The book had moved.
When Lyra woke, she found it no longer on the altar, but in her lap—opened to a page neither she nor Raven had seen. The ink shimmered silver, bleeding into words that hadn't been there before.
And beneath them, their names.
Lyra of the Woven Flame.
Raven of the Broken Sky.
Handwritten. Newly etched.
She barely breathed as Raven stirred beside her, rubbing his eyes. "What is it?" he asked.
She showed him.
He stared at the page, face darkening. "That wasn't there last night."
"No," she agreed, "it wasn't."
The room felt colder. The walls groaned like they remembered.
Raven traced the edge of the page with a fingertip. The silver writing pulsed. "It knows us," he murmured. "The book is alive."
Before she could speak, the altar cracked with a low rumble. Varos burst into the chamber, breath ragged. "You must not read beyond that page," he warned.
"Why?" Lyra asked, standing protectively.
"Because once you do," he said, "there's no undoing what you'll learn."
They read it anyway.
Together.
The page turned itself.
What came next was not words—but a vision.
Their surroundings melted into light. They weren't in the ruin anymore, but floating above the two realms—the human and the vampire—separated by that trembling veil. But the veil wasn't always there.
It had been made.
By them.
Not them as they were now—but past lives. Different skins, same souls.
Lyra watched as a version of herself stood beside a boy who wore Raven's eyes but not his face. They held hands, casting a spell so powerful it tore the sky and split the earth. That's how the realms were born.
They had created the separation.
And the prophecy?
It was their punishment.
Every generation, they'd find each other again. Be drawn like magnets. And every time, their love would either remake or ruin the world.
Because their souls were not just lovers—they were the source of the world's instability.
They were the beginning—and the potential end.
The vision faded.
They were back in the ruins.
The book snapped shut on its own.
Lyra's heart was a battlefield.
Raven looked destroyed. "We caused this?"
"In another life," she said weakly. "But yes."
Varos lowered his head. "The prophecy was never about stopping someone else. It was about stopping yourselves."
Silence fell like snowfall.
Lyra sat, back pressed against the altar. "So what do we do now?"
"You choose," Varos said. "Stay apart and preserve the realms. Or give in—and risk collapse."
Raven turned to her.
His voice was quiet. "Do you still feel it?"
She met his gaze. "I always have."
"But knowing this?"
"It doesn't change what's in my chest."
He looked away. "That's the problem."
She stood and approached him. "We can control it. Maybe this time it'll be different."
Varos laughed bitterly. "That's what they all said."
Lyra spun to face him. "Then why let us see it?"
"Because," Varos replied, "the moment you opened the book, fate was already rewriting itself. This was always going to happen. The only unknown—was your choice."
The roots of the ruin began to shift, groaning under unseen pressure. Magic rippled through the air like a storm building behind glass.
Lyra placed her hand over her chest. Her heartbeat echoed—louder than it should've.
"I don't want to lose myself," she whispered.
Raven was beside her in a second. "Then don't. We'll find a way."
Varos looked at them both. "Then remember this: love is not the danger. Denial is."
He vanished into the shadows.
Alone again, Lyra and Raven stood in the dim light of the ruin, the book pulsing faintly between them.
Their hands found each other's without thought.
And in that moment, their bond shifted.
It wasn't a blaze or a scream.
It was a thread—delicate but unbreakable—binding soul to soul.
Whatever came next, they would face it together.
Even if the world burned for it.