The mark didn't speak again.
Not in words.
But it guided.
Keiran moved like a sleepwalker—half-fear, half-faith—through the winding streets of Old Theralis. Past shuttered vendors and dew-slick stone, past alleyways that bent in ways they hadn't yesterday. The city shifted at night, especially in the fog, and those who tried to map it often lost more than their way.
But the mark knew.
He followed its pull to a wall that had no door.
Then he blinked.
And there it was.
A narrow iron gate, set into soot-streaked stone, marked only by a single rune: a stylized eye, closed.
He touched it.
It opened without sound.
Beyond lay stairs. Downward. Always downward.
No torches lit the descent. But the walls shimmered faintly—threads of silver, running like veins beneath the surface. They pulsed as he passed.
The air thickened.
Not stale. Heavy.
Memory lived here.
It breathed.
At the bottom, the passage opened into a circular chamber, domed and silent.
Mirrors lined the walls.
Not smooth. Not perfect. Some warped. Some cracked.
All of them watched.
At the center stood a plinth of dark marble, etched with symbols he didn't recognize. Hovering above it—
A thread.
Silver. Weightless. Floating like mist, but anchored at both ends to nothing.
He stepped forward.
The moment he did, one of the mirrors shifted.
It rippled.
Then it spoke.
A voice not his own. But familiar. A rasping whisper:
"Name yourself."
He hesitated.
He didn't know how.
Another voice, from another mirror—this one younger. Afraid.
"You are Vayne Orrell."
A lie. He knew that now.
A third voice, calm. Cold.
"You are Echo-born. Marked by memory. Bound by breach."
Keiran stepped into the center of the room.
"I am…" He faltered. "I don't know."
The silver thread pulsed.
And a memory spilled forth.
Not his. Not anyone's.
A girl. Young. Pale-eyed. Sitting in a circle of salt, clutching a candle.
"I won't forget him," she whispered. "Even if the Wardens make me forget myself."
She blew the candle out.
The light didn't go.
It entered her.
Keiran staggered back.
"What is this place?"
The air trembled. The mark throbbed again—like a hand tightening on his heart.
A final voice spoke then. Not from a mirror.
From everywhere.
"This is the Sanctum of Whispered Threads."
"Here, memory is not remembered. It is kept."
"You returned what was borrowed."
"Now take what was left behind."
The silver thread descended.
It touched his chest.
And the world—
Unraveled.
He was falling.
Not down. Not away.
Inward.
Through lifetimes not lived, but echoed. Through names worn like masks. Through cities that no longer existed and songs sung to twin moons that hadn't risen in centuries.
He saw a tower of black stone.
He saw a boy kneeling before a grave with no name.
He saw fire that sang in forgotten tongues.
He saw his own face—not as it was, but as it had been.
Older. Wiser. Wounded.
And above him: two moons, fully aligned.
The voice returned.
"You were the first to bear the Solitude."
"Not as punishment."
"As promise."
Keiran's eyes snapped open.
He was still in the Sanctum.
But the thread was gone.
In its place—resting on the plinth—was a sigil.
A crescent carved from obsidian, lined with twin marks:
One silver.
One dark.
He reached for it.
The mark on his wrist burned.
Then dimmed.
The mirrors fell silent.
But in their silence, he heard something deeper.
A name, echoed softly across the walls:
"Keiran…"
It didn't come with fear.
It came with recognition.
He wasn't whole.
Not yet.
But the pieces had begun to remember each other.
And far above, somewhere behind the fog-choked sky, the moons moved a little closer.