Secrets buried beneath skin bleed louder than wounds.
The stone beneath Darian's back was cold. A discomfort he welcomed—better to feel pain than the searing numbness creeping in since the moment his life was set on fire.
Cerys sat a few feet away, bathed in the dull flicker of rune-lit torches. She was sharpening one of her blades—ritualistically, almost gently, as if it were an extension of her own bones.
"Why did they brand you?" Darian asked, his voice rough. "You were just a girl."
She didn't look up.
"They don't brand children because they're guilty. They brand them so they never forget who owns their scars."
He stared at her back. At the sigil inked into her skin—one of the old marks from the Ash Trials. Cursed ink, bound with ghost ash and vow-iron.
"Your mark… it's not standard."
Cerys finally paused. Her eyes rose to meet his.
"You know the Trials' brands?"
"My mother ordered them."
Silence snapped taut between them.
"And you wonder why I was sent to kill you," she murmured.
Darian looked away. The truth didn't sting—it bit. Hard.
They sat in silence until his shoulder throbbed too sharply to ignore.
Cerys crossed to him, a cloth in one hand, a small vial of frostroot extract in the other.
"This will hurt."
"Wouldn't be fair if it didn't," he said, trying for a smile.
It didn't land. She poured the extract over the gash. He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw cracked.
"Who trained you?" he gasped when the pain dulled.
"Ghostmaker," she said simply. "No one sees his real face. But he sees all of ours. Especially when we break."
"Is that what you are? Broken?"
Cerys didn't answer. She wound a strip of cloth around his shoulder, binding it with a knot that was too neat for someone who shouldn't care.
"You remember me," she said, softly. "From the fire."
"I was ten. You were… covered in blood. Hiding behind a gate. My mother ordered the purge, but I saw you. I never forgot your eyes."
"You shouldn't have looked."
"You shouldn't have survived."
She froze mid-tie.
"Maybe I didn't," she said, rising. "Maybe you're still chasing a ghost."
-
South Tower of the Royal Astrarium
Thorne moved through the silent stone corridor with all the ceremony of smoke—present, but impossible to hold. The guards didn't see him. They weren't meant to.
He passed a room where royal mages argued over broken binding glyphs. Another where scribes mapped troop movements on golden vellum. Useless. All of it.
He descended lower, into the Black Hollow.
The sealed door hissed as it recognized his sigil. Inside, a girl knelt on the floor—tattooed from temple to spine in chainscript. A prisoner. A seer.
She lifted her head.
"She remembered," the girl whispered. "The girl with the mark. She remembered who she was."
"That's not possible," Thorne said. "She was supposed to be hollowed."
"Names are not so easily erased, master."
He knelt before her.
"Tell me what you saw."
"I saw a god's eye open. And I saw the boy it marked bleeding beside her."
Thorne rose. A plan already forming.
"Prepare the silver net. We may need to bring her back. Alive."
"And if she fights?"
"Then she remembers too much."
-
Underground Sanctuary
Darian had fallen asleep.
Cerys sat at the edge of the torchlight, running her fingers along the altar's broken runes. They pulsed faintly under her touch, warm like breath.
Her name was still echoing in her head—Cerys Vale. Not Ghost. Not Blade. Not Subject 9.
She thought of Thorne.
Of his voice when he pressed the burning sigil to her spine at thirteen.
"Your name is gone now. Only silence will keep you alive."
But Darian had spoken it. He hadn't asked. Hadn't guessed. He'd known.
Why?
She glanced back at him. Even unconscious, his body curled toward her presence, as if the instincts of royalty had been replaced by something far older. Recognition.
"What do you know about me?" she whispered.
He didn't stir.
But somewhere above ground, the wind shifted. A signal flare soared into the clouds—twisting green, rebellion's color. Too far from Kael's usual sector. Too deliberate to be random.
Cerys stood, blades ready.
They were no longer alone.