — delicate, ancient, and inked with truths the world had tried to bury.
Eira sat cross-legged on the floor of her chamber, the flickering lantern casting shadows over the parchment. The letter she held had not been meant for anyone to find. Hidden behind false panels in the Phoenix Palace library, bound by red thread and sealed with a symbol she had never seen before — a circle pierced by a single vertical line.
It was the same mark carved into the jade ring in the Emperor's personal study.
The one he never removed.
"To whoever finds this — if anyone ever does…
This world is not what it seems.
I was born into silk and taught to kneel before I could walk. But I remember iron rails. Thunder under my feet. I remember a city of glass and voices in machines.
I remember the boy who never looked back — until the end.
If I am right, then you, too, came from there. You, too, were stolen by time.
You are not crazy. You are not cursed.
You are one of us."
Eira's breath hitched.
It wasn't just her.
She hadn't been the first.
Whoever wrote this — likely Empress Yan Lanyue, the one who vanished — had lived both lives. And somehow, she knew others would follow.
The lines of the letter blurred as tears threatened to fall.
She wasn't alone.
But then came the last line:
"If you read this, tell him I remembered.
Even when he did not. Even when he loved me too late."
The ink was smudged, as if a tear had fallen when it was written.
Eira slowly folded the letter, her fingers trembling.
Her heart ached.
Because that was what she feared more than death. More than being trapped.
Being loved too late.
The next morning, the Emperor summoned her again — this time not to the court, but to a private pavilion overlooking the river.
He stood with his back to her, dressed in gray, crownless, the wind tossing strands of his hair.
"You're quiet," he said when she arrived.
"I've been reading."
"Dangerous," he said with a faint smile. "Books can teach you things you can't unlearn."
"Some truths deserve to stay," she said, stepping beside him.
He turned to her then, studying her face as if it were a puzzle he had once solved and then lost again.
"Tell me," he said, "about your world."
So she did.
She told him about trains and towers. About grief and silent meals. About students walking with their heads down. About machines that stole time and the loneliness no one talked about.
And then she told him about him.
Kai Ren.
How cold he had been. How brilliant. How cruel.
"I thought you hated me," he said quietly.
"I did," she whispered. "But hate is easy when you think someone has power over you. What's harder is realizing… you gave them that power."
"And now?"
She looked at him — the man before her, Emperor and not, cruel and kind, broken and whole.
"I don't hate you," she said. "But I don't know if I can trust the version of you that still forgets."
He stepped closer.
"I don't want to forget anymore."
Later that evening, the Emperor went alone to the Hall of Ancestral Light, where all rulers prayed before their coronation.
But he didn't pray.
He opened the sealed chamber behind the altar.
There, kept in a golden box, was the diary of Empress Yan Lanyue.
He had never read it — it was forbidden even to him.
But now, he broke the seal.
Inside was the same handwriting as the letter Eira had found. And between the pages, a pressed plum blossom, brown with age.
The last entry read:
"I will not survive this.
The court has turned. The Emperor suspects me of madness. But I am not mad. I am split — between two worlds.
If I return, I may not return to this body. To this time. But I will find you.
Even if I forget your name, I will remember your soul."
The Emperor closed the book, his hand tightening.
He did not know if it was madness. If he and Eira were truly bound by time or by dreams.
But something had begun.
And he would no longer run from it.
That night, Eira sat on the balcony as rain kissed the stone, holding the letter in her lap.
She whispered, not knowing if he could hear, not knowing if the wind would carry her voice:
"I remember for both of us."