The Mark Remembers Her Too
He didn't wake in a bed.
He woke in her memory.
The air was thick. Burnt amber. The sky cracked like glass overhead.
Keiran stood in the middle of a collapsed temple, the scent of ash and old flame curling through the ruin.
And at the center—
Lys.
Not broken.
Not fading.
But real.
Alive.
She was dragging someone behind her—his body.
His.
Younger. Unconscious. Burned.
His coat torn open, the mark on his wrist glowing so violently it left streaks of light across the floor.
Lys was shaking.
Bleeding from the palms.
But still whispering.
"Don't burn out. Not yet. Please…"
She dragged him through a broken archway. Into a circle of soot. A ritual long-abandoned.
And there, she fell to her knees.
"I know you're listening," she said to the empty air.
"I know you always are."
Nothing replied.
So she bared her wrist.
And carved the beginning of a glyph into her skin with a shard of glass.
Not Keiran's spiral.
Something else.
A mirror to it.
The temple shuddered.
A low, humming sound filled the space.
Like breath drawn through a dying throat.
A second voice answered.
Not human.
Not kind.
"One must carry. One must anchor. One must be forgotten."
Lys didn't flinch.
"Then take me."
"Let him go. Let him forget. I'll remember."
"I'll remember enough for both of us."
The shard dropped from her hand.
Her blood soaked into the runes.
Keiran—the one in her arms—breathed in sharply.
And the mark on his skin dimmed.
But hers…
lit.
Not in flame.
But in silence.
The kind that follows a name being torn from a body.
Then the sky above cracked completely—
And the memory ended.
Keiran woke screaming.
His chest heaving.
His hands shaking.
The glyph on his wrist burned cold.
But not alone.
Because now—
it had a twin.
Just beneath it, faint but forming:
Lys's name.
Split down the center.
One side bright.
The other flickering out.
He sat up slowly.
Tears he didn't remember crying had soaked his shirt.
His heart beat twice.
Once for himself.
Once for a girl who once said:
"If you ever remember me… don't cry. Just light a candle."
So he did.
One stolen from the Concordium's outer sanctum.
He lit it on the floor beside his bed.
And waited.
The flame didn't flicker.
It burned steady.
Like she was watching.
Like she knew.
And from deep within the mark on his wrist, a voice barely louder than thought whispered:
"You were always worth remembering."