The word remained on the stone. Rin couldn't look away.
He didn't understand what it meant. He didn't even understand why it affected him so deeply.
The letters were old, almost impossible to see beneath the cracks that covered the pedestal.
Yet the moment his eyes had fallen upon them, something inside him had reacted.
His heart hurt. His vision blurred.
And for one brief second, Rin had felt as though he had heard someone whispering his name from very far away but the feeling disappeared almost immediately.
Leaving him with nothing. Only the word. Only the strange certainty that he had seen it before.
Somewhere. Sometime.
He just couldn't remember when.
"Rin?"
Kaelith's voice pulled him back. Rin blinked.
Kaelith was standing beside him, watching him carefully.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
Kaelith's expression didn't change.
"You've been staring at that word for almost a minute."
Rin looked away.
"I was trying to understand it."
"Did you?"
"No."
