Chapter 4: Ashes Between Our Fingers
Lisa's eyes were open, but not fully her own. The red glow had faded, replaced by a soft haze, as if her soul hadn't yet decided whether to see this world or the one before it. She sat wrapped in Jaden's cloak beneath the crumbling arch of the sanctuary, fingers trembling around her sword, breath shallow.
"You weren't supposed to remember me," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
"I didn't," Jaden replied, kneeling beside her. "Not with my head. But my heart never forgot."
She turned her face to him—eyes no longer empty, but uncertain. "Then why does it hurt?" she asked. "Why does seeing you feel like dying again?"
Jaden didn't answer. He couldn't. Because he felt it too. That every touch, every glance, every soft word between them carried the weight of a thousand endings. Of every lifetime they had lost each other. Of every time he'd watched her fall, or she had held his body as stars wept.
"I think," he said slowly, "we never got to stay. Not once. Maybe that's why we fight so hard now."
But the world would not wait for them to heal.
A shadow descended across the broken sanctuary—tall, armored in bone and black silk, its face hidden behind a porcelain mask split with a single red crack. The air turned sharp. The birds silenced. Even the rain began to fall upward.
Lisa stood first, her blade drawn and pointed forward, even as her knees shook. "Ashborne," she muttered.
Jaden narrowed his eyes. "You know him?"
"He was the first," she said. "The one who split your soul across time."
Ashborne raised a hand. Soot fell from his fingers like snow. "You were not meant to find each other," the voice echoed behind the mask. "But you always do. No matter how many universes I shatter. So this time, I will burn the bond itself."
And then, without a motion, the ground erupted—crimson ash spiraled upward, forming jagged blade constructs that lunged at Jaden and Lisa with impossible speed. Jaden spun, barely deflecting two, but one cut across his ribs and sent him flying into the stone wall.
Lisa didn't hesitate. She dropped her sword to the ground and whispered a forgotten word. "Redroot." Her feet slid into a sword form—a stance Jaden had never seen, one older than style or school. With a single breath, she caught Ashborne's next strike on her bare hands and twisted, redirecting it back toward the masked giant.
Ashborne staggered. Just for a second.
Jaden rose slowly, blood trailing from his lip. His blade crackled faintly—not with light, but memory. He remembered now—Ashborne had stood over their wedding pyre in another life. He had torn the vow ring from Jaden's burnt hand.
And Jaden had sworn: If I see you again, I will not die quietly.
With a scream that wasn't just his own—but every version of him across time—he launched forward, broken blade whistling. The fight was chaos, not choreography. There was no elegance. Only rage and purpose. Lisa fought beside him, eyes wide open, seeing not just the battlefield, but every past version of this moment where they had failed.
Not this time.
With one final clash, Lisa's blade locked Ashborne in place—and Jaden drove his sword straight through the red crack in the porcelain mask.
There was no scream. Only silence.
Ashborne faded like smoke through fingers.
They both fell to the ground, exhausted, bloody, barely breathing.
Lisa turned her face toward Jaden again, her voice raw.
"Do you still want me?" she asked. "Even after all I've failed to save?"
Jaden, half-conscious, reached out and laced his fingers through hers.
"I didn't come back for victory," he whispered. "I came back for you."
And with that, the rain began to fall again—this time, cleansing the ash, as if the world itself was mourning… or perhaps, remembering