Aret watched me with something close to pity. "The amulet takes payment. Always. Sun magic demands sacrifice."
"I didn't know."
"You do now." His voice wasn't unkind. "Every time you use it, you lose something. A memory. A piece of yourself. That's the cost."
I wanted to rip it off. Throw it away.
But I could still smell burning flesh. Could still hear her last words.
Be the sun that doesn't set.
What choice did I have?
We moved through the dark toward the Weeping Tree, leaving her body in the alley because we had to. Because the living mattered more than the dead.
The tree was screaming again when we reached it.
Or maybe I was the one screaming.
I couldn't tell anymore.
I found the hollow by touch. My sword was still there. Beneath it—
A book. Leather-bound. Old.
I pulled it out, and the tree's screams softened to a weep.
The cover was unmarked, but I recognized the handwriting immediately.
My mother's.
A journal. Her thoughts. Her truth.
I held it against my chest beside the amulet that had cost me my first memory, and I felt something shift inside. Not hope. Nothing that clean.
But maybe purpose.
"We need to keep moving," Tet said quietly. "There will be more assassins. More watchers. And now they know you can use it."
"Good." My voice sounded strange. Cold. "Let them come."
"That's the wrong attitude," Aret warned. "Confidence gets you killed."
"So does fear," I said. "And I'm tired of being afraid."
Something passed between us. Understanding.
"This way," Tet said, and I followed.
Away from her body. Away from the ash that had been a man. Away from everything I'd been before tonight.
The amulet burned warm against my chest.
The journal was heavy in my hands.
And somewhere ahead, in a house I'd never seen, was Sebtenius.
My friend. My brother in all but blood.
The only person left who knew me as I'd been before.
I held onto that thought like a lifeline as we disappeared into the night.
The Weeping Tree's song followed us, soft and mournful—
a lament for the dead
and a warning for the living.