The river never slept.
Yuna sat on the cracked steps that led down to the water, her bare feet just above the surface. The lanterns had already begun their nightly drift, scattered across the current like faint stars scattered across the universe. The cracked moon reflected above and below her, its light stretched thin and uneven by the water's perpetual motion.
The city around her whispered with the soft sounds of distant voices and wind chimes swaying above narrow roads. Mirrors lined the walls of the closest buildings, catching candlelight and throwing strange shapes across the river. On nights like this, Suraen felt like a dream someone else had written.
But she could never wake from it.
Her journal sat open in her lap, though the pages were now blank. Earlier that evening, words had appeared on their own, curling across the paper in a faint glow before fading back into the white.
One word had stayed behind.
'Revyn'
She traced the letters with her fingertip, though she had no idea where this name came from.
When the light in her chest had flared the first time, she had thought it was only another strange quirk of the city she lived in, the kind of thing no one here dared speak of but everyone had learned to live with. Dreams and whispers were common. Even seers sometimes failed to tell where the real world ended and illusions began.
But this felt different.
Every time her chest tightened now, every time the light curled faintly between her fingers, she felt a thread somewhere in her ribs pull her. Not painfully, but firmly, like a string that could not be cut.
And when she closed her eyes, she could still see him.
The boy, kneeling in the ruins.
The faint glow rising from his hands.
The grief in his eyes so heavy it made her heart throb just seeing him.
She had no words for it.
But she remembered all the same.
By midnight the river was almost empty of people. The few who still passed her on the bridge avoided her gaze. As they always did.
She caught sight of her own reflection in the black water, the faint glyphs on her fingers just barely glowing beneath the surface of her skin. Her hair hung loose, catching the wind as though it, too, carried something alive. She could hardly remember what she had looked like before the Ashlight inside her began to stir. Or perhaps she never really knew herself at all.
She stood and pulled her pouch tight around her shoulders as the breeze blew from the water. The journal she pressed to her chest pulsed faintly with residual warmth, As though the book had a heartbeat of its own.
She lingered at the edge of the bridge longer than usual today, watching the lanterns drift until the last few had disappeared from her sight. In her mind, she whispered his name softly, testing the sound. "Revyn." The syllables tasted like memory and grief mingled together, faint and bitter.
Her fingers brushed the pendant at her throat, the jade disc faintly warm against her skin. She thought it might have glowed once, years ago, but she had been too young then to trust her own memory.
Tonight, it pulsed faintly.
She climbed the crooked stairs to her attic room dodging the creaky steps with precision. The path home was etched into her feet by now. When she finally reached the door, she paused with her hand on the frame.
The faint sound of the river still carried into her ears.
But under it she thought she heard something else.
A whisper, almost too faint to catch.
Her name.
Yuna.
She opened the door and shut it quietly behind her.
The attic smelled of old paper and dust. The air hung heavy and damp, despite the cold outside. She set her journal on the desk by the window and lit a single candle before sitting on the cot in the corner.
Her fingers traced the spine of the book without opening it.
Then she pressed her hand flat to the cover and closed her eyes.
The light rose instantly, curling up her arms and into her chest. It did not burn, but it was alive.
And beyond it, she could feel him again.
He was farther tonight. Harder to reach. But the thread between them held.
She followed it.
Water shimmered below her soul.
Or perhaps above.
It was hard to tell anymore.
She stood on the same bridge as before, but the air was sharper now, colder. Lanterns floated down the river in strange, uneven patterns, their flames almost too dim to see.
On the opposite side of the bridge, the boy stood.
Revyn.
He was taller than she had imagined. His shoulders narrow but steady, his hands faintly glowing even as he clenched them at his sides. His robes hung heavy with dust and faint ash.
His eyes met hers. She shivered.
Neither of them moved at first.
The air around them felt dense and thin, as though the whole bridge might collapse beneath the weight of the silence.
Finally, Yuna found her voice.
"You," she said softly.
His gaze sharpened, but he did not speak.
"You remember me," she said, losing her composure slightly.
He nodded once.
The light between them flared faintly.
She took a step forward.
"What is this?" she asked, her voice quiet but firm now.
The glow on his skin flickered bringing her attention to his hands. He glanced down then back at her.
"This is you. you're the one bringing my soul here" he said at last. His voice was low, hoarse, as though unused.
The way he said it struck something deep inside her, as though a piece of herself she had not even noticed was missing had suddenly been returned. Her throat tightened, but she held his gaze.
She tilted her head, her breath catching faintly in the cold air. "I'm doing this?" she questioned.
His lips parted slightly, as though he tried to say more.
But the bridge groaned suddenly beneath them, the air shifting with an unfamiliar weight.
Both of them flinched as the river below darkened further, swallowing even the faintest glow of the lanterns.
Yuna's fingers gripped her journal tight, fearing letting go.
Revyn took a step back, his eyes narrowing as his palms began to glow brighter, the glyphs on his skin flaring faintly.
The thread between them pulled tighter.
And in her mind she heard it again.
That single word.
'Remember.'
Her eyes flew open.
The attic ceiling towered over her.
Her breath came fast and uneven, the candle beside her burned lower now, its wax pooling on the desk.
She pressed a hand to her chest and felt the light still curling faintly beneath her ribs.
The connection had not broken.
Not yet.
She sat up slowly and opened the journal on the desk. The pages were blank again, though faint impressions of words remained if she tilted the paper toward the candlelight.
She dipped her pen and wrote carefully, her hand steady now.
I remember you.
She hesitated before writing another line.
Who were we?
The words glowed faintly before settling back into black ink.
She set the pen aside and stared at the page long after the ink dried.
The streets of Liyuan were quiet when she stepped outside again just before dawn. The cracked moon still hung in the sky, faint and pale as though refusing to set.
She did not walk to the river this time. Instead she climbed the steps to the highest bridge, the one nearest the edge of the city where the water widened into a dark, endless plain.
The wind was faster here, carrying the faint scent of salt and old stone.
She stood at the edge of the bridge and stared down into the water.
Her reflection stared back.
But behind her own eyes she thought she saw something else.
The boy again, though not quite as he had appeared earlier. He was younger here, his hands unmarked, his face softer, but the grief in his eyes was the same.
And though the vision faded almost as soon as it appeared, she kept staring at the water long after.
Her hand drifted to the pendant at her throat.
It was warm now.
Alive.
She let her hand drop and closed her eyes as the wind rose, her hair catching faintly in the cold air.
She whispered his name, her breath scattering across the river.
"Revyn."
She did not know if he could hear her.
But she hoped he could.
Far away, in a ruined tower swallowed by snow, the boy sat cross-legged in his circle. His eyes were closed, his hands faintly aglow, the glyphs etched across his skin quiet but steady.
Her name drifted through his thoughts, soft as a memory.
'Yuna.'
The thread between them hummed faintly, a quiet tether neither of them fully understood.
And high above them both, where even the stars dared not shine, the Hollow Throne shivered faintly as a forgotten god stirred once more.
His essence, fractured and buried, stretched thin across the world as two of his fragments reached toward each other through the darkness.
He could not speak.
He could not weep.
But he could wait.
She turned her head toward the window, catching sight of the cracked moon hanging above the roofs of the city. For the first time in years, she allowed herself the faintest hint of a smile. Even if she could not name what they were to each other yet, she knew she was not alone anymore.