The courtyard was still shaking.
Dust floated in slow spirals where the explosion should have been.
Only Zoya's Silence stood between them and the blast — an invisible dome that hummed around the three of them.
Manraj felt the heat in his chest pushing against it, furious, trapped.
Azhar was the first to move.
"Don't drop the barrier," he said.
Zoya didn't answer. Her jaw was clenched. Sweat beaded down her temple. The air around her palm shimmered like something was bending under her control.
Behind the cracked pillar, the white eyes blinked again.
Not hostile.
Not harmless.
Remembering.
Manraj stepped forward before either of them could stop him.
The eyes followed only him.
A voice crawled into his mind — soft, scraping, too old for words:
"You came back."
His knees almost buckled.
The voice didn't sound like one creature.
It sounded like a thousand memories pressed into a single breath.
Azhar grabbed his shoulder.
"Don't listen to it."
Manraj pulled away.
"What is it? Tell me the truth this time."
Azhar hesitated.
Zoya's Silence wavered once, then steadied.
The creature shifted in the shadows — a silhouette of wings, not fully formed, as if the world struggled to remember its shape.
Azhar exhaled slowly.
"It isn't a monster," he said.
"It's the piece of you that the council erased."
Manraj's heartbeat stuttered.
Zoya's eyes widened.
The creature stepped forward — not solid, not smoke — something between memory and matter.
It spoke again:
"They took me from you."
The words hit Manraj like heat rising too fast.
His vision blurred.
Images flashed — a hand of white fire holding his, runes cracking, Surtr shouting, Azhar crying his name—
Zoya broke the spiral.
"Manraj," she said sharply.
"Look at me."
He forced his eyes away from the creature.
Zoya's hand closed around his wrist — Silence sinking into his skin like cool water.
The visions slowed.
But the creature kept coming closer.
Azhar stepped between them, shadows coiling up his arms.
"You should not have awakened," he told it quietly.
The creature tilted its head.
"And you should not have survived."
Azhar froze.
Manraj stepped forward instinctively. "Stop talking to him like that!"
The creature looked at Manraj again — and something warm cracked inside his ribs.
"Little flame," it whispered.
"You chose me first."
Silence fell.
Even the air stilled.
Zoya whispered:
"…what does that mean?"
Azhar's expression broke — something guilt-soaked, something old.
"It means," he said hoarsely,
"before the ritual… before they forced elements on us…"
He looked at Manraj.
"You already had one."
Zoya's grip tightened.
Manraj stared at the creature.
"You were mine?"
The creature's wings unfolded — white, quiet, wrong and right at the same time.
"I am the memory they stole," it said.
"And I am not finished."
The ground split again — a thin, glowing fracture — but this time no eruption followed.
Just a pulse.
A warning.
Zoya's voice trembled.
"What does it want?"
The creature turned its face toward her.
"To give him back what they took."
Manraj felt his fire surge again — but this time not in anger.
In recognition.
Azhar stepped back, shadows rising defensively.
"Manraj," he warned, "if you touch it—"
But Manraj was already moving.
He reached out.
The creature reached back.
White light met fire.
Silence broke.
And the world tilted