I should have gotten up. Run. Screamed. Something. But my body refused to obey.  

I’ve survived ambush drills. Sparred against wolves twice my weight.  

But now, with the blood in my mouth and the altar stone beneath me, I can’t even lift a finger.  

What good is training when the world you knew is ash? 

I remained where I was, body limp against the altar stone, too stunned to react. The scent of my own blood filled my nose, coppery and thick, but even that felt distant.  

All I could focus on was the man now standing over the fallen beast, the steam of the pond rising around his feet, and the sound of water dripping from his fingertips in quiet rhythm.  

He breathed slowly, like he had only just come into existence and wasn’t certain the world would let him stay. 

Something in me stirred. Not fear exactly, but recognition. Like a forgotten name brushing against the edge of memory.  

It clung to me like a dream slipping through my fingers, familiar and ungraspable. I didn’t know him, but some part of me mourned the idea that I might have, once. 

I didn’t know him, but my soul did. It twisted in my chest like it had just remembered how to breathe. 

He turned to me then. 

Our eyes met. 

And something inside me cracked wide open. 

Why did he feel familiar? Why did I feel like I’d known that stare forever; even though I’d never seen it before in my life? Was this the man tied to the mark on my chest? 

Chartreuse and violet glinted in his gaze, hues that shouldn’t exist in the same space, that warred and danced like flame and stormlight. His stare was sharp enough to slice through breath, burning into me with a weight I couldn’t shake. The familiarity of it made my chest ache. It was like meeting the eyes of someone I had dreamed of a thousand times but never once remembered upon waking. 

He stepped toward me, soundless, like a shadow cast by the moon, his gaze never leaving mine. Each step pulled something deep inside me taut, a thread I didn’t know I carried vibrating with a resonance that was as terrifying as it was impossible to ignore. 

"Who are you?" My voice came out as a whisper, rough and trembling, barely more than the breath that carried it. The question tasted strange on my tongue, like something sacred and dangerous, already regretted even as it left my mouth. 

He didn’t respond. 

He stared, truly stared, and whatever held his expression together fractured. The mask of anger cracked just long enough for something else to flicker through, raw and sharp. Then he moved. 

In the span of a blink, he crossed the distance between us. One moment he stood wreathed in mist and moon-pulled magic, the next he was crouched over me. The cold weight of his hand pressed against my throat, not tight, but undeniable. His face hovered inches from mine, and every part of him radiated restrained violence, like lightning caught mid-strike. 

"You reek of her," he said. His voice was low, ragged, and lined with rage so thick it made my breath hitch. But there was something else in it too. Something ancient and cracked with grief. The edges of his words scraped like stone on wet bone. "Why?" 

Her? Who? What is he talking about? Is he confusing me with someone else—or is he talking about my mother? A lover?  

Whoever ‘her’ was, I could feel the jealousy burning beneath his words like coals beneath snow. 

"I... I don’t know what you’re talking about," I said, though my voice faltered under the weight of his presence. My hands twitched at my sides, unsure whether to raise in defense or reach for the heat still curling low across my collarbone. 

He didn’t squeeze, but he didn’t let go either. His hand stayed fixed, his thumb just under my jaw, as if feeling the pulse there might somehow give him answers I couldn’t. His eyes dropped to the glowing mark spread just above my chest, and his nostrils flared with recognition. He froze. 

"You bear my mark." The words came out choked. Not in disbelief, but in horror. As if I was a mirror showing him something he never wanted to see. 

That’s not possible. No one’s ever marked me. Not even the goddess I prayed to as a child. Then what is this glowing thing pulsing like it knows him? 

I wanted to deny it. Wanted to laugh, scream, argue that I was just a girl, not someone who could carry marks like that. But the heat under my skin told another story. 

Not even during rites. Not even during the festival. My skin was always clean, untouched. Now, this... this mark beats like it has its own will. Its own memory. And somehow… it’s tied to him. 

I looked down, the light from the sigil washing across my skin like breath held too long. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know why it was there.  

Only that it pulsed in time with my heartbeat... and something in his chest. It felt like it had waited. Like it had been sleeping inside me all my life, waiting for this exact moment to wake. 

"I don’t know what this is," I whispered, swallowing hard. "I don’t even know where I am." 

His grip faltered just slightly, not enough to release me, but enough to shift the balance between threat and hesitation. His gaze flicked back up to mine, brows drawn tightly. "You don’t know," he repeated, quieter now. The fury faded from his voice, replaced by something brittle. "You really don’t know." 

I could only shake my head, heart hammering in my chest. The pain in my shoulder was distant now, dulled by adrenaline and the surreal heat radiating from both him and the mark he had named as his. 

He stared at me, taking me in fully for the first time. His eyes roved across my features, not in appraisal, but as though trying to trace the memory of a face he wasn’t supposed to remember.  

Scars laced his collarbone like white thread woven into muscle. Red hair clung to his temples in wet strands, darker than blood and just as vivid. His entire form looked born from stormlight and bone; terrifying, but not monstrous. 

And yet... something about him made my chest ache. 

The mark surged again, sudden and bright, casting light between us like a flare. It pulsed with such force that I felt it through the altar, through the ground, through my very ribs. It was calling to him. Or because of him. 

He flinched as if it struck him, his pupils narrowing sharply, pain blooming across his face like a shadow peeled back too fast. 

"You’re not supposed to exist," he said, voice low and strained, like the words themselves cost him something to speak. 

"Neither are you," I breathed, barely knowing where the words came from. They just felt right, like they'd waited lifetimes to be said. What did I mean by that? Why did those words feel older than my voice? 

His hand dropped away from my throat. 

He could’ve killed me. And I think… he wanted to. Maybe still does. But something stopped him. Was it the mark: or something else? What do I do now? 

For a long stretch of silence, we simply looked at each other. Caught between war and recognition. Between fear and something I wasn’t ready to name.  

The space between us thinned, weighted with a hundred unspoken things I couldn’t begin to explain.  

His breath brushed against my lips, warm and unsteady, and something shifted in his eyes. Recognition flickered there, sharp and sudden, and he went still. 

Then he moved. 

He stood, the motion sharp and quick but deliberate, backing away as if each step required control he didn’t entirely have. His shoulders were tense, his fists clenched. Not out of anger. Out of restraint. 

He looked at me like I was dangerous. 

How could someone like him be afraid of me? I was the weak one. I was the girl with no wolf. The one who failed every shifting ceremony. The one my mother watched with disappointment behind her smiles. If he feared me, it meant something in me had changed… and I didn’t know if I was ready to face what. 

But for one breath, I saw fear in his eyes. And maybe something else, too. 

Like he didn’t trust himself. 

The wind swept across the clearing, stirring the leaves and ruffling the surface of the pond. The mark on my chest responded, dimming slowly like an ember losing its heat. I pressed a hand over it, more out of instinct than understanding, feeling it settle beneath my skin like it had never flared to life at all. 

His gaze lingered there for a breath, then rose to meet mine once more. 

"If you follow me, I’ll kill you," he said. 

No growl. No venom. Just truth. Or a warning he wanted to believe in. 

And then he vanished. One breath he was there, the next the mist swallowed him whole, and the trees closed behind his retreat like he had never existed. 

I was alone again. 

Except… I wasn’t. 

Beneath me, the altar still pulsed. Slow. Deep. Alive. Something ancient had awakened and it had not finished.