The courtyard vanished.
Not the stones—
not the temple—
not the night—
Manraj vanished from it.
The blast of white light swallowed everything in a clean, merciless sweep. It was not heat. It was not shadow. It was not Silence.
It was memory.
Raw, living memory.
Zoya felt her ears ring as the shockwave hit her. The air buckled. Her knees almost gave out, but she forced herself upright, palms glowing faintly with Silence.
"MANRAJ!"
No answer.
Azhar cursed under his breath, shadows snapping violently around him like panicked animals.
The white radiance didn't hurt.
It revealed.
Shapes swam inside the brightness—
circles… symbols… a child's silhouette pulled away…
a hand shoved forward…
fire bursting where it never belonged.
Zoya clutched her chest.
"These aren't visions," she whispered. "They're… memories leaking."
Azhar's father stood untouched inside the storm, robes drifting, eyes half-closed like he was listening to something only he could hear.
He spoke softly:
"It's waking."
Azhar snapped, "Stay away from him!"
His father didn't look at him.
"Azhar," he said, tone oddly gentle, "you cannot protect him from what he was."
The white light tightened—
condensed—
spiraled—
into Manraj.
He staggered, caught in the center of the storm, spine arched, a sound scraping from his throat that wasn't pain and wasn't fear.
It was recognition.
Zoya reached toward him.
The light shoved her back.
Azhar lunged.
The shadows recoiled, refusing to cross the boundary.
"Manraj!" Zoya tried again.
His eyes snapped open—
Not gold.
Not fire.
White.
A thin breath escaped his lips, shaky, disbelieving.
"I… remember."
The courtyard trembled.
Zoya's heart slammed against her ribs. "Manraj, what do you remember? Talk to me."
But he wasn't looking at her.
He was staring at Azhar's father.
"You were there," Manraj whispered. "The night of the circle. You were shouting at someone. I couldn't hear the words… only the fear."
Azhar's father lowered his gaze.
"Fear," he repeated quietly, "was the correct response."
The white glow around Manraj flickered—
once, twice—
like something inside him was deciding whether to return or stay.
Azhar stepped forward.
"Manraj," he said, voice softened, stripped of its usual sharpness, "listen to me. Whatever you felt—it's just a memory surfacing too fast. You don't have to—"
Manraj cut him off.
"No. It wasn't a memory. It was a choice. Not mine… theirs. I felt it. They tried to bind something in me. Something they didn't understand."
A crack ran along the stone beneath his feet—thin, bright white.
Azhar's father finally lifted his chin.
"Say it," he urged softly.
Manraj's breaths came shakier now, but not weaker.
"I wasn't chosen for fire," he said.
"I wasn't even meant to survive the ritual."
Zoya whispered, "Then what were you?"
The white mark on the ground pulsed.
So did the veins in Manraj's hands.
He finally looked at Zoya.
At Azhar.
At the man whose shadow ruled the courtyard.
And then he said the words that shattered the silence:
"I was the vessel for the third element."
The wind stopped.
Even the shadows froze.
Azhar's pupils blew wide.
Zoya felt her Silence recoil like it recognized a predator.
Azhar's father simply nodded.
"The element that wasn't fire," he said.
Zoya's voice wavered.
"What does that mean?"
Manraj blinked—
And the white glow behind his eyes sharpened, alive.
"It means," he whispered, "that the thing sealed under this temple… isn't separate from me."
A low rumble rolled beneath the stone.
The silver scar blazed white.
Azhar's father stepped back—
not in fear,
but in acknowledgment.
"Welcome back," he murmured.
"To what you were before they rewrote you."
The wind cut violently through the courtyard, scattering ash.
Zoya grabbed Manraj's hand—
And this time,
the white light didn't push her away.
It paused.
It recognized her.
Azhar stared at their linked hands—and something like pain flashed through his face.
Manraj swayed.
Zoya held him up.
"What now?" she whispered.
Azhar's father answered.
"Now?"
He smiled—soft, devastating.
"Now the third companion wakes."
The ground beneath them split.
White light roared.
And something ancient—
something familiar—
something once part of Manraj—
began to rise.