My Soul card is a Reaper-Chapter 1049: Dreams of the Past: The first kiss

Rael turned his head toward her, and the moonlight slipping through the curtains caught the edge of his eyes, making them look colder than they really were.

"Because even if you’re not first," he said quietly, "you’re not nothing. You matter to me, Artaigne. You’re not some princess being pushed into my arms like a political gift, and you’re not a burden I’m forced to carry. You’re the person who stayed beside me for three years, who walked through the same roads, ate the same meals, bled through the same battles, and if you truly believe I don’t care about you... then I’ve failed you in a way I never even realized."

Artaigne’s breathing turned uneven, her shoulders trembling as she stared at him as if she wanted to deny his words but couldn’t.

Rael’s voice softened further, losing its sharpness, becoming almost raw. "I can’t change who Eon is to me. I won’t pretend I can. But I can change how I treat you, and I can be better than what you saw tonight. I can learn. I can control myself. I can be the man you deserve, even if I’m still clumsy at it."

Artaigne swallowed, her lips quivering as she tried to speak, and when her voice finally came out, it sounded like it was stitched together from pride and pain.

"You say that now," she whispered, "but what about later? When you’re Duke? When you have a thousand eyes watching every step you take, judging every breath we share? What happens when we’re married and the world expects you to put me above everything else?"

Rael didn’t look away.

His gaze sharpened, not in anger, but in stubborn determination, as if the thought of abandoning her was more insulting than any threat.

"Then I’ll still stand with you," he said. "I’ll still protect you. I won’t promise you that you’ll ever be above Eon, because that would be a lie, and I won’t poison our future with lies. But I can promise you something else, something I can say without hesitation."

He paused, his fingers tightening slightly against the window ledge.

"You will never be alone," Rael said, voice low. "Not in this life... and not in the next."

Artaigne’s eyes squeezed shut, and a tear slipped down her cheek, shining briefly in the moonlight before it vanished against her skin. She tried to wipe it away quickly, like she was ashamed of letting him see it, but her hands trembled too much, and the fragile control she had been clinging to finally snapped.

As if something inside her broke free, she stepped forward suddenly and wrapped her arms around Rael’s neck, holding him so tightly that it almost hurt. Rael froze at first, caught off guard by the force of it, and for a heartbeat he didn’t move, as if his body didn’t know whether he was allowed to accept warmth after everything he had caused.

Then his arms lifted slowly, settling around her waist, and the tension in his shoulders eased as he held her back.

They stayed like that, their breathing uneven, their bodies pressed close enough that their heartbeats felt tangled, and when Artaigne finally pulled back, her face was only inches away from his. The moonlight poured between them, their shadow cast against the wall like a single shape rather than two, and they stared into each other’s eyes as if searching for an answer that words could never fully give.

Artaigne’s lips parted.

Rael didn’t stop her.

He didn’t move away.

And then she leaned forward, trembling slightly, and pressed her lips to his.

It was soft at first, uncertain, almost desperate, as if she was trying to prove to herself that she still existed in his world. Rael’s breath caught, his eyes widening for a second, but the warmth of her mouth pulled something out of him that he didn’t know he had, and his hand tightened around her waist as he kissed her back, slower and deeper, like he was afraid she would disappear if he didn’t hold her properly.

For a moment, there was no duchy, no palace, no nobles, no ceremony.

Only them.

Only the night.

Only the fragile peace they were stealing from fate.

And then...

The world shattered.

The room dissolved like smoke, the warmth vanished, and the moonlight turned into something harsh and cruel.

Rael blinked, and suddenly the air was cold, heavy, soaked in rain.

He was still holding Artaigne.

Still hugging her.

But their bodies were older now, taller, stronger, their faces sharper with age, around fifteen or sixteen, yet the feeling in his chest was not love anymore.

It was terror.

The place wasn’t a room.

It was a street.

An empty street drowned in stormwater, the rain pouring from the sky in thick sheets, striking the ground hard enough to splash like shattered glass. The cobblestones were slick and stained dark, and everywhere around them, corpses lay scattered, dozens of assassins sprawled in unnatural positions, their blood mixing with rainwater until the entire street smelled like iron.

Rael’s arms trembled as he held Artaigne tighter.

She was bleeding heavily, crimson flowing down her dress, staining his hands, staining his arms, staining his chest as if the world wanted to paint him in her death.

His tears mixed with the rain, and his throat felt torn open.

Artaigne’s face was pale, her lips trembling, her eyes barely open, yet she forced herself to smile at him, the expression weak but unbearably gentle.

"Rael..." she whispered, voice barely louder than the rain. "My love... if one day... I reincarnate... I will... wait... for..."

Her words broke apart as her breath failed her.

Rael shook his head violently, clutching her like he could force her soul to stay with him through sheer will.

"No," he rasped, his voice cracking. "No... don’t say that... don’t you dare..."

But her eyes were already fading.

Her fingers slipped weakly against his sleeve.

And something inside Rael snapped.

A scream tore out of his throat, hoarse and inhuman, and the pressure that exploded from his body was so monstrous that the rain itself was blown outward, the surrounding buildings cracking as if struck by invisible fists. The air screamed, the ground shattered, and every corpse in the street was flung away like broken dolls.

"NO!"

***

"No!"

Azzy gasped and jolted upright, his hand shooting forward as if he was still trying to catch her, still trying to hold onto something that was already gone. Sweat drenched his body from head to toe, his chest heaving violently, and his heart hammered as if it wanted to rip through his ribs.

He blinked rapidly.

The world around him was stable.

Familiar.

He was still in the same place where he had collapsed earlier, and the air was unchanged, the room quiet, the light steady, as if time itself had barely moved. Yet his body felt wrong, heavy and shaken, because inside that dream he had lived an entire lifetime.

Twelve years.

No.

More than that.

Azzy swallowed, and his hands trembled as he slowly lowered them to his lap.

Tears slid down his cheeks without permission.

He didn’t wipe them at first.

He couldn’t.

Because the image of her face still burned in his mind like a curse.

Artaigne.

Her voice.

Her blood.

Her smile.

Recognition struck him like lightning, and his eyes widened as the name escaped his lips, cracked and shaking.

"Leiza..."

He wiped his tears roughly, forcing himself to breathe, forcing his heartbeat to slow, and then he closed his eyes, turning inward. His consciousness sank into his own mindscape, and the moment he entered, he felt it.

Something had changed.

The black mass of energy that had once been chaotic and shapeless was no longer an irregular storm. It had taken form, condensed into the silhouette of a boy sitting in still meditation, identical to Azzy himself from childhood, its outline calm and eerily complete, like a soul fragment that had finally decided to reveal itself.

Azzy stepped closer cautiously, his voice low.

"Who are you?"

There was no response.

The boy-shaped figure remained still, unmoving, as if it existed in a world beyond sound.

Azzy clenched his jaw, frustration and fear twisting together inside him, and he took a slow breath, forcing his emotions down like poison being swallowed.

"I need answers," he murmured. "I need to contact Devorah again... but before that, I need to go home."

His consciousness snapped back to reality.

Within minutes, Azzy was moving through the Garcia Palace with restless speed, his steps quiet but urgent, ignoring servants who bowed, ignoring knights who stiffened at his passing. His mind was still drowning in the dream, in the rain-soaked street, in Artaigne’s fading voice, and every time he blinked too long, he felt like he would see her bleeding again.