[POV Leah]

  The wind on the balcony had chilled me to the bone, but the cold outside was nothing compared to the icy void in my chest as I waited. Chloé finally opened the door, looking at me with a mix of seriousness and a strange complicity that I couldn’t quite understand at the time. She pced a hand on my shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze that said far more than her lips allowed.

  “Go in, Leah. Trust her—and above all, trust what you feel,” Chloé whispered before passing by me and heading out, probably in search of food or simply to give us the privacy that fate demanded.

  I stepped into the room. The scent of vender and the warmth of the firepce welcomed me, but my gaze immediately locked onto the figure sitting on the edge of the bed. Lotte looked small. It was an absurd feeling, considering she was the most powerful warrior I had ever known, but in that moment—with her shoulders slumped and her green hair falling over her face like an emerald veil—she looked like a crystal on the verge of shattering.

  “Lotte? Are you feeling better?” I asked as I moved closer to her.

  Lotte took my hands and invited me to sit beside her. I sat down next to her, close enough to feel her warmth, yet still respecting that invisible space she needed.

  “Leah… there’s something I need to tell you. Something about who I really am and why those men from the Church affected me so deeply. It’s a long story… but I need you to trust me once more.”

  She raised her head. Her blue eyes—usually as deep and serene as a calm ocean—were clouded with a mencholy that pierced my soul. She inhaled deeply, as if she were about to leap into an abyss she wasn’t sure she could return from.

  “I trust you with my life, Lotte. I always have. Tell me anything,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, heavy with a tenderness that hurt.

  “Leah… what I’m about to tell you… may change everything you think about me,” Lotte began. Her voice trembled slightly—something I had never seen before. “I know that to you, I’m Liselotte, the girl who appeared in the forest, your guardian. But my story didn’t begin in this world, nor in this life.”

  I froze. At first, part of my mind wanted to ugh, thinking it was some strange joke meant to ease the tension left behind by the throne room. But when I saw the absolute seriousness in her features, the glimmer of an ancient truth in her gaze, any hint of a smile vanished. The silence grew heavy, electric.

  “I come from a pce called Terra,” she continued, looking at our intertwined hands. “A world without magic, full of buildings that touch the sky and machines that cross the seas. In that world, I died. I remember the fire, Leah… I remember the unbearable heat of an ?? that consumed everything. And when I opened my eyes again, I was in this world, reborn as a baby in a house I didn’t know. I kept my memories. I kept the burden of a life that no longer belonged to me.”

  I grew thoughtful, trying to process her words. I had read about reincarnation in ancient tomes in the royal library, but they were always myths, legends of the First Kings. Seeing it before me, embodied in the person I loved most, made the ground beneath my feet feel like sand.

  “Lotte… are you telling me you’re a traveler from another world?” I asked, my voice turning serious as I analyzed every nuance of her expression.

  “Yes… but there’s more,” she said, tightening her grip on my hands as her anxiety began to rise—a vibration I could feel through her palms. “In that past life, I wasn’t a woman. My name was Edward Celium. I was a man, Leah.”

  The air left my lungs for a moment. The revetion struck me like a physical blow. Edward? A man? I looked at her face, the delicacy of her features, the curve of her neck, the elegance of her figure. It was difficult—almost impossible—to imagine that within this beautiful being lived the essence of someone who had once been so different. But then Lotte lowered her gaze, and a shadow of pure pain crossed her face.

  “And those people the Church brought… Ulric and the others… they were my cssmates on Terra,” she continued, her voice quickening, den with anguish that was starting to overflow. “I thought I would never see them again. I had left Edward behind. I had accepted being Liselotte, this new beginning by your side… But when I saw them today, everything came back. I remembered how they treated me. On Terra, rumors spread about me—about Edward… cruel rumors that isoted me, that made me feel worthless. They mocked me, looked at me with disgust or with an indifference that hurt more than blows. Seeing them here, being called ‘heroes,’ being instruments of the Church… it makes me feel like the past has hunted me down, Leah. Like Edward is coming back to cim my sanity.”

  Lotte’s breathing grew erratic. Her eyes fixed on a nonexistent point on the floor, and I saw tears begin to roll down her cheeks, disappearing into her academy uniform. She was having an anxiety attack—memories of Terra crashing violently against her present in Lyre. She looked so vulnerable, so afraid that I might reject her for who she had been, or for the secret she had kept.

  Seeing her like that broke my heart—but it also ignited something within me. Absolute crity.

  I didn’t care about Terra.

  I didn’t care about Edward Celium.

  I didn’t care if she had been a man, a spirit, or a fallen star.

  I closed the distance between us and wrapped her in a fierce embrace, forcing her to rest her head against my shoulder. I could feel her sobs, the tremor of her body against mine. I began to stroke her green hair—that color I loved so much because it reminded me of the forests where she had saved me.

  “Listen to me, Lotte. Look at me,” I said, pulling back just enough to cup her face in my hands, forcing her to see the fire of my determination. “I don’t care who you were in that distant world. Edward Celium is a name in your memory—a shadow of a life that ended. But to me, you are the Lotte who walked into that orc camp when I was just a broken child and carried me in her arms to freedom. You’re the Lotte who spent countless nights awake by my side when nightmares wouldn’t let me sleep, giving me your warmth without asking for anything in return.”

  Lotte stared at me, eyes wide, her breathing slowly stabilizing under the weight of my words.

  “You’re the Lotte who ughed with me when Chloé stole food from the royal kitchen, the one who taught me that magic isn’t just power—it’s protection. You’re the person who has grown with me over these three years, who has become my pilr, my best friend… and so much more than that.”

  I felt my own cheeks grow warm, but I didn’t look away. This was the moment—to tell her everything, to bare my soul before hers.

  “Lotte, I love you,” I said, and the words felt like the most powerful magic I had ever cast. “I love your soul. I love the way you care for others. I love your strength, and I love your vulnerability. I don’t care what you were before, because the person in front of me is the most wonderful being Lyre has ever known. I love you so much that even if this world ends and we reincarnate in other bodies, in other times, in other worlds… I promise I would search for you. I would find you again, recognize you by the light of your soul, and fall in love with you a thousand times more.”

  Lotte was stunned. The crying stopped, repced by an expression of wonder and a hope so pure it lit up the entire room. I saw the blush Chloé had provoked earlier return—but this time it was deeper, more real.

  “Leah… I… I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, her voice overflowing with emotion she could barely contain.

  “You don’t have to say anything about the past,” I replied, leaning closer until our foreheads touched. “You just have to know you’re not alone. Those ‘heroes’ are nothing compared to what you are to me. If they try to hurt you or remind you of who you were, I’ll burn the entire world to protect your present. Because my present—and my future—only make sense if you’re in them.”

  I gathered my courage, feeling that this was the point of no return, the pilr upon which we would build what came next.

  “Lotte… Liselotte… I know it’s a chaotic moment, and that war is at our doorstep. But I don’t want to be just the princess you protect anymore. I want to be the person who walks at your side, the one who holds your hand in the face of every challenge.” I paused, my heart pounding so hard it threatened to break my ribs. “Lotte… I want to be your partner. I want us to truly be together.”

  The silence that followed was the longest of my life. I could hear the crackle of the wood in the firepce, the wind striking the windowpane, and the rapid pulse of Lotte’s heart beneath my fingers. She looked at me, and for the first time that night, the shadow of Edward and Terra vanished completely from her eyes. Only Liselotte remained.

  Lotte threw herself at me—not with the strength of a guardian, but with the desperation of someone who had finally found her home. She hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe, burying her face in my neck.

  “Yes… yes, Leah,” she sobbed, but these were tears of relief and happiness. “I love you too. I was so afraid of losing you if you knew the truth… but you… you’re always the fire that guides me. Yes, I want to be your girlfriend. I want to be with you always.”

  We stayed like that, embraced in the dim light of the room as snow began to fall softly outside the academy. The past was still there, and the heroes of the Church were a real threat—but in that moment, none of it mattered. The soul of Edward Celium had finally found peace in the arms of the princess of fire, and Liselotte was no longer just a guardian.

  She was my beloved.

  And for the first time, she was ready to face her ghosts—not alone, but hand in hand with the woman who loved her beyond worlds and lives.

  The first pilr of our new reality had been set.

  And as Lotte's warmth wrapped around me, I knew the Church could send whoever it wanted.

  We had already won the most important battle.