Chapter Four: The Memory She Wasn’t Supposed to Keep
POV: ARYN
...
Aryn didn't speak for a long time.
Not after Grandma had said, "They've found you."
Not after she backed away as though Aryn's skin had turned to flame.
Not even when the silver-edged leaf crumbled between her fingertips.
The silence stretched between them like a noose. Aryn felt her pulse in her ears. The mark on her skin thumped like a second heartbeat.
Then:
"Found me?" she whispered. "Who... Who found me?"
Her grandmother didn't answer right away. She didn't sit. Neither did she blink.
She simply stared at the mark like it was a ghost. A ghost she had prayed never to see again.
The fire crackled. Aryn hated the way her voice shook when she asked again:
"What is this? What did I see last night? Why do I feel like... like something's inside me that doesn't belong?"
The mark pulsed — faint, but there.
A thorned sun. A cursed crown.
---
Grandma moved slowly, walking steadily. Not towards Aryn this time. But toward the cupboard by the hearth. One that has been left untouched for a long time. A long time, until now...
Each step she took sounded heavier than the last. She opened one of it's drawers... a drawer she hadn't touched in years.
The air thickened. Clouds of dust curled in the light like ash.
When she turned, her hands held something wrapped in black silk. Her fingers trembled.
"I never wanted to show you this," she said. "But I have to."
Aryn's throat tightened, her body stiffening. "What is it?"
"Proof."
She unwrapped it carefully — as if something alive might be inside.
Aryn leaned forward, breath caught.
There it was:
A faded silver medallion, no bigger than her palm, etched with the same thorned rune... the one that now burned across her chest.
Exactly the same.
Her heart thudded.
---
"What is that?"
Her grandmother's eyes softened. With grief. With fear.
"Your birthright."
"No. My birthright is tea-making, garden-wandering, and being the village ghost girl. What is that thing?"
"It belonged to your mother."
Aryn froze.
"No. That's not—she died in childbirth. You said—"
"She died protecting you Aryn. And this mark... it was hidden when we took you away."
Aryn shook her head, backing away. The edge of the table pressed against her hip.
"Took me? From where?"
"From them. From the ones who would've killed you if they knew who you were."
---
The fire crackled softly. Her skin felt too small for her bones. Every breath scraped.
"I don't understand."
Her grandmother sat, though her hands trembled.
"Your mother was one of them, Aryn. A hunter. A true-blooded one. She was raised with blades and sigils, trained to sense the cursed ones — the Moonborn, the Wolfkin. Trained to end them."
Aryn's lips parted. "Then how...?"
"She fell in love with one."
The words sank like stones thrown into deep waters.
---
The room grew colder.
"He was cursed — not by choice, but by legacy. His blood carried the Hollow Rune... the same one that's on your skin now. The same one she tried to break by bearing you."
"And it didn't work."
"No."
"So she died."
"Yes."
Aryn swallowed the lump in her throat.
"But why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were never supposed to awaken it. Not without your wolf."
Aryn blinked. "My what?!"
"You're half-born, Aryn. Half-wolf, half-hunter. You were meant to be a bridge... or a weapon."
---
The medallion sat between them, catching firelight. Aryn stared at it like it might whisper back.
Then something happened.
The mark on her skin suddenly began to glow again — soft at first, then brighter.
Grandma stood fast. "Aryn, put it down!"
But she wasn't touching it.
She didn't need to.
Because the moment her heartbeat quickened, the room began to shift.
The fire flickered. The walls breathed. The air turned to fog. A weight pressed against her chest, and her ears rang.
---
And then she was somewhere else.
---
It was a forest. Full moon. Blood on the trees.
A woman screamed.
A man with silver eyes. No, not Kael... He stood, clutching a blade in one hand and a baby in the other.
"Go, Marin!" the man barked. "They're coming — they can smell her mark!"
Marin reached for the child, her voice breaking. "I won't leave her!"
"If they catch you both, she dies too!"
Lightning split the sky. Thunder cracked. The earth howled.
The woman cradled the baby to her chest and vanished into the trees. Her tears sparkled like stardust.
---
Then, darkness.
And a voice.
Not hers. Not Grandma's.
"The bond always returns."
"The blood always remembers."
"You weren't meant to forget."
---
She jolted awake.
She was on the floor. Her knees scraped. Breath caught. The taste of smoke still clung to her mouth.
The medallion lay beside her, like a simple piece of metal, no longer glowing. It had returned to normal.
Grandma knelt over her. Worry evident in her eyes.
"You saw them."
Aryn couldn't speak. Her voice hid somewhere beneath the weight of what she'd just gone through.
"You saw the night you were taken. Your father was the first Moonborn to resist the Hollowing. Your mother spared him... and then spared you."
Aryn looked up. Her voice came out hoarse.
"Why do I feel like something's pulling me? Like... like I'm not alone inside my head?"
Grandma's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Because the bond has awakened."
Aryn shivered.
The memory clung to her like smoke. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears.
The mark still hummed.
And the name she didn't dare say out loud — Kael — echoed like a half-formed howl inside her. She swallowed.
"I don't even know him," she whispered. "So why do I feel like I always have?"
Grandma stood.
"The council will sense the bond soon. If they haven't sensed it already. You need to stay hidden Aryn. You need to stay completely hidden from their reach."
"And what if I don't want to?" Her voice surprised even her.
The fire snapped.
Her grandmother turned slowly. The silence between them deepened.
Then her words landed like a strike:
"Then you'll need to learn to fight."
---
To be continued...
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Author's note:
Some truths were never meant to be remembered.
But now that Aryn has seen what was hidden… there's no turning back.
The past is clawing its way forward — and she's not the only one feeling it.
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📚 Add to Library if you haven't already — the bond has only just begun.
— Kai Alaric