"Some love stories never end.They just change names… and wait for the right spring to return."
Seventeen Years Later — Shimla, Himachal Pradesh
Snowflakes drifted lazily over pine trees as bells echoed from a nearby temple. The world was quiet, as if heaven had pressed pause.
In a small wooden cabin on the edge of the forest, Meher Verma woke up from yet another dream of a man whose face she could never quite remember—but whose name haunted her heart every morning:
"Kiaan…"
She was seventeen.
A literature student. Brilliant. Quiet. Always felt like she was waiting for someone. For something. Teachers called her gifted. Friends called her "an old soul."
But at night, when the stars shimmered too brightly, she heard voices in her dreams.A woman in white.A screaming baby.A man dying in her arms.
And fire.
Always fire.
At the Same Time — Varanasi
A boy stood barefoot in the Ganga, gazing into the rising sun. His name was Kiaan Rajput.
Also seventeen.
Also haunted.
He'd never dated, never fit in, never cared to. People joked he was born in the wrong century.
He didn't laugh.
Because in his dreams, he remembered wars.Thrones.A woman with wild hair, fire in her voice, tears in her eyes.
And his death.
He could even remember his last words:
"I'll find you… one more life… I swear."
When They Met Again
It happened on a school-level literature competition held in Dehradun.
Meher and Kiaan were randomly paired for a debate topic: "Do souls carry love between lives?"
As they sat across the table, time stopped.
No thunder. No lightning.Just a silence so thick, even reality bowed for a second.
Both stared.
Both said nothing.
But something clicked.
Later that night, as they passed each other in the corridor—
He whispered, "Meher, right?"
She turned. "Yeah."
He paused. Something in him shook.
"Have we… met before?"
She looked away. Smiled faintly.
"I don't know. But I feel like I've missed you forever."
Falling Again
In the weeks that followed, they grew close.
Not the fast, shallow love that teenage movies show.The deep, slow-burning kind. The kind where every sentence feels familiar. Every silence feels like a song from before language was born.
They went hiking together.
Studied under trees.
Once, Meher hummed an ancient tune from a dream—and Kiaan stopped in his tracks.
"Where did you learn that?"
"I… I don't know."
"That's my mother's lullaby," he whispered. "But I never told anyone that. Not even my real mother."
Their hearts stopped together.
The First Spark
One night, while walking home, a drunk truck driver lost control.
Kiaan pulled Meher to safety—but a streetlamp exploded above them. The glass froze mid-air for a second—literally froze.
Kiaan looked up, stunned. Meher was glowing.A soft gold. Her pupils had turned faintly silver.
Just like in his dreams.
"You're… not normal," he whispered.
"Neither are you," she replied.
The Child's Soul
As their love deepened, dreams returned with sharpness.
Not just of each other…But of a third presence.
A child. With green eyes and a half-sun birthmark.
And then—Meher missed her period.
Terrified, confused, she went to a clinic alone.
The doctor returned, pale.
"It's… not normal. There's no heartbeat. But there's a… pulse."
That night, the woman in white appeared again in Meher's dream.
"You are three flames reborn.The child carries your past and your future.But something else has followed you through time.And it wants the soul of the child."
The Darkness Stirs
At the same moment in an abandoned monastery in Tibet…
A cloaked figure knelt before a black mirror.
"The Wildflower has bloomed again," he hissed."And this time… the Flamechild lives."
He looked up.
Revealing his face—half-burned.Eyes full of hatred.
Rishaan.
Alive. Reborn. Still cursed.And still in love.
"If I can't have Lyra in this life… I'll raise her child as mine."
End of Chapter Five