Ashbridge did not sleep that night.
Lanterns burned longer than usual, their light spilling across narrow streets where whispers lingered even after doors were shut. The arrival of the imperial army had unsettled something old in the town—an unease Ashbridge pretended not to recognize.
Miran lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
The mark on his wrist had not cooled since morning.
It no longer pulsed in brief intervals. Instead, it lingered—warm, steady, aware. As if it had opened an eye and refused to close again.
He turned his wrist slowly, just enough for moonlight to brush the skin. The mark looked darker than it had before, its faint lines clearer, more deliberate.
No longer a scar.
A reminder.
Miran closed his fingers around it, breath shallow. Every time he shut his eyes, the memory returned—not as sound or image, but as feeling.
The General's gaze.
Sharp. Searching. Disbelieving.
As though Miran were something lost and found again by accident.
He had been seen.
A soft knock broke the silence.
"Miran," Elio whispered. "Are you awake?"
"Yes," Miran replied quietly.
Elio slipped inside, closing the door behind him. The confidence he wore so easily during the day was dulled now, replaced with something more careful.
"You vanished after the procession," Elio said. "People noticed."
"I needed air."
Elio studied him. "You looked like you were about to collapse. And he—" He hesitated. "The General looked at you like he knew you."
Miran's throat tightened.
"That's impossible," he said.
Elio didn't argue. He only sat beside him, close enough that Miran could feel the warmth of another presence anchoring him.
"You've always carried something you never talk about," Elio said softly. "I don't know what it is. But I know today wasn't nothing."
Miran looked down at his wrist, hidden beneath cloth and silence.
"I think," he said slowly, "that something old has woken up."
Elio's hand rested briefly over Miran's clenched fingers. "Then we'll face it when it arrives."
Miran wished that were true.
Beyond the town, the imperial encampment lay quiet beneath a sky stripped bare of stars.
General Caelion Arkendell stood alone in his tent, armor removed, sword resting against the table within reach. He had fought wars without hesitation, issued orders that reshaped borders—
Yet none of that had prepared him for the moment on the road.
He pushed back the leather at his wrist.
The mark burned.
What had once been faded—nearly forgotten—was now dark and unmistakable, alive with heat that sank into bone and memory alike.
"It's you," he murmured.
The boy's face rose unbidden in his mind: pale, startled, painfully familiar. Not a stranger. Never a stranger.
Miran.
The name surfaced like a wound reopening.
Kael braced himself against the table, breath tight. He had believed the vow lost—broken by time, buried by war, erased by survival.
But oaths like theirs did not die quietly.
They waited.
"Ashbridge," he said aloud, jaw tightening. Of all places.
The empire taught that bonds of remembrance were dangerous, obsolete, forbidden. Kael had repeated that doctrine himself more times than he could count.
And yet his body knew the truth.
His husband lived.
Miran dreamed of a road split by fog.
A figure stood on the other side, armor dark, eyes burning with recognition. When the figure reached out, the mark flared—
Miran woke with his heart racing.
Dawn had not yet come.
But the vow had already begun to move.