The knock came just before dawn.
A pattern he didn't recognize.
Two short. One long. Then nothing.
Keiran didn't answer right away.
He'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor, the candle burning steady beside him, the spiral on his wrist dimmer than usual—as if resting.
The door opened anyway.
Because of course it did.
The Concordium hadn't locked it.
They didn't need to anymore.
Not when they were watching from every wall.
The figure who entered wasn't armored. Not robed either.
A cloak of ash-gray linen. Dust-covered boots. A lantern that gave no light.
And hair like burned thread—short, frayed, white at the ends.
She looked young.
But her eyes told a different story.
They weren't old. They were tired of restarting.
"Close the candle," she said. "It listens."
Keiran blinked. "Excuse me?"
She walked over and cupped her hand over the flame.
The candle sputtered—once, twice.
Then died.
"Better," she whispered.
"Now it's just us."
He rose. Carefully. "Who are you?"
She didn't smile.
"I was once called Thalen. You don't remember me. You're not supposed to."
"I was Candleborn. One of seven memory-bearers assigned to the Vault of Bound Names."
Keiran frowned. "That Vault was destroyed."
"Not destroyed," she said. "Collapsed. By someone who wanted to forget… you."
His breath hitched.
The mark on his wrist flickered faintly.
She noticed.
"The glyph doesn't lie," she said. "It responds to emotion. Memory. Names. Especially hers."
"Lys?"
Thalen nodded once.
"She was never supposed to reach you. Not after the seal. Not after the well."
"But she did," Keiran said quietly.
"Because she's Anchor-bound."
Thalen knelt and removed a folded scrap of parchment from her cloak.
Unsealed. Unmarked.
She handed it to him like it was a blade.
"This was her last tether. A fragment written in a half-dream, buried under thirty layers of Vault fog."
"Read it."
Keiran opened the note.
No ink.
No handwriting.
Just a single sentence that glowed faintly as he mouthed it:
"If he forgets again, I will remember for both of us."
He clutched the paper in both hands.
"Why are you showing me this?"
"Because the Seventh Seat just woke up," Thalen said. "And when that happens, the Moons follow."
"And when they align?"
"The Concordium will choose to seal the past completely. Including you."
"They already voted containment—"
"Containment was a formality. What comes next is the true vote. They call it the Stillwake Protocol. It's not preservation. It's... ending recursion."
Keiran narrowed his eyes. "Why tell me?"
Thalen reached into her cloak again and pulled out a coin-shaped object. Flat. Carved with the same spiral as his mark—but mirrored.
"Because she bled for you."
"And I was the one who locked her away."
The world stilled for a heartbeat.
Keiran couldn't speak.
Thalen's voice was brittle.
"She offered her memories to keep you alive. I was one of the vaultbearers who cast the lock."
"I didn't know what we were sealing. Until the door started whispering your name."
"Now I'm giving you a choice."
She placed the coin in his palm.
It was warm. Not magically. But… personally. Like it remembered being touched by Lys.
"You can use this to find the Door again. The real one. Not the echo beneath the Concordium."
"But if you open it before the moons align, you'll collapse everything she built to protect you."
"If you wait—if you trust what she planted—there may still be a path forward."
Keiran looked up.
"And if I do nothing?"
Thalen hesitated.
Then whispered:
"Then her memory will burn out."
"And you'll forget why you ever lit a candle for her."
She turned to leave, pausing at the threshold.
"You have until the twinrise."
"Then the seal finalizes."
And she was gone.
Keiran stood in the dark room, the coin pressed to his palm.
The candle flickered back to life behind him—
Unaided.
Just… willing itself back on.
And the flame swayed toward him once.
Like a nod.
Like someone unseen was still waiting.