They met in a chamber where even the walls forgot.
Seven seats formed a circle carved from memory-stone—each shaped with a different crest representing the Seven Pursuits. One of them sat empty.
It was like the last time always been empty.
But there was also one thing they all looked different.
Not abandoned. Not unclaimed.
Erased.
Keiran stood in the center. Not chained. Not guarded. But contained—the kind of containment that depended less on bars and more on what people chose not to remember.
The Council had convened in silence, but now, the First Luminary finally spoke.
"You were not summoned for judgment," she said. Her voice was brittle crystal.
"You were summoned because the mark on your wrist is no longer yours alone."
Keiran said nothing.
He watched them in return.
Six councilors, each robed in layered colorless cloth stitched with silver runes. Their faces shadowed by memory-hoods—charmed so they could not be fully described, even moments after seeing them.
Rell once called them the Nameless Seven.
A joke.
But only barely.
"You entered the Echo-Well," another voice said. A man, stern. "And it let you in."
"It called to me," Keiran replied.
"Wells do not call."
"This one did."
A pause.
"And what did you see?"
Keiran's voice was quieter now. "A version of me that never stopped burning. And a memory I couldn't have had."
"A lie, then?"
"No. A future."
That silenced the chamber more than any denial could have.
One of the councilors—Councilor Merin, the oldest by rank—leaned forward just slightly.
"The mark has changed. That spiral was once seen in the Avaris Calamity. Before the rivers reversed themselves."
"It consumed glyphs," whispered another. "Even runes that weren't drawn yet."
"But it's not just devouring symbols now," said Merin. "It's touching meaning. We have initiated archivists in coma-like states. Ink that erases itself after writing your name. A Cleaver who doesn't exist anymore."
Keiran raised his chin.
"I never asked for this."
"Intent is irrelevant," snapped the First Luminary. "You carry a force that refuses containment."
The circle pulsed faintly. A voting glyph activated beneath each seat—seven etched memory-slates glowing with faint violet.
Votes were to be carved, not spoken. Seal. Exile. Nullify. Abstain.
Each councilor would draw their decision into the slate beneath them. The votes were instant. Binding.
Keiran's wrist ached.
The glyph on his skin trembled like something trying to wake.
He could feel Lys's mark beneath it, still faint—still unfinished.
Not a twin.
An anchor.
One by one, the votes etched themselves into silence.
The first drew the mark for Containment — a circle within a broken square.
The second, the same.
The third abstained. Their rune remained open-ended, neither carved fully nor erased.
The fourth hesitated, but voted Seal.
The fifth—
Froze.
Their hand hovered over the slate. Then dropped, the blade clattering.
They stood.
"I… can't remember the glyph."
The others turned sharply.
"What?"
"The containment glyph. I've drawn it a hundred times. I—" They looked down at the slate again. "I don't… know what it is."
A hush settled across the circle.
Councilor Merin watched quietly.
Then, without looking away from Keiran, he carved his own mark.
It was not Seal. Not Exile.
It was a spiral.
But inverted.
A false glyph.
A lure.
He stood.
"Let the boy sleep," he said. "We begin containment at dawn."
No one challenged him.
Keiran met his eyes as the room emptied.
"You don't want to contain me."
"No."
Merin smiled.
"I want to see what remembers you."
He placed a small object in Keiran's palm.
A flat black stone, no bigger than a coin.
Keiran felt it hum.
"Put this beneath your bed tonight. Let's see who comes calling."
That night, Keiran sat alone in his assigned quarters.
The stone pulsed faintly beside the candle.
He didn't place it under the bed.
He wore it on his chest.
Let them see him.
Let them come.
Because something inside him stirred now. Not just memory.
But presence.
The mark was no longer just a tether.
It was a doorway.
And it had begun to open from the other side.