Thojin knelt beside Seren until the ash began to settle.
Seren's face was pale. Still. Her blood had soaked into the cracks between the stones, a dark halo beneath her broken form. Her eyes were closed, her fingers outstretched toward her dagger — just out of reach. Always reaching. Always fighting.
Thojin couldn't breathe.
She was there… and yet already gone. He brushed a strand of ash from her cheek. Her skin felt cold. Not lifeless — not yet — but retreating. Like the world was already beginning to forget her shape.
He leaned closely, nose to her forehead, eyes squeezed shut.
"Please…"
The word was thin. Empty. But it was all he had.
He wanted to bury her. To lay her to rest with dignity, far from this place. But the city offered no graves. Only stone and silence. Only rot and soot and echo.
Still — he had to try.
He slid his arms beneath her and lifted. Her weight caught him by surprise. She felt heavier than ever — not in body, but in meaning. Every breath burned in his chest.
He stumbled a step—
Then he froze.
A sound.
Soft. Deliberate. Out of rhythm with the world.
He crouched, shielding her with his body.
They came like shadows peeled from dream.
Four figures, cloaked in thick, dust-dark robes, faces hidden beneath deep hoods. They made no sound. No threat. But the moment they stepped into the courtyard, the air changed.
It pressed against his skin. Squeezed behind his eyes.
Not fear.
Something colder.
They moved in formation, gliding over blood and rubble, and stopped just short of her.
"No…"
He whispered it more to himself than to them.
He rose, gently laying Seren down behind a broken slab of stone. His hands lingered on hers — still warm.
Then he turned.
And charged.
His first strike was pure instinct — iron crashing against the side of a figure's head. The rod bent from the impact. The figure did not flinch.
Another turned. Hood lifted slightly. No face. No expression.
Thojin backed away, heart thundering.
A third moved — quick as breath. A blow struck his ribs, sending pain cracking through his side. He fell.
Then—
The world tilted.
His limbs moved before thought. He didn't leap — he vanished. One blink he was there, the next he stood behind rubble far from the courtyard, breath sharp, body trembling.
He didn't understand.
He didn't care.
His eyes snapped back to Seren.
The figures had gathered around her, hands lifted. The ash curled inward like smoke in reverse, folding around her body, her hair, her blood. A deep hum buzzed beneath the ground.
"No… please—"
His voice broke.
He tried to run. His legs refused.
He watched.
Her body faded.
Not lifted. Not burned. Faded.
Like breath into winter air.
One moment, she was there.
The next — gone.
"No…"
He sank to his knees.
He didn't sob. He didn't scream. The silence inside him was too deep for that. He stared at the spot where she had lain, as if willing her shape back into the world.
His chest ached, not from injury, but from absence.
She was his light. His anchor. The only voice that had ever spoken to the part of him that still believed.
And now it was gone.
The hooded figures turned, backs to him, and slipped into the mist. As if they'd never been. As if she'd never been.
Only one thing remained.
A mark scorched into the stone.
Seven lines. Intersecting. Arcing. Delicate yet permanent.
He crawled toward it. Fingers grazing the grooves.
It wasn't just a mark.
It was a wound in the world.
He stared at it, breathing shallow. His eyes stung, but he didn't blink. He wanted to etch it into his memory, burn it behind his eyelids.
He needed to remember.
He stood slowly and turned toward the rubble where her dagger had once clattered.
There.
Partially buried, the hilt peeking from the ash.
He picked it up.
The grip still held her warmth.
He held the blade to his arm. Hesitated. Then dragged the edge through his skin — shallow, but sharp. Pain flared. Blood welled up in beads.
He carved the same mark.
Seven lines.
"I'll remember," he whispered.
His voice trembled, but the words held.
"I'll carry you."
The blood marked him now.
Not as punishment.
But as promise.
The ash fell like snow, silent and endless.
Around him, the world said nothing.
But somewhere deep within it — beneath stone, beneath shadow — something had noticed.
And it was waiting.