We camp in silence.
Lyra crouches by the ash-ring, her hands hovering just above the embers as if asking fire for answers it won't give. The shadows twitch against her back, pulling long across the forest walls—twisted, curling like smoke-blood memories.
She hasn't said anything since we stopped running.
Since I fell into that grove glowing with ancient runes and she caught me like she expected me.
No—remembered me.
Her eyes had widened, not with surprise… but with recognition.
And she whispered under her breath:
"Not yet."
I still don't know what that meant.
She wears her braid tight, too tight, each lock stitched with silvery runes that catch the moonlight. It looks ceremonial, almost sacred—though I doubt she'd admit that. She doesn't seem like the sacred type.
Lyra is made of sharp edges and half-kept promises.
I watch her now, every flicker of her fingers, every breath she takes like she's measuring the weight of truth against the price of silence.
Aeris sleeps curled near my leg. His breath is warm, the only warmth in this frozen patch of frostwood. Even asleep, his small form glows faintly—like embers deep beneath scaled skin.
"Who braided your hair?" I ask.
Her gaze doesn't shift.
The question hangs.
Then—
"My sister," she says. "When she still believed the sky could be healed."
"You believe it can't?"
She looks up, eyes glinting gold and ice. "I believe the sky remembers. And I don't think it forgives easily."
I don't know how to respond to that. My mind is still a crater of broken memories, names like smoke I can't hold onto, faces I should know but don't.
Except hers.
Something in me recognizes her. Not her face—but the weight of her.
As if I once stood beside her in another lifetime, blades drawn. Or maybe opposite her, blood between us.
"You said you didn't know me," I whisper. "But you did. In the grove, you said—'not yet.' Like you expected to see me. Like you were waiting."
She stiffens.
I watch her carefully. Even the fire crackles quieter, listening.
"I said what I had to," she murmurs. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Liar."
She finally looks at me fully. Her eyes shine with something sharp. Guilt. Pain. Both.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you're not him yet," she says. "And if I told you too soon, it might ruin everything."
I stand. "Told me what?"
She stands, too.
The silence between us isn't empty. It's full. Heavier than steel. Denser than truth.
She pulls back her sleeve.
There, on the inside of her forearm—glowing faint gold beneath the skin—is a mark.
A Dawn Sigil.
I step back.
Aeris stirs.
"That's a high-order brand," I whisper. "Only the Riftborne are marked with those."
"And what do you know about the Riftborne?" she snaps, stepping toward me. "You barely remember your name."
My jaw clenches. "That sigil binds your soul to an Oath."
"Correct," she says. "And mine was to you."
The wind stills.
I don't breathe.
She takes another step closer, firelight dancing across her cheek. Her rune-braid hums faintly with power I don't understand, but recognize. A forgotten familiarity—like a lullaby sung at the edge of time.
"I served you in your first life," Lyra says. "You saved my village. You stood against the Godfall. You… made promises you don't remember."
I shake my head. "You're lying. This is all—some story. A legend. A trick."
"No," she says. "It's a curse. You were our light, and now you can't even see your own shadow."
I look down at my hands. They still tremble sometimes when I wake. From the pain, the fire, the dreams I can't decipher.
"You said I wasn't him yet," I say slowly. "Why? What changes?"
She steps close enough now that I can see the shimmer of pain behind her fury.
"When your name returns," she says. "When you remember what the Dawn was and why you shattered it."
Her voice drops, barely audible now.
"When you remember… what you did to me."
My breath catches.
She turns from me quickly, almost violently, as if afraid her own voice might turn against her.
I want to scream. Demand answers. Shake the truth from her skull. But instead, I stand there, burning.
Because part of me already knows.
Part of me remembers running through halls of crystal fire, leaving trails of destruction behind me. Not by accident. But by choice. And someone screaming my name through it all.
Aetherion.
Her.
Maybe.
I step toward her again.
"What did I do to you?" I ask.
She closes her eyes.
And when she finally speaks, it's in a voice broken by the weight of memory.
"You let me die."
Aeris's head lifts slowly, eyes narrowing.
Before I can speak, Lyra lifts her braid in one hand and reveals a second sigil—hidden, burned beneath the first.
Not a Dawn Sigil.
A Twilight Seal.
"Two Oaths?" I say, heart thudding.
"One for loyalty," she says. "One for vengeance."
She doesn't look at me when she says it.
But she doesn't have to.
Because now I know—
Lyra saved me not to protect me.
But to remember what I owe her.
And the look in her eyes says she's not even sure which Oath she wants fulfilled first.