The Library of Lost Souls
In the celestial city of Avalys, where librarians archived human memories in glass orbs, Kestrel was the last of the Memory Weavers—able to spin forgotten moments back into existence. But her gift came with a curse: every memory she restored erased one of her own.
The night the Obsidian King invaded Avalys to burn all memories of rebellion, Kestrel hid the most dangerous one: a love story between a rebel and a king’s heir. As flames consumed the library, she swallowed the orb whole, condemning herself to forget why it mattered.
The last thing she saw before fleeing was a man with sorrow-dark eyes reaching for her through the smoke.
1: The Thief Who Remembered Too Much
A century later, in the slums of Vareen, gutter thief Dain had a problem: he remembered every second of his past lives.
His dreams were mosaics of battles, ballrooms, and a woman with amber hands spinning light like thread. The Church of the Obsidian King called this heresy. Their Inquisitors hunted him, carving out his stolen memories with cursed blades.
When Dain stole a peculiar locket from an Inquisitor’s corpse, it burned his fingers and whispered Kestrel’s name.
2: The Ink That Bleeds Backward
Kestrel, now a fugitive living as a scribe, discovered something impossible: words she wrote at night rewrote themselves by dawn.
"Find the boy who remembers the library," her pen scrawled without her consent.
Their meeting was explosive. Dain recognized her instantly—she didn’t remember him at all. Yet when he touched her, the tattoos on his skin (records of his past lives) bloomed into moving pictures of their shared history.
"You were executed in my arms three lifetimes ago," he said, showing her the inked memory on his chest. "Your last words were ‘Find me earlier next time.’"
3: The Rebellion of Remembering
Together, they unearthed the truth: the Obsidian King wasn’t just destroying memories—he was editing reality itself. The rebellion they’d led (and lost) across countless lives had nearly toppled him by weaponizing love, the one thing his magic couldn’t control.
But their love was a paradox:
The only solution? Kestrel must weave their memories into a new timeline entirely—one where the Obsidian King never rose to power.
4: The Thread That Unravels the World
In the ruins of Avalys, Kestrel began spinning their entire shared history into a single thread of light. Dain fought off the Inquisitors, his body failing as lifetimes of memories overwhelmed his mortal mind.
As she worked, Kestrel forgot:
But Dain, in his final act, sewed the thread into his own heart, rewriting existence from the inside out.
: The First Life
In a world where the Obsidian King never conquered, two children meet in a sunflower field:
When their hands touch, the sun stutters. For a heartbeat, the girl sees:
"Have we met before?" she asks.
The boy grins, spinning a dandelion between them. "Only every time."
And somewhere, a broken memory orb glows gold again.
