Souls Through Time (EzioxOC/DesmondxOC)

Book 3

Claire Lynch thought she had already faced the worst. She had survived Abstergo's captivity, endured the mind-bending distortions of the Animus, and fought side by side with Desmond Miles, the one person who seemed to understand the weight of living through other people's memories. She had taken on her ancestor Amelia Tessaro's battles, felt Amelia's love for Ezio Auditore, and learned to fight with the precision and passion of an Assassin. But just as she began to reclaim her life, her world fractured once more.

Now, in the aftermath of a devastating encounter, Desmond lies in a coma, his mind ensnared by forces neither he nor Claire can control. For the first time, Claire stands alone—stripped of Amelia's memories, cut off from the past that once guided her, and left to face an uncertain future without the comfort of her ancestor's presence. The woman who had once helped her survive, whose strength and wisdom had become part of her, is now only a memory herself. Without Amelia's influence, Claire feels unmoored, as if part of her own identity has vanished.

Yet the challenges don't end there. The Bleeding Effect—the Animus's insidious merging of past and present—continues to plague Claire, threatening her sanity. Shadows of Amelia still flicker at the edges of her mind, and she often feels as though she's slipping into another life, caught between two worlds that refuse to let her go. Faces from Amelia's time appear in moments of quiet; whispers of the past echo around her, forcing her to question what is real. Claire knows that her grasp on reality is weakening, and the fear of losing herself completely haunts her every step.

And Desmond, the man she fought alongside, the one she had come to care for in a way that blurred the lines between affection and destiny, is lost to her in a prison of his own mind. She doesn't just miss him—she needs him, his presence a steadying force amidst the chaos of her fractured psyche. Now, with Desmond trapped within his own memories and the Templars growing ever closer to their goal, Claire must undertake her most daunting mission yet: to save Desmond from his own mind, to pull him back from the edge of oblivion. She must dive into the unknown, navigating the intricacies of the Animus in ways she's never done before, risking her own mind to find him and bring him back.