Luna’s Lost Bond

~Chapter Five~

Nyara trailed behind Ayana, the night air sharp against her skin, each breath drawing frost into her lungs. The moon rode high, silvering the treetops and casting the narrow path in ghostly light. Her mind, however, wasn't on the night but on the courtyard, on Liora.

The image replayed relentlessly: the venom in Liora’s eyes, the cruel tilt of her smile. The Liora she remembered was gentle, selfless, softspoken felt like a dream fading away. What she had seen today was a stranger wearing her friend’s face.

Her thoughts screeched to a halt when Ayana suddenly stopped. Nyara blinked and found herself standing before a modest stone house halfswallowed by the trees. They had walked longer than she realized, the journey stretched by the weight of silence and the ghosts of her memories.

The roof sagged under patches of moss, the shutters hung halfclosed as though the house itself grieved. The sight of it ached, sharp and strange, like a bruise she couldn’t name.

Her brows furrowed. “Was this place… abandoned?” she asked softly, tilting her head at the lopsided doorway, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

Ayana gave a short laugh, nudging her shoulder with surprising warmth. “Just a single night at the packhouse and you’ve forgotten your own home already?” she teased, her tone light, though her sharp eyes missed nothing.

Nyara stiffened, heart skipping. She hadn’t meant to sound so detached. “Of course not,” she replied quickly, forcing a faint smile. “I was only… lost in my thoughts.”

Ayana’s lips curved knowingly, but she didn’t press. Instead, she added, “Liora chose it, remember? Said you were too shy, too quiet, and needed your own space away from the packhouse.”

Nyara’s steps faltered. Liora? The word rang in her head like a cracked bell. Liora had chosen this house for Elair? And Darian had allowed it? Her fingers curled against her palm, unease settling heavier on her shoulders.

She turned back to the house, slower this time, as if peeling layers from a memory. With each detail, the crooked porch, the wornout door, the ache in her chest deepened. She pushed the door open, hinges groaning in protest, and a breath of stale air met her.

Inside, the house was small, one main room with low beams and pale stone walls. Dust floated in the lamplight Ayana had lit, but nothing looked abandoned. Shelves lined the walls, neat and ordered, each jar labeled and filled with dried herbs, roots, and powders. The sharp scents earthy, bitter, metallic clawed at her senses, halffamiliar, halfforeign.

Her feet carried her to the shelves before she could think. Fingers brushed glass jars, the labels scrawled in handwriting she somehow recognized. “For someone who’d lost her memory,” she whispered, voice trembling, “how could she have known all this?”

She didn’t notice her own voice slipping. She didn’t notice Ayana watching quietly from the doorframe.

Nyara’s gaze shifted then, catching a sliver of wood on the far wall that didn’t sit flush. Something inside her stirred instinct, or memory? She pressed against the board. It gave with a groan, revealing a small hollow pocket.

Her pulse leapt. She reached inside and drew out a bundle wrapped in cloth. When she unwrapped it, a slim, leatherbound book rested in her hands. A diary.

The cover was cracked with age, but the moment her fingers touched it, recognition shivered through her. It was Elair’s. She could feel it. Carefully, she brushed away the dust, as though afraid to break it, and opened it. The handwriting danced across the pages, Elair’s, uneven yet graceful. At first, the words were strange symbols, curling lines that shouldn’t make sense. Yet the more she stared, the clearer they became, until she could read them as though they had always been hers to understand.

“…sometimes I have dreams. Dreams where I am not myself. I wake bound in chains, caged like an animal. I hear voices, men, always men, laughter sharp as knives. They cut, they test, they whisper that I am only an experiment. I wake screaming, but no one comes. No one ever comes…”

Her stomach tightened. She flipped further.

“Elair?”

The voice struck like thunder. Nyara’s head snapped up. Ayana stood in the doorway, her expression unreadable, though her eyes sharpened slightly at the sight of the diary in Nyara’s hands.

Heart hammering, Nyara slammed the diary shut and clutched it to her chest. “Just… dust,” she lied weakly, voice breaking.

Ayana raised a brow, studying her for a long beat. But she didn’t press. Instead, she stepped back and gestured toward the bedroom. “You should rest. You’ve had a long, brutal day. Tomorrow will only be harder.”

Nyara nodded, but her thoughts burned with the ink pressed between those pages, secrets whispering of a past she couldn’t remember but that refused to let her go.

Meanwhile, in the high tower of the packhouse, Darian sat hunched at his desk, a single candle casting sharp shadows across the papers scattered before him. His office smelled of ink, smoke, and the faint trace of iron. He hadn’t moved in hours, though the stack of reports remained untouched.

The door opened without a knock.

“You should rest.”

Her voice was velvet, sliding easily into the silence.

He didn’t look up. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“And yet,” Liora stepped inside, soft as silk unraveling, “you never lock me out.”

Liora’s voice was honeyed, her steps light as she entered. She crossed the room without hesitation, her gown whispering against the floor. She came to his side, her presence wrapping around him like perfume.

“I came because you look tired,” she murmured, brushing her fingers lightly across the line of his arm, lingering just enough to feel the tension beneath his skin, Warm spice and faintly sweet.

“You carry this pack’s weight alone, Darian”. She murmured. “But even stone cracks under weight.”

His jaw flexed, but he stayed silent.

Liora leaned closer, her breath ghosting his cheeks now. “I remember when you smiled more Darian” she whispered, with a soft and sweet voice “When we were children playing in the courtyard, you don't have to keep shutting me out”.

For the first time, his gaze lifted. The candle’s light glow caught her eyes, sharp and liquid all at once, she had really beautiful eyes and he found himself slowly getting lost in them.

She tilted her head, closing the space between them slowly.

“Let me be the one to carry it with you”. She breathed, her lips trembling dangerously near his.

For a heartbeat, he left himself lean in, drawn by the familiarity, the need, the comfort and ruin of everything he couldn't name.

Their lips just inches apart.