The Soulbind
1152 Words
The first time Mira bled silver, she thought she was dreaming again.
It happened during an ordinary moment—a sliced fingertip on the edge of a paper, a hiss of pain, a bead of liquid rising. Only instead of red, it shimmered like quicksilver under the kitchen light.
She stared. A droplet fell onto the counter. It didn’t soak in.
It sang.
A faint, humming tone that vibrated through her bones like a tuning fork for the soul.
She pressed her palm over the cut and whispered, “Thorne.”
And he appeared.
Not as a shadow. Not as a silhouette.
He tore through the veil of her world like a meteor, crashing into the apartment with a gust of wind that snuffed every candle and knocked a picture off the wall. His coat fluttered like torn wings, and his silver eyes were glowing.
“I felt you,” he said hoarsely.
She held out her hand. “I bled. It wasn’t normal.”
He approached slowly. His fingers brushed hers. He saw it—the smear of luminous silver, still singing faintly.
Thorne inhaled sharply.
“It’s started,” he murmured.
“What has?”
“The soulbind is becoming permanent.”
---
They sat in silence for a long time.
Thorne stared at her injured hand as if it were a ticking clock. Mira watched him instead.
His jaw was tense. His coat had small tears in it—something had happened before he arrived.
“You were fighting,” she said quietly.
He didn’t answer right away.
“The veil grows thinner every time we interact,” he admitted. “Something ancient is watching us now. It does not approve.”
“Let it disapprove. I’m not dying quietly.”
He looked up at her, searching her face.
“You’ve changed.”
“I’m awake,” she said. “That’s different.”
Thorne reached out and took her injured hand gently. He pressed his thumb against her wrist—right over the soulbind mark.
And Mira gasped.
Not from pain.
From connection.
A river of sensation surged through her. Emotion that wasn’t hers—loneliness so vast it echoed like cathedral bells. Memories of countless faces, names forgotten, stories half-told. A thousand deaths he had witnessed. A thousand more he’d ended.
Then, beneath it all—one secret longing.
To be remembered.
To matter.
To be held.
Mira jerked her hand away, breathless.
“I saw… I felt everything,” she whispered.
Thorne closed his eyes. “The bond is becoming two-way.”
---
The days blurred after that.
Mira no longer needed sleep the way she used to. She dreamed, yes—but her dreams were doorways now. She walked through memories that belonged to Thorne, or maybe to the soulbind itself.
A castle made of obsidian stone, where a woman in white burned her name into the air.
A tree taller than a mountain, its roots buried in bones.
A kiss beneath a blood-red eclipse.
She didn’t know if the images were prophecy, history, or hallucination. But they lingered. And each time she awoke, her mark pulsed brighter.
And Thorne?
He began to fade.
Not from her.
From himself.
He stopped casting reflections. His shadow stuttered. Sometimes, when he spoke, his voice echoed like it wasn’t entirely part of this world.
“What’s happening to you?” Mira asked one night as they sat on her rooftop again.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Finally, he said, “The longer I remain soulbound… the less of me stays bound to the realm of the dead. Reapers aren’t meant to feel.”
“And now you do?”
Thorne looked at her.
“I never stopped.”
---
That same night, Mira made a decision.
They had six months. One already gone. Five left, maybe less.
If the Book of Endings held a way to rewrite fate, to sever the bond without ending her life, or to redeem Thorne’s sacrifice, they had to find it now.
So she dug.
And with Thorne’s reluctant help, she uncovered something buried in a forbidden reaper text—a map of symbols, not places. A trail etched across the spiritual ley lines of the world. The places where the veil between life and death thinned to threads.
They called them Eidolon Gates.
And the first one?
Beneath an ancient temple in Prague.
---
They packed quickly.
Mira had never left the country, never even had a passport—but Thorne waved a hand, whispered in a language that made the air shimmer, and suddenly she had documents, a plane ticket, and a new coat lined with protective sigils stitched in thread only she could see.
“You enchant clothing now?” she asked with a raised brow.
“I’m being thorough,” he said.
“Romantic.”
“Pragmatic.”
She smirked. “I’ll take it.”
Their flight was quiet. Mira watched clouds out the window while Thorne stared into a book written in runes she couldn’t decipher. People glanced at him and immediately looked away.
He didn’t belong here.
Not just in the plane.
In the world.
She reached over and took his hand.
He didn’t pull away.
---
Prague was a dream out of time.
The streets wound like poetry. The air smelled of rain and secrets. Mira walked beneath ancient clock towers and through alleys that whispered when she passed.
The temple was underground—sealed for centuries beneath a library that had once been a monastery.
Thorne led her by instinct. By resonance.
As they descended spiral stairs lit only by flickering lanterns, Mira felt her skin buzz.
“It’s here,” he said softly.
They stopped at a stone door covered in carvings. Her soulbind mark ached.
Thorne placed a hand on the door.
And it opened.
---
The chamber beyond was circular.
A black mirror stood at its center, ringed in bone-white stones.
Reflected in the mirror was not the room—but another room. A library with no ceiling. Books flying like birds. A woman in silver robes.
Then the reflection blinked.
The woman turned and stared directly at them.
Mira stumbled back.
“She saw me.”
Thorne stiffened. “That’s not possible.”
“It happened.”
The mirror pulsed. Then cracked.
Silver light burst from its center.
And Mira collapsed.
---
She awoke in the dream-library.
Alone.
The ceiling was a void, the floor a map of stars. Books flew overhead, whispering like flocks of birds. And at the center—on a pedestal made of petrified light—rested a single book.
Black cover.
Silver spine.
The title: The Book of Endings.
Mira approached it slowly.
Her fingers trembled.
She reached out—
And heard Thorne’s voice, faint, far away.
“Mira—don’t!”
But it was too late.
Her fingers touched the cover.
The world exploded into silver fire.
- Writer
