"I didn't mean to open it," Luna whispered, her voice barely audible.
Asher Grayson didn't move, but his eyes — storm-grey and sharp — flickered with something unreadable. They studied her with the kind of intensity that made her skin tighten, like he wasn't just seeing her, but seeing through her.
The fluorescent lights above them buzzed faintly… then flickered.
Luna looked up.
So did he.
Neither said anything about it.
"I'm not accusing you," he said finally, voice low and even. "Just asking what you saw."
She hesitated, one hand tightening around the thin file in her arms. "Inside the box?"
He gave a single nod.
"A ring. A scroll. And…" Her voice caught. "A dried flower."
His jaw shifted — just a flicker — but she saw it. Something about the flower meant something to him. She wasn't sure how she knew. She just did.
"And the scroll?" he asked.
"I read one line," she answered, carefully. "Something about love and loss."
She didn't mention the way the words glowed faintly when she touched them, or how they burned behind her eyes long after she stopped reading.
Asher's fingers flexed at his side. "That's enough."
Her brow furrowed. "Enough for what?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he glanced down at the folder she was holding — the one that had his family's name stamped across it in faded ink.
"You've been busy," he murmured.
"It's public record," she said, lifting her chin just a little. "Or… it was. Until you showed up."
A single brow arched. The corner of his mouth almost, almost lifted. Not quite a smirk — more like a shadow of one. The closest thing he'd offered to warmth so far.
"You're not afraid of me," he said, almost curious.
"No," she replied truthfully. "Should I be?"
There was a pause — a weight to it. Then, with a softness that wasn't quite human:
> "Most people are."
---
They stood in silence, the dim archive around them thick with dust and history. Outside, the rain fell heavier, a steady pulse like a heartbeat echoing through the concrete.
Somewhere above, a clock chimed. One o'clock.
Luna could still feel his gaze, even when she wasn't looking at him. As if it tethered to her skin.
"I don't know what you've gotten yourself into, Ms. Carter," he said, his voice gentler now, thoughtful. "But that box was sealed for a reason."
She didn't hesitate. "You know what it is."
He didn't deny it.
"I know what it did."
The words hit her like a cold gust.
And then he turned to leave.
She couldn't explain it — but the thought of him walking away like that, like their conversation meant nothing, hit her deeper than it should have.
"You said… you've seen the fire," she called after him.
He stopped in the doorway.
"The dreams. The voice. You've had them too, haven't you?"
Asher didn't turn around.
"I stopped calling them dreams a long time ago."
---
When he left, Luna stood frozen for several long moments. The air still felt heavier where he'd stood. Like the echo of him hadn't quite vanished.
Her heart wasn't racing from fear.
It was something else.
Recognition.
She knew him.
Not in the way you know someone from school, or the way you recognize a face from a crowd. But in the way a song gets stuck in your soul before you've ever heard it. In the way your body remembers a touch your mind has never known.
His presence made something inside her ache — like she'd been missing a part of herself without even knowing it.
---
That night, sleep did not come easily.
Thunder rolled in the distance, soft at first, then louder — shaking the windows of her apartment. Rain lashed against the glass in sheets.
Luna sat cross-legged on her bed, the red box open in front of her once again.
The ring shimmered under her lamp — old silver, thin but strong, engraved with a sun surrounded by flames. It almost looked alive when the light hit it just right.
Beside it, the scroll waited. The silk ribbon had been undone once. She reached for it again.
This time, her hands were steady.
The parchment felt older than time. Dry. Soft. And yet, it hadn't crumbled. As if it had waited for her.
She unfurled it carefully.
The ink had faded in places, but the words remained, written in a hand that curved like music.
> "Bound by flame, broken by fear,
The one who curses must shed the first tear.
What was sealed by love shall be freed by loss,
But every life it touches will bear the cost."
Luna stared.
The words pulsed in her chest, like they had always been there. Like they were hers.
Her throat tightened.
She didn't know what any of it meant.
And yet she did.
Her fingers trembled now.
As the lamp above her flickered once—
Then again.
And then the room went silent.
She felt it before she heard it.
That voice.
> "Seraphina…"
A man's voice. Gentle. Wrecked with emotion. Like he was calling out to something precious… and lost.
Luna bolted upright, the scroll slipping from her lap.
Her room was empty.
But she wasn't alone.
Not truly.
Because the name echoed in her mind long after the voice faded.
> Seraphina.
It wasn't her name.
And yet… it was.
She had no memory of being called that.
But the name made her chest ache like a wound she'd forgotten existed.
---
Across town, in a house half-swallowed by ivy and rain, Asher Grayson stood at his window. The storm outside blurred the city into light and shadow, into a thousand memories he didn't want.
His hand rested flat against his chest — above the scar he never showed anyone. The shape of it was unmistakable.
A sun.
Surrounded by flames.
It hadn't burned in years.
Until today.
Until her.
He closed his eyes.
The pain was faint now. But the memory was sharper than ever.
A girl with brown hair.
A scream in the dark.
A silver ring slipping from her fingers as she fell into ash.
A voice — cracked, furious, full of grief.
> "I curse you… until you remember what you've done."
Asher opened his eyes.
The face was gone again.
He never saw her face in the memory.
But today, in that basement, when Luna Carter looked at him with wide, searching eyes—
His soul flinched.
Because something inside him whispered:
"That's her."
---
Luna didn't sleep at all that night.
She sat at her desk, the scroll stretched across it, a notebook beside it filled with frantic handwriting. She'd copied the verse over and over, searching for meaning in each line.
Her tea had gone cold hours ago.
At one point, Eira — her cat — leapt up beside her and sniffed the ring before hissing and leaping back down. Luna didn't blame her. The ring felt wrong and right all at once.
Around 3 a.m., she gave up trying to translate the lines. She simply stared at the last one:
> "But every life it touches will bear the cost."
What cost?
Who was Seraphina?
What did the ring want from her?
And why did she feel like she had already lost something she didn't know she had?
---
The next morning dawned grey and wet.
Luna wrapped the ring back in silk and placed everything carefully into the box, sliding it into the drawer of her desk. She dressed slower than usual — not out of laziness, but weight.
Everything felt heavier now.
She checked her phone once.
No messages.
But she had the strangest urge to see him again.
Asher.
Not for answers.
But because… her soul felt restless without him.
Like he was a missing page in a story she hadn't written yet.
---
Asher sat in his office at the Department, flipping through a sealed case file from 1893 — the original dispute over Saint Alder's Church.
There were no photographs.
Just signatures. Testimonies.
And at the bottom of one document, in faded ink:
> "She begged us to bury it. Said the world wasn't ready. Said time would fold if love met fire again."
Asher stared at the words.
He didn't breathe for a full minute.
Because written beside the testimony was a name.
Seraphina Valen.
And beneath it—
In handwriting he knew without knowing how—
Grayson.
End of chapter 3