The door closed behind her with a weight that felt final. Myrren stood in the center of her chamber, heart still thudding from the Queen’s summons, from Holt’s voice breaking the illusion, from the words they had all spoken, again.

She pressed her palm to her chest. The mark beneath her skin no longer burned, but it pulsed like a second heartbeat. Soft. Measured. Waiting.

She wasn’t alone in the spiral anymore. That should have comforted her.

It didn’t.

A knock. Not sharp like a guard’s. Not Ori’s impatient rhythm. Gentle. Too deliberate.

She turned, just as the door opened. Prince Thane stood silhouetted against the light. No guards. No Holt. Just him. Golden, careful, haloed in the morning sun that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Myrren,” he said softly. “You were summoned.”

“I was.”

She didn’t move. Neither did he.

“They said terrible things,” he murmured. “About your mark. The shadows. About..him.”

“Did they?” Her voice was neutral, but inside, the words repeated. Not the accusations, but his tone. The same warmth he had used the night of the firelight. The same cadence. The same pause before “him.”

His brow creased. “You’re shaking.”

“I remember that line too,” she said before she could stop herself.

Thane blinked. “What?”

She exhaled, slow. “Nothing. Come in, if you must.”

He did, crossing the threshold as if entering a temple. His hand hovered over his heart, then dropped. Not a full vow. Just instinct.

A fire crackled in the hearth. He glanced toward it.

So did she.

The flames danced in a steady rhythm. Three flickers. A pause. Three more. Familiar. Too familiar.

He stepped closer. “They don’t understand you. But I do. I always have.”

Myrren’s breath caught.

Because he had said that, too.

Word for word.

Outside the window, wind stirred the gardens. But inside, the air thickened, not with smoke, not with fear, but with something worse.

Repetition.

And from the inside of her pocket, the spiral token pulsed. Once.

A heartbeat. A memory. A warning.

Thane took another step toward her, the golden hem of his tunic brushing the floor. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not,” she said too quickly.

He reached for her hand, fingers warm, steady, princely. He always touched her like she was breakable. Like he was the one holding her together. “You are more than what they whisper,” he said gently. “You always have been.”

Myrren didn’t pull away. Not yet. Because she wanted to believe it. Saints, she wanted to believe him.

“I would choose you again,” he said, and now his voice deepened, quiet, so tender it cracked at the edges. “In every version of this court, in every mirror of this moment. I would choose you.”

In every version.

Her throat tightened. She had heard that too. But where? When?

The hearth crackled behind him. The flames were still flickering in sequence. Not chaos, not warmth but a pattern. Like memories.

He cupped her face with one hand. “Let the Queen summon her trials. Let the nobles scream. I’ll walk through fire if that’s what it takes. I won’t lose you.”

She stepped back slightly. Just enough for air to wedge between them. “Say that again,” she whispered.

He blinked. “What?”

“Say it again. The last part.”

His brows furrowed. “I said I won’t lose you.”

No. The whole thing.

And then it came, almost on cue. “Let the Queen summon her trials. Let the nobles scream. I’ll walk through fire if that’s what it takes. I won’t lose you.”

Word for word.

Her lips parted. Not in wonder, but horror.

She had heard him say it exactly like that. Once in the firelight, once outside the Queen’s chambers, and, gods help her. Once in a vision where she stood on gallows and he swore it beneath the ash-fall.

She began mouthing the words silently as he spoke them again, her voice lost beneath his.

And still the fire flickered. Three, pause, three.

Not devotion.

Script.

“You don’t believe me?” Thane’s voice cracked, confused now. “Myrren, I..”

“You’re not lying.” Her voice was soft. “That’s what makes it worse.”

She reached into her pocket and closed her fingers around the spiral token.

It pulsed again.

A third time.

Memory clicked like teeth around a wound.

Because she didn’t just remember him saying the words.

She remembered learning them.

Because she had once spoken to them, too, in another spiral.

He stepped closer again, gently brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Myrren,” he said, and her name on his tongue still carried that same weight,  like a promise pressed into gold. “If the court crumbles, I will still choose you.”

Her breath caught.

Because he sounded like the boy from the firelight. The prince who once stood between her and the jeering nobles. The man who made her believe she could be something more than a mistake.

And for a heartbeat, she believed him again.

Until..

The token pulsed. Harder this time. Once, twice, three times.

She staggered back.

His hand still reached for her, but she no longer saw devotion in it.

She saw choreography.

Not love.

Design.

She opened her palm.

The token lay there, dark as obsidian, spiral grooves catching the firelight like veins. It pulsed again, alive.. then stilled.

“Myrren…” Thane’s voice was wary now. “Where did you get that?”

“Seliora gave it to me,” she said flatly. “Said I’d remember things I shouldn’t forget.”

Thane stared at the spiral as if it might strike him.

She stepped closer. “Do you recognize it?”

“No,” he said too quickly.

The fire behind him flickered again. But this time, it shrank, as if reacting to his lie.

“You put your hand over your heart when you lie,” she said, quietly.

His hand twitched.

“I don’t..”

“You did just now. And before. When you said we would burn the court together. Do you even remember saying it the first time?”

He opened his mouth, and closed it.

“I think you believe you love me,” she continued. “But I also think someone has taught you how.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “That’s not fair.”

“No.” Her voice sharpened. “What’s not fair is repeating the same vow three times and expecting me to believe it wasn’t rehearsed.”

Thane stepped back as if struck.

“I’ve said those words, too,” she whispered. “To someone. Somewhere. And I meant them. But now they taste like ash.”

The spiral token flared in her palm, just once, and then cooled to silence.

Outside, wind howled through the corridor. A shutter banged against the wall. And still, neither of them moved.

Thane swallowed. His voice was rough when it came. “You think I’m part of this. The spiral.”

She didn’t answer.

He took another step back. “You think I’m not real.”

“I think…” She exhaled. “I think we’ve both been handed scripts. And every time I try to change the lines, someone burns the stage.”

The fire in the hearth hissed violently.

And then, without warning, the mark on her wrist flared, light and shadow entwined, searing against her skin. She gasped.

Thane reached for her instinctively. “You’re hurt!”

“No.”

She held out the token between them like a blade.

“You are,” she said softly.

He froze.

“I remember every word you just said,” she whispered. “But I remember them from before. Not earlier today. Not last week. Before.”

Her next words fell like a verdict.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve said that.”

Thane’s face went pale. His mouth opened.

The fire behind him extinguished in a single breath of shadowed wind.

And the token in her palm turned cold.