The Room That Remembers You
The door wasn't made of stone.
It looked like bone—but it breathed.
Each pulse matched the rhythm of Keiran's mark.
When he stepped closer, the glyph on his wrist glowed violet, not silver.
Something old stirred beneath his skin.
"This place remembers you," he muttered.
Then he touched the door.
It exhaled.
And opened.
The chamber beyond was round. Silent.
No torches. No scent. No runes.
Just a circle of unlit candles—twelve, evenly spaced.
At the center sat a man.
Unmoving.
Alive.
Bound not by chains, but by silence.
He didn't look up.
Not until Keiran stepped between the candles.
Then—he breathed in sharply.
"So it's you again."
The voice was dry. Unused. Not cracked with age, but calcified by stillness.
Keiran stepped closer.
The man looked no older than thirty. Hair grey at the edges. Eyes glassy, but aware.
He bore no mark on his skin.
But his shadow—
His shadow shivered.
As if haunted by too many versions of himself.
"Who are you?" Keiran asked.
The man laughed.
Soft. Broken.
"Wrong question."
He raised a trembling hand and pointed at Keiran's chest.
"Who are you? This time?"
Keiran hesitated.
"Keiran."
"That name again." The man's eyes dimmed. "Gods. It never changes."
Keiran stepped back.
"You've seen me before."
"All of you. Every loop. Every name. Every failure."
His voice dropped.
"You always find me. And you never remember."
The candles began to flicker. One by one.
But they didn't burn outward.
They inhaled light.
Drinking it.
Keiran's mark flared—then dimmed.
The man looked up sharply.
"You haven't burned yet."
"Burned?"
"You will. When your name becomes heavier than your body."
Keiran knelt.
"Tell me the truth. All of it."
The man nodded slowly.
"I am called the Witness."
"The what?"
"Because I remember you."
"Not just this self. All your selves."
He leaned forward, eyes glassy.
"You are not cursed. You are recursive."
"Every loop, you forget. And every loop, you return to the Concordium. The Wardens. The mark. The moons."
"Always when they near alignment."
Keiran's mouth was dry.
"What causes it?"
The Witness looked at him.
"You. You caused it."
"Why?"
The man smiled sadly.
"To fix something that can't be fixed with forgetting."
"So you made the world remember wrong instead."
Keiran stood, pacing.
His mind reeled.
"Then the mark—"
"—is not just a brand. It's a record scratch. A glitch in time's repetition."
"And every name it eats makes it worse."
One candle went out.
Snuffed by no wind.
The Witness flinched.
"You're early, this time. The others waited longer."
Keiran looked up.
"Others?"
"Other versions of you. You wore different names. Vayne. Solace. Ashen-Keir.
Once, even Karev the Silent. But every time…"
He touched the wall.
Keiran stepped forward.
There, scratched faintly in the stone:
"Keiran. Burn the sky."
The Witness looked at him.
"That was you. Twelve loops ago."
"You remembered. For a moment."
Keiran was trembling.
"Why me?"
"Because you're the one who lit the first memory-fire."
"And the one who tried to smother it."
The final candle flickered.
Then held.
The room stabilized.
"What now?" Keiran asked.
"You still have time. Not much. But time."
"To do what?"
The Witness leaned close.
And whispered:
"Find the Name That Was Taken."
"Before your mark eats it again."
Keiran turned to go.
But the Witness said one last thing.
"You were kindest as Solace. Smartest as Vayne. Most dangerous when you had no name at all."
"But this version of you—this Keiran—feels different."
Keiran paused.
"How?"
The Witness smiled.
"You asked why. Not just what."
As he left, the door sealed behind him.
But the mark on his wrist had changed.
The spiral was now surrounded by a second ring.
Inside it: a name.
One he didn't know.
But one that made his heart seize the moment he read it:
Lys.