Some memories haven't happened yet.
But the heart remembers them anyway.
The stars were wrong that night.
Too close. Too sharp. Too loud.
As if the sky was leaning in, watching her.
Waiting.
Anaya stood by the lake where the fourth thread had finished burning into her chest. Her fingers still trembled. Not from pain.
But from truth.
She wasn't afraid anymore.
But she wasn't whole either.
The fifth thread remained.
The one no one remembered.
Not even Caelum.
Not even her.
"It doesn't make sense," she whispered, staring into the water. "How can a memory come from the future?"
Caelum stood beside her, quiet for once.
Then he spoke.
"Because your soul has already lived it… in another realm. A timeline that collapsed. A life that never fully passed."
Her gaze snapped to him. "You're talking about the Thread of Tomorrow."
He nodded. "A forbidden soulpath. One where your soul… doesn't die. It loops forward. To the life you were never supposed to reach."
"And what's in that life?"
He hesitated.
And that was enough to know it was terrible.
Midnight – Dream Realm
She didn't fall asleep.
The thread pulled her under.
No warning.
No mercy.
She blinked—
And found herself standing in a burning cathedral of glass and feathers.
Not ashes. Not blood.
Feathers.
Torn from wings.
The scent of lightning and betrayal.
And ahead, walking through the fire…
Anaya.
But older. Stronger. In armor made of light and shadows.
And she wasn't alone.
The woman—her future self—stood across from Caelum.
But his eyes weren't his.
They were silver. Cold. Empty.
"You chose them over me," he said.
"You chose power over love," she answered.
"And you chose memory over mercy."
And then—
She drove a blade into his chest.
Present – Anaya gasped.
Her knees hit the ground.
Tears spilled.
Caelum caught her before she collapsed fully.
"I saw it," she choked out. "I kill you. I… I kill you in the future."
His voice was quiet. "You won't. Unless something breaks you first."
"No," she said. "I saw who I become. She wasn't broken. She was pure—vengeance."
Caelum helped her sit.
Then gently pressed her palm against his chest.
His heartbeat was slow. Steady.
"I trust you," he said. "Even in the life where you forget me. I trust that part of you will remember this moment."
She looked at him.
The firelight from the nearby lantern painting gold across his cheekbones.
"Then help me stop it. Help me anchor the last thread."
He shook his head. "The final thread cannot be remembered. It must be created."
"What?"
He looked up at the stars. "The fifth thread… is a promise you haven't made yet."
At the edge of the lake
The constellations shifted.
And a path of golden light opened on the water—only visible to her eyes.
Each step forward would write the future.
Each word spoken… would become the blade or the balm.
It was a test not of memory.
But of intention.
Anaya stepped forward.
And the stars whispered around her.
A voice from within her own soul asked:
What truth will you carry forward, when your memories fail you?
She whispered back:
"Love."
What pain are you willing to feel again, if it means saving them?
"All of it."
And what are you willing to lose, to never become her?
She paused.
Then looked at Caelum.
And finally said—
"You."
The thread appeared.
The fifth.
Brilliant white.
Made not of memory.
But of choice.
It wove itself through her mark. Completed the constellation. Sealed the fire. Silenced the past.
And for the first time—
She was whole.
But the world noticed.
The sky split.
A ripple tore through realms.
And far away, in a fortress of bone and ice, a being woke from centuries of slumber.
The Soulkeeper.
Eyes like forgotten storms.
It whispered:
"She has remembered her name."