Chapter : 1929

  Lloyd nodded. He looked away, staring at the rows of books as if he hated them. "There was an accident during a training exercise back home. A transport failure. I came back, and you were gone. I was left alone with Yohan."

  The name of their son hung in the air between them.

  "I lived a long time after that," Lloyd said quietly. "Eighty years. I raised our son. I grew old. I became a general. I invented things." He paused, his voice thick with a complicated grief. "I eventually found peace again. I married a brilliant woman named Eun Ha, and we built a good life together. I wasn't alone. But you... you were my first war. My first loss. And a part of me always wondered what our life would have been if that transport hadn't crashed."

  He turned back to her. "When I woke up in this world, in this body... I thought I had left that entire life behind. I never imagined..." He looked at her face, tracing the freckles with his eyes. "I never imagined the first chapter of my life would be here too."

  Airin sat in silence, processing the impossible. She looked at Lloyd—this young, powerful nobleman—and saw the old soul inside him. She saw the husband who had mourned her for half a century.

  "That's why you cried," she realized. "At the market. The first time you saw me. You knew."

  "I knew," Lloyd admitted. "But I couldn't be sure. Not until now. Not until you said his name."

  He reached out and took her hand. His grip was tight, desperate. "You are Airin," he said firmly. "You have your own life here. You have your own dreams. But the soul inside you... the spark that makes you you... that is Anastasia. It's the same soul I loved in another world."

  Airin looked down at their joined hands. The warmth was the same as in the dream. It was the only anchor she had in a world that suddenly felt too big and too strange.

  "What do we do?" she asked. Her voice was small. "I... I have memories of loving you. But I am also a student. And you are... you are married. You have a life."

  Lloyd pulled his hand back gently. The mask of the Professor slid back into place, but it was thinner now.

  "We do nothing," he said. "Not yet."

  He stood up and walked a few paces away, putting some distance between them. He needed to think. He needed to be the strategist.

  "This is a lot to handle," he said. "The memories... they can be overwhelming. They can confuse you. They can make you feel like you're losing your mind."

  He turned to face her. "I don't want you to force it. I don't want you to try to be Anastasia for me. You are Airin. You need to figure out what that means."

  He was protecting her. Even now, with his heart clearly breaking, he was acting like the soldier protecting his family. He was giving her a way out.

  "Take some time," Lloyd said. "Take the day. Take the week. Don't come to class. Just... sit with it. Process it."

  "And then?" Airin asked.

  Lloyd looked at her with a mixture of sadness and fierce determination.

  "And then," he said, "we will figure it out. I promised I would always find you. I have. I'm not going anywhere."

  He gathered his scattered papers from the table. He stacked them neatly, his hands steady now.

  "Go back to your dorm, Airin," he said gently. "Rest. Let the fog clear."

  Airin stood up. She felt heavy, burdened by the weight of two lifetimes, but also strangely light. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't alone.

  She walked to the end of the aisle. Before she turned the corner, she looked back.

  Lloyd was standing there, watching her. He didn't wave. He didn't smile. He just stood guard, a silent sentinel watching over the ghost who had come back to life.

  "Goodbye, Evan," she whispered to herself.

  "Goodbye, Professor," she said aloud.

  She walked out of the library and into the bright afternoon sun. The world looked different now. The sky was the same blue, the grass the same green. But everything felt sharper. Deeper.

  She walked back to her room, the name "Yohan" echoing in her heart with every step. She had a lot to think about. But for the first time in a week, the crushing confusion was gone. She knew who she was.

  Chapter : 1930

  She was Airin. And she was Anastasia. And the man in the olive uniform was just down the hall.

  The storm of memories had passed, but the reality of it was just settling in. And Airin knew, with a certainty that spanned worlds, that nothing would ever be simple again.

  ________________________________________

  The week after the conversation in the library felt longer than a year for Airin. The air inside the Royal Academy, usually buzzing with the sound of students practicing spells or debating history, felt heavy and thick whenever she was near Professor Ferrum.

  They didn’t speak much. They couldn’t. What do you say to a man who claims he was your husband in another life? What do you say to a man who looks at you not as a student, but as the only person in the world who truly knows him?

  It was a strange, tense dance. Airin would walk down the long stone corridors, clutching her books to her chest, and she would see him. Lloyd would be standing by a window or talking to another teacher. As soon as she appeared, his head would snap up. For a split second, his face would be open and vulnerable, filled with a desperate kind of hope. Then, the mask would slam back down. He would nod politely, say, "Scholar Airin," and keep walking.

  But Airin noticed the details. She noticed how his hands clenched into fists at his sides when she walked past, as if he was fighting the urge to reach out and stop her. She noticed that he always positioned himself between her and any potential danger—a rowdy group of students, a loose cart, even a drafty window. He was guarding her, silently and constantly.

  It was exhausting. Her head was full of two sets of memories. In one moment, she was Airin, worrying about her grades and her scholarship. In the next, the smell of chalk dust would vanish, replaced by the smell of rain and gun oil. She would remember stripping down a service rifle while a man named Evan reviewed deployment orders. She would remember the feeling of a simple, polished silver band on her finger.

  She needed to breathe. She needed to be somewhere where the past couldn't find her.

  So, on a Tuesday afternoon when the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue, Airin skipped her study hall. She didn't go to the library; that place felt too charged now. Instead, she headed for the Crystal Greenhouse.

  The Greenhouse was the jewel of the Academy. It was a massive structure made of curved glass and white steel, sitting on the edge of the campus grounds. It was home to rare plants from all over the continent—flowers that sang when you touched them, vines that glowed in the dark, and trees that smelled like cinnamon and sugar.

  Airin pushed open the heavy glass door and stepped inside. The air was warm and humid, smelling of damp earth and blooming petals. It was quiet here. The thick glass walls blocked out the noise of the city and the school.

  She walked down the central path, letting her fingers brush against the large, waxy leaves of a tropical fern. The sunlight poured in from above, filtering through the glass and the leaves, creating a shifting pattern of green and gold on the floor. It was peaceful. It was simple.

  She found a small stone bench near the back, hidden behind a wall of purple hydrangeas. She sat down and closed her eyes, tilting her head back to feel the warmth of the sun on her face. For a moment, the headaches stopped. The dual memories settled down. She was just a girl sitting in a garden.

  But the peace didn't last.

  A sudden chill ran down her spine. It wasn't a cold breeze; the greenhouse was sealed tight. It was a feeling inside her bones, an instinct she didn't know she had. It was the feeling of being watched by a predator.

  The birds inside the greenhouse, usually singing and chirping, went silent. The magical flowers that hummed soft tunes stopped their music. The silence that fell over the glass building wasn't peaceful anymore. It was heavy. It was dangerous.

  Airin opened her eyes.

  Standing at the entrance of the greenhouse, blocking the only exit, was a man.

  Chapter : 1931

  He didn't look like a student or a teacher. He wore long, dark robes that seemed to swallow the sunlight. The fabric didn't look like cloth; it looked like smoke woven into a shape. His face was hidden beneath a deep hood, but Airin could feel his eyes on her. They felt physical, like a cold hand touching her skin.

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  He took a step forward. The sound of his boot on the stone path echoed too loudly in the quiet space.

  "Scholar Airin," the man said. His voice was smooth and dry, like paper rubbing together. "You are a difficult person to find alone. The Lion guards you very closely."

  Airin stood up slowly. Her heart began to race, but her mind—the mind that remembered a war—went cold and sharp. She didn't scream. She didn't run, because there was nowhere to run. She calculated the distance between them. Fifty feet.

  "Who are you?" she asked. Her voice didn't tremble. "Students aren't allowed in this section during class hours."

  The man laughed. It was a soft, unpleasant sound. He reached up and pulled back his hood.

  His face was pale, almost gray, with veins that looked like black spiderwebs running under his skin. His eyes were completely black, with no whites, just deep, endless voids. On his forehead, burned into the skin, was a symbol: a circle with seven jagged lines radiating from it.

  "I am a Collector," he said, bowing mockingly. "I serve the Seventh Circle. And I am not here for the plants."

  Airin took a step back. The Seventh Circle. The Devil Worshippers. She had heard the rumors, the stories of the shadow war Lloyd was fighting. But those were stories. This was a monster standing ten yards away from her.

  "What do you want?" Airin asked, her hand drifting toward a heavy glass beaker sitting on a nearby potting table.

  The Collector smiled, revealing teeth that had been filed into sharp points.

  "I want the sun," he said softly. "I want the light that you are hiding inside that fragile little body."

  ________________________________________

  The Collector began to walk toward her. He didn't rush. He moved with the confidence of someone who knew the door was locked and the prey was trapped. As he walked, the plants near him withered. The bright green leaves turned brown and curled up, dying instantly as his corrupt energy touched the air.

  Airin gripped the edge of the potting table. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I'm just a student on a scholarship. I have no money. I have no political power."

  "Money?" The Collector scoffed. He stopped ten feet away, inspecting a rare orchid before crushing it in his hand. "You think we care about gold? We have kingdoms of gold. You think we care about politics? Politics is a game for humans who think they matter."

  He looked at her, his black eyes widening with hunger.

  "You, my dear, are a biological miracle. A mistake of nature. A mutation."

  He raised a hand and pointed a long, gray finger at her chest.

  "You have a Solar Core."

  Airin frowned. She knew about Mana Cores. Every mage had one. It was the organ near the heart that processed magical energy. Most people had standard cores—neutral, elemental, or sometimes specialized like Lloyd’s Steel Blood.

  "My magic is Light," Airin said defensively. "It's rare, but it's not a mutation."

  "It is not just Light magic," the Collector corrected her, his voice rising in excitement. "A normal Light mage pulls energy from the world, shapes it, and releases it. But you? You generate it. Your core doesn't just process mana; it creates a specific frequency of high-density solar energy. It is endless. It is pure. It is exactly what we need."

  He took another step. The air grew colder, despite the sunlight streaming through the glass roof.

  "We have been trying to open a permanent gate," the Collector explained, sounding like a lecturer explaining a difficult problem. "A door between the Abyss and this world. But the energy required is massive. Batteries burn out. Crystals shatter. We need something living. Something that can renew itself."

  The horror of his words sank in. Airin felt a cold knot form in her stomach.

  "You want to use me as a battery," she whispered.

  Chapter : 1932

  "We want to use you as a Key," the Collector said. "A Vessel. We will hook you up to the Gate. We will drain that beautiful, burning light of yours until you are empty, and then we will wait for you to recharge, and do it again. You will serve a purpose greater than studying books or marrying a lord."

  He spread his arms. "You should be honored. You are going to bring the darkness by using the light."

  Airin felt sick. But beneath the sickness, something else was stirring. A spark. A memory.

  Get ready, a voice in her head whispered. It was her voice, but older. Harder.

  "I won't go with you," Airin said. She picked up the heavy glass beaker. It wasn't a weapon, but it was something.

  The Collector sighed. "They always say that. It’s so tedious."

  He waved his hand. The shadows stretching from the plant pots and the tables suddenly detached themselves from the floor. They stood up, peeling away from the ground like stickers.

  The shadows twisted and formed into shapes. They looked like wolves, but wrong. Their legs were too long, their jaws too wide. They were made of inky darkness that seemed to smoke. There were three of them.

  "Shadow-Stalkers," the Collector introduced them. "They are immune to physical damage. They can walk through walls. And they are very, very hungry."

  The three monsters crouched, growling with a sound that vibrated in Airin’s teeth.

  "Don't kill her," the Collector commanded the beasts. "But you can break her legs. She doesn't need to walk to be a battery."

  The first Shadow-Stalker lunged.

  Airin screamed and threw the beaker. It passed harmlessly through the shadow wolf’s head and shattered against the floor. The beast didn't even slow down. It slammed into her, knocking her backward into a rack of gardening tools.

  She hit the ground hard. The breath was knocked out of her lungs. The shadow wolf stood over her, its jaws opening to reveal rows of needle-like teeth made of cold mist.

  Panic flared in Airin’s chest. This was it. She was going to die here, among the flowers.

  No.

  The voice in her head was louder now. It wasn't a whisper. It was a shout.

  Move, Anastasia. Move your ass!

  The memory hit her like a physical blow. She wasn't lying on the floor of a greenhouse. She was lying in the mud under a truck, bullets pinging off the metal above her. She was holding a wrench. She was scared, but she was angry.

  Airin’s eyes snapped open. The fear didn't vanish, but it changed. It turned into adrenaline. It turned into focus.

  She looked at the shadow wolf. It was made of darkness.

  What kills darkness?

  Light.

  She didn't need a spell. She didn't need a wand. She just needed to let it out.

  She felt the "Solar Core" the Collector had talked about. It was a ball of heat in her chest, burning hotter than she had ever realized. She had always tamped it down, tried to hide it, tried to be a polite, quiet girl.

  Now, she grabbed that heat and pulled.

  The shadow wolf bit down. But before its teeth could touch her skin, Airin threw her hands up.

  A flash of blinding white light erupted from her palms. It wasn't a beam; it was an explosion, like a flash-bang grenade.

  The shadow wolf shrieked. The light burned it like acid. It dissolved instantly, turning into wisps of harmless grey smoke.

  The other two stalkers recoiled, hissing and backing away from the brilliance.

  The Collector shielded his eyes, looking shocked. "Oh? The battery has a spark."

  Airin scrambled to her feet. She was breathing hard. Her hands were glowing, actual light spilling from her fingertips like water. She looked around the greenhouse. She saw the glass walls. She saw the mirrors used to direct sunlight to the rare plants. She saw the shards of the beaker she had broken on the floor.

  Her mind shifted. She stopped seeing the room as a garden. She saw it as a diagram. She saw angles. She saw reflection points. She saw geometry.

  On Earth, Anastasia hadn't been a soldier. She had been an engineer. She understood physics. She understood how energy moved.

  She looked at the Collector. He was summoning a shield of darkness, preparing to attack her himself.

  Airin reached down and picked up a handful of sharp glass shards. She didn't flinch as they dug into her palm.