It started with smoke.
Thin. Sweet. Unmistakable.
The kind of scent you only noticed when nothing else was burning.
Keiran sat hunched over the warped desk in the back of the tenement's upper hall—one of the places Concordium agents used for "unmarked observation." No crest. No window. Just the sigil medallion they'd told him to wear, lying dull and cold beside his hand.
He hadn't touched it since Graven Vale.
Not after what he'd seen.
Not after her face flickered in that candle.
He looked up.
There it was again.
Not smoke—flame.
A candle. Small. White. Lit.
Balanced on the edge of the broken windowsill.
He hadn't put it there.
No one had.
But it burned.
Steady. Watching.
Like it had always been burning.
He approached slowly, as if it might vanish if he blinked too hard.
The candle's wax ran backwards—up the sides, into the flame, like time recoiling.
And beneath it…
A name.
Etched faintly into the sill, like a fingernail had carved it years ago.
Lys.
The flame wavered.
He stared at the name for a long time.
Then touched the wax.
It remembered him.
Flame curled around his wrist—not burning, not scalding. Reading.
And suddenly—
He was not in the room anymore.
He stood in a hallway of pale marble and shadowed mirrors.
A girl was kneeling on the floor.
Salt surrounded her in a perfect ring.
She held a candle—half-melted.
Her fingers were bleeding.
"If he forgets," she whispered, "let this remember."
"If he falls, let this burn."
"If the world breaks him…"
Her voice cracked.
"…let this watch."
She lit the candle.
And placed it in the mirror.
The reflection caught fire—but not the glass.
The flame stayed inside.
Keiran gasped, stumbling backward into himself. Back in the room.
The candle was gone.
Only ash remained.
No breeze had taken it.
No smoke lingered.
But the windowsill still held the name.
Still raw.
Lys.
That night, he saw them everywhere.
Candles.
In windows. In gutters. In pools of rain.
All unlit.
All turned slightly toward him.
Watching.
Some bore marks.
Runes he didn't know—but his brand reacted every time.
Soft pulses, like tiny heartbeats, echoing from wax to skin.
He went to the Warden's quarters.
Knocked.
Waited.
She opened the door half-dressed, eyes sharp, as if she never truly slept.
"You're seeing them," she said before he could speak.
He nodded once. "What are they?"
"Remnants," she said. "Of the Candle-Bearers. Old sect. Long banned."
He stepped inside, the door closing behind him.
"They left memories in flame," she said. "Not just visions—choices. Vows. Pieces of soul. Anyone could light one. Few could bear what they showed."
"And Lys?" he asked.
The Warden stilled.
Then, slowly:
"She was the last true Bearer."
Keiran's throat tightened. "She knew me."
"She remembered you," the Warden corrected. "When even your own blood didn't."
"Where is she?"
A pause.
Then: "Gone. Locked away. Bound to something she couldn't break."
He clenched his fists. "Then I'll break it."
The Warden gave him a long, unreadable look.
"You speak like someone who hasn't yet tried. You don't know what remembering costs."
"I don't care."
She tilted her head slightly, as if seeing him again for the first time.
"No," she said. "You wouldn't."
Back in the room, Keiran found the medallion glowing softly.
The Concordium's sigil.
No flame this time.
But a whisper inside his chest that didn't belong to him:
"When you remember her, the mark will begin to hunger."
That night, in his sleep, the candles burned again.
But this time, one of them cried.