Chapter : 1925

  She looked at her hands. They were smooth again. The white scar on her thumb was gone. The heavy olive jacket was replaced by her simple cotton nightgown.

  But the feeling remained.

  For a long time, she just sat there in the dark, touching her thumb where the scar had been in the dream. She felt a profound, aching sadness, a sense of loss so deep it made her throat tight. It felt like she had left something important back in that grey, rainy world.

  "Who are you?" she whispered to the empty room.

  She wasn't asking about the man. She knew the man was Lloyd. She was asking about the woman in the dream. The woman who wore the soldier's clothes and spoke with such calm strength. That woman felt more real to Airin than the reflection she saw in the mirror every morning.

  Airin got out of bed. It was still early, the sun just beginning to turn the sky purple. Her roommate, a girl named Zeba, was still fast asleep.

  Airin moved to her small desk. Usually, she moved quietly because she was shy. Today, she moved quietly because she was precise.

  Without thinking, she began to organize her desk. She didn't just stack her books; she aligned them perfectly with the edge of the table. She took her pens and lined them up by size, exactly one inch apart. She folded her uniform with sharp, crisp creases, her hands moving with a speed and efficiency she didn't recognize.

  It was a "bleed-over." That was the only way to describe it. The habits of the woman in the dream were leaking into Airin's waking life.

  Yesterday, during lunch, a student had dropped a metal tray in the cafeteria. The loud clang had echoed through the hall. Most students just jumped or laughed. Airin had instantly dropped into a crouch, her eyes scanning the room for a threat, her hand reaching for a weapon she wasn't wearing.

  She had stood up quickly, blushing furiously as people stared at her. She had pretended she dropped her spoon, but her hands had been shaking. It wasn't fear of the noise. It was a reflex. Her body had reacted to the sound of a "gunshot" before her brain realized it was just a tray.

  Gunshot.

  The word floated into her mind. She didn't know what it meant, not really. There were no guns in Riverio. But the woman in the dream knew. The woman in the dream knew the sound of death very well.

  Airin finished dressing. She looked at herself in the small mirror on the wall. Her face was the same—the freckles, the soft eyes. But there was something new in her expression. Her jaw was set a little tighter. Her eyes were a little more focused.

  She wasn't just a scholarship student anymore. She felt like a soldier who had forgotten her mission.

  She grabbed her bag and headed out the door. She needed to walk. She needed to clear her head. But as she walked through the stone corridors of the Academy, she found herself checking the exits. She found herself watching the hands of the people she passed. She was assessing threats in a school full of teenagers.

  And in the back of her mind, the image of the man in the olive uniform burned like a coal. He was Lloyd Ferrum, the man she respected, the teacher who had protected her. But in the dream, he wasn't her teacher. He was her partner. He was her equal.

  And she missed him. She missed him with a pain that felt eighty years old.

  ________________________________________

  The seventh night was different.

  The dream started the same way. The rain. The black ground. The smell of burning oil. But this time, the noise in the distance had stopped. The silence was heavy, like the world was holding its breath.

  Airin stood on the black stone. She was wearing the olive uniform again. She felt the weight of the strange black tool on her shoulder—a weapon, she realized now, with a strap that dug familiarly into her collarbone. It was heavy, but it felt comforting, like an old friend that had kept her alive.

  The mist parted, and he was there.

  He looked tired today. There was dirt on his cheek, and his uniform was stained with mud and something darker. But his eyes were bright. He walked toward her, moving with the weary, practiced gait of a soldier returning from patrol, and the rest of the world seemed to blur and fade away. There was only him.

  Chapter : 1926

  He stopped a few feet away. He didn't take her hand this time. Instead, he reached into one of the many pockets on his tactical jacket.

  Airin’s breath caught in her throat. She knew what was happening. She didn't know how she knew, she just did. It was a memory that hadn't happened yet.

  He pulled out a small object. It wasn't a fancy velvet box like the nobles used. It was just a small, silver ring. It was simple. No giant jewels, no magic runes. Just a band of polished metal that wouldn't catch the light in the field.

  Slowly, carefully, he went down on one knee.

  The ground was wet and dirty, but he didn't care. He looked up at her, and the look on his face broke her heart. It was a look of pure, unhidden adoration. It was the look of a man who had seen the ugliest parts of the world and found the only beautiful thing left in it.

  "I don't have much," he said. His voice was soft, barely a whisper over the sound of the rain. "I can't promise you a palace. I can't promise that tomorrow will be safe. But I can promise you this."

  He held up the ring.

  "I will never leave your side," he said. "In this life, or the next. I will always find you."

  Airin felt tears hot on her cheeks. In the dream, she wasn't the shy student who was afraid of princesses and politics. She was a woman who had fought beside this man. She knew his flaws. She knew his grumpiness after a long watch, his strange sense of humor in the face of danger, his obsession with keeping his gear clean. And she loved him for all of it.

  "Yes," she whispered.

  He smiled. It was a real smile, wide and boyish, making him look ten years younger. He took her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

  He stayed on one knee for a moment, holding her hand. Then he looked deep into her eyes and spoke a name.

  "Anastasia."

  The word hit her like a physical blow. It wasn't just a name. It was an identity. It was a key unlocking a door in her mind that she didn't know was there.

  Anastasia.

  That was her.

  She wasn't just Airin, the vegetable seller's daughter. She was Anastasia. She was the woman who marched in the mud. She was the woman who made him laugh when the war got too loud. She was the woman who had died...

  The dream shattered.

  Airin woke up screaming.

  She sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air. Her roommate, Zeba, groaned and rolled over, muttering in her sleep, but didn't wake up.

  Airin pressed her hands to her face. Her cheeks were wet with real tears. Her heart was racing so fast it hurt.

  "Anastasia," she whispered into her hands. The name tasted familiar on her tongue. It felt right. It felt more right than "Airin."

  She looked at her left hand. There was no silver ring there. Her finger looked bare and lonely. The phantom weight of the metal band was still there, a ghost sensation on her skin.

  She couldn't go back to sleep. The sun was rising, painting the room in soft grey light. Airin got up and dressed mechanically. She put on her Academy uniform—the white shirt, the blue skirt—but it felt like a costume. It felt flimsy compared to the durable olive jacket.

  She needed answers.

  She skipped breakfast and walked straight to the Great Library. She needed to know what that uniform was. She needed to know what that black stone ground was. She needed to know if the name "Anastasia" appeared in any history book.

  She spent three hours searching. She looked through books on military history, books on foreign kingdoms, books on ancient clothing. She found nothing. There were no armies that wore olive green jackets with zippers. There were no roads made of black stone with white lines.

  It was a world that didn't exist.

  Frustrated, she slammed a heavy book shut. The noise echoed in the quiet library.

  "Careful with the merchandise," a dry voice said from behind her.

  Airin jumped and spun around.

  Standing at the end of the aisle was Professor Ferrum. Lloyd.

  He was holding a stack of papers, looking at her with his usual calm, unreadable expression. He wore his fine noble clothes—a dark vest, a crisp white shirt. He looked nothing like the soldier in the dream.

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  And yet, he was exactly him.

  Chapter : 1927

  The way he stood, with his weight balanced on both feet, ready to move. The way his eyes scanned the room, checking the perimeter before settling on her. It was the man from the tarmac. It was the man who had knelt in the rain.

  Airin stared at him, her mouth slightly open. The image of the dream-Lloyd overlayed the real-Lloyd. She saw the mud on his face that wasn't there. She saw the love in his eyes that he was currently hiding behind his professor mask.

  "Scholar Airin?" Lloyd asked, tilting his head slightly. "Is everything alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

  Airin swallowed hard. A ghost. That was exactly what she was seeing.

  "I..." Her voice failed her. She cleared her throat and tried again. She tried to summon the courage of the woman in the dream. "I had a dream, Professor."

  Lloyd raised an eyebrow. "I assume it was about logistics? That tends to happen after my lectures. I apologize for being too exciting."

  It was a joke. A deflection. The soldier in the dream made jokes like that too, usually right before something dangerous happened.

  "No," Airin said. She took a step toward him. The fear she usually felt around him—the fear of his status, his power, his intimidating intellect—was gone. It had been washed away by the rain in her dream. She just felt an overwhelming need to know the truth.

  "I dreamt of a man," she said, her voice steady now. "He looked like you. But he was wearing strange clothes. Green clothes. Like a soldier, but not from here."

  Lloyd went very still. The papers in his hand didn't move. His face didn't change, but the air around him seemed to freeze. His eyes, usually so guarded, suddenly sharpened. It was the look of the Major General.

  "Green clothes?" he repeated. His voice was carefully neutral, but there was a tension in it that hadn't been there a moment ago.

  "Olive green," Airin corrected. "And he gave me a ring. A silver ring."

  She watched him closely. She saw his throat move as he swallowed. She saw his grip tighten on the papers, crinkling the edges.

  "He called me a name," Airin whispered. She took another step closer. She was trembling, but she didn't stop. "He called me Anastasia."

  The reaction was instant.

  Lloyd dropped the papers. They scattered across the floor, a messy white carpet between them. He didn't look at them. He was staring at her with an expression of absolute, unguarded shock. It was the first time she had ever seen him lose his composure.

  His mask was gone. The Professor was gone. The Lord was gone.

  Standing there was the man from the dream. The man who had lost everything. The man who had been waiting in the rain.

  "What did you say?" he breathed. His voice was a broken whisper.

  Airin felt a tear slide down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.

  "He called me Anastasia," she said again. "And I think... I think I loved him."

  The silence in the library was deafening. It stretched between them, heavy with the weight of a history Airin didn't understand but felt in every fiber of her soul.

  Lloyd took a step toward her, his hand reaching out instinctively before he stopped himself. He looked at her not as a student, but as if he was seeing a miracle and a tragedy at the same time.

  "Anastasia," he said, testing the word. The way he said it—with that specific cadence, that specific pain—sent a shiver down Airin’s spine. It was exactly how the man in the dream had said it.

  Airin knew, in that moment, that her life as a simple scholar was over. The dream wasn't a dream. It was a memory. And the man standing in front of her held the other half of it.

  "Who are we, Lloyd?" she asked, using his first name for the first time. "Who were we?"

  Lloyd closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep, shuddering breath. When he opened them again, they were filled with a profound sadness, but also a deep, resolving strength.

  Lloyd walked around the table. He stopped right in front of her, close enough that she could smell the ink on his hands and the faint scent of soap.

  "Airin," he said, his voice rough. "I need you to answer two questions for me. And you must be absolutely sure."

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  Chapter : 1928

  "The man in the green uniform," Lloyd said, his voice tight. "Did he wear a small silver pin on his collar? A pin shaped like a spreading eagle?"

  Airin blinked. The image flashed in her mind. The rain. The heavy olive jacket. The flash of silver metal near his neck—the insignia of the Defense Forces he served with such absolute loyalty.

  "Yes," she whispered, the memory sharpening. "Yes. A silver eagle."

  Lloyd’s face paled. He looked like he might fall down. He took a step closer, his hands twitching as if he wanted to grab her shoulders but was holding himself back.

  "The second question," he said. His voice dropped to a whisper, filled with a pain so raw it made Airin want to weep. "In the dream... did we have a child? A son?"

  Airin gasped. A memory she didn't know she had slammed into her. A crying baby. A small room painted blue. The smell of baby powder. The feeling of absolute, overwhelming love.

  "Yes," she choked out.

  "What was his name?" Lloyd asked. He was pleading now. "Tell me his name."

  Airin didn't have to think. The name bubbled up from her soul, a name she had never spoken in this life but knew better than her own.

  "Yohan," she said. "His name was Yohan."

  The moment she said the name, Lloyd broke.

  He didn't cry out. He didn't collapse. But the strength that always seemed to hold him upright, the iron will of the Lord Ferrum, seemed to snap. He stumbled back, leaning heavily against the library table for support. He put a hand over his face, hiding his eyes.

  "Yohan," he repeated. The word was a prayer and a curse all at once. "My God. Yohan."

  Airin watched him, terrified and confused. She wanted to reach out to him, but she felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff.

  "Lloyd?" she asked softly. "Is it true? Am I... am I going mad?"

  Lloyd lowered his hand. His eyes were red-rimmed. He looked at her, and for the first time, Airin saw the full weight of the eighty years he had lived before this. She saw the war, the loss, the loneliness.

  "You are not mad," he said. His voice was steady again, but it was the steadiness of a man walking through a fire. "You are remembering."

  He gestured to a chair. "Sit down, Airin. Please."

  She sat. Her legs felt weak. Lloyd pulled up a chair opposite her. He sat close, his knees almost touching hers. He looked at her hands, resting on her lap.

  "We have lived this before," Lloyd said. "Not here. Not in Riverio. In a place called Earth."

  He began to speak, and the world of the Academy faded away. He told her a story that sounded like a fairy tale and a nightmare combined. He told her about a world of metal towers that scraped the sky. He told her about carriages that moved without horses and birds made of steel that dropped fire from the clouds.

  "I wasn't a Lord there," Lloyd said. "I was a soldier. An engineer. My name was Evan."

  He looked at her, his gaze intense. "And you... you were Anastasia."

  Airin felt a shiver run down her spine. "Anastasia," she whispered. It fit. It fit perfectly.

  "We met at Officer Candidate School," Lloyd continued. A small, sad smile touched his lips. "You were tougher than me. You could run ten miles with a full pack while I was still gasping for air. You cleaned my rifle... checked my gear... when I was too exhausted to move."

  He told her about their life. It wasn't a life of magic and monsters. It was a life of uniform codes and early morning drills. He talked about the government quarters they were assigned on base—clean, sterile, and safe, but always feeling temporary. He talked about the nights they spent arguing over deployment schedules, and the mornings they spent drinking coffee in the mess hall before the sun came up.

  "It was disciplined," Lloyd said. "But it was good. We were a team."

  Then his face darkened. The shadow of the soldier returned.

  "But the orders came down," he said. "I was deployed overseas. And while I was gone..."

  He stopped. He couldn't say it. But Airin knew. The memory in her head surged forward. The feeling of cold. The feeling of stopping.

  "I died," she said.