Seven hundred years after Adrian's death, Kieran's connection to humanity had frayed to a single thread: memories of Adrian's smile.
He couldn't remember much else clearly anymore. Couldn't recall conversations, couldn't visualize their time together with any precision. But that smile—that beautiful, warm, loving smile—remained etched in his mind with perfect clarity.
It was the last piece of Adrian he still held perfectly. The last fragment of light in his darkness.
Kieran found himself sketching it. He'd never been an artist, but he couldn't help himself. On paper, on canvas, on any surface available, he tried to capture that smile. To make it real, tangible, something that couldn't fade from memory like everything else had.
His sanctuary walls became covered with sketches. Hundreds of them. Thousands. All of Adrian's smile, rendered from every angle, in every medium, desperate attempts to hold onto the one memory that kept him tethered to something other than complete darkness.
Marcus visited, saw the walls, and said nothing. What was there to say?
"If I lose this," Kieran told him, still sketching, hand moving mechanically, "if this memory fades like the others have, I don't know what I'll do. This is all I have left. This one piece of him."
"Then hold onto it," Marcus said simply. "Whatever it takes."
So Kieran sketched. Night after night, year after year. The same smile, over and over, as if repetition could burn it into his soul permanently.
It was obsession. It was madness. It was survival.
Because without that smile to remember, Kieran would have nothing left to live for. The last thread connecting him to anything resembling humanity would snap, and he'd fall completely into the darkness.
And he wasn't sure he'd be able to climb back out.