Elina did not ask Alina what she had done.
She already knew the shape of it—the reckless reach, the belief that force could bend what was never meant to move. The curse had responded exactly as Elina feared it would.
By tightening.
She waited until Alina left for class before opening her laptop. The apartment felt hollow without her sister's noise, like a place that had already begun to forget its occupants.
Elina returned to the oldest records this time. Not folklore sites. Not academic interpretations. She searched for death.
Executions. Trials. Unmarked graves.
It took hours.
Then she found her.
The woman's name appeared inconsistently, spelled differently across documents, but the details aligned too perfectly to ignore. Accused of witchcraft. Condemned for binding souls. Executed publicly.
Burned.
Elina's hands trembled as she scrolled.
There was no record of remains.
No grave.
No confirmation of death beyond witness testimony—testimony written by men who feared what they could not control.
She leaned back slowly.
"They never finished it," Elina whispered.
That night, the dream came without resistance.
She stood in a circle of ash. The witch knelt at the center, flames curling around her but never touching skin. Her eyes lifted, meeting Elina's with unsettling calm.
You think fire ends things?" the witch asked softly.
"It only teaches patience."
The number burned overhead.
81
Elina woke with tears on her face but no sobs in her throat.
The truth settled fully now, cold and complete.
The witch had not escaped death.
She had waited through it.
And reincarnation was not punishment—it was continuation.
Elina closed her notebook and pressed it to her chest. Alina would never accept this. She would fight until there was nothing left to fight with.
But Elina understood something now that her sister did not.
This curse was not about revenge.
It was about completion.
And time—accelerated, stolen, bleeding away—was only the mechanism.
When Alina returned later that evening, Elina looked at her and felt something close to grief.
Not because Alina would die.
But because Alina still believed she could win.