The shadows wouldn’t leave her skin.

Myrren scrubbed her arms in the basin behind the cabin door, icy water lapping over her wrists. The fire was still burning in the hearth room and she could hear it crackling, steady, alive. And she knew Corven hadn’t moved. His presence pressed through the wooden walls like the pulse beneath her own ribs.

She gripped the basin’s edge. Her fingers shook.

This was a mistake.

The tether was a trick. Her body’s betrayal. The spiral’s manipulation, dressed in a heartbeat.

She could still feel the kiss. Not just on her lips, but in her breath, her bones, the place behind her ribs where the mark burned faint and furious.

“You shouldn’t have come after me,” she hissed, though he wasn’t near enough to hear.

She half-hoped he could.

Outside, rain still knifed down from the sky. Thunder cracked distantly, a sound she once loved. Tonight it made her flinch.

She reached for the towel, and her fingers grazed something else in the dark.

Smooth. Cold.

The spiral token.

It had slipped from her satchel during the chaos. Now it pulsed faintly in her hand, like a stone remembering her better than she remembered herself.

“No,” she whispered, but too late.

A flicker burned behind her eyes
A memory. Not this cabin. Not tonight. But another.

Her voice, shaking: I can’t want you.
His reply: You always do. Until the fire comes.

She staggered back. The basin rocked, water spilling. Her heart pounded against her ribs like it was trying to claw its way out.

The door creaked open.

She froze, breath catching. Shadows spilled inward.

Corven stood in the doorway, expression unreadable. His shirt clung to him. His eyes caught no light but only hers.

“Why are you here?” she said, voice low. “Why do you always come back?”

But the tether pulsed like a lie in her chest.

“You think I wanted any of this?” she snapped, stepping away from the basin. Her voice cracked against the stone floor. “We wouldn’t be in this gods-damned cabin if the Queen hadn’t forced it.”

Corven didn’t flinch. He stepped inside, closed the door with the same quiet he always carried, as if even noise obeyed him.

“She sent you because she doesn’t trust you,” he said softly.

“She sent me because she wants me dead,” Myrren snapped. “Or bound. Maybe both.”

He didn’t argue.

Myrren paced across the narrow room, arms crossed tightly over her chest. The spiral token throbbed in her pocket like a buried spark. She was supposed to be smarter than this. Trained to read poisons in scent and smoke and yet she couldn’t stop inhaling him like air.

Corven moved only to set a fresh log on the fire. The flames hissed as rain steamed from his sleeves. His silence wasn’t cold but it was deliberate. Unyielding. Like he was giving her space to strike or flee.

“You knew this would happen,” she accused. “You let the Queen send us.”

“She gave an order. I followed it.”

“You followed it,” she echoed bitterly. “Because it brings us here.”

Her hand touched her ribs like reflex. The mark there burned again, a slow, bruising pulse.

“Say it,” he said. “Whatever you’re holding back.”

Myrren turned, fists clenched. “You’re not fate. You’re not a prophecy. You’re just a convenient pain, dressed in shadows.”

The shadows stirred. Just slightly. The corners of the room dimmed.

He didn’t respond.

She advanced on him now, steps trembling. “You talk like you remember another version of me. Like we already loved and broke and bled. But that’s not real. That’s not..”

“It was real,” Corven said. “You begged me to remember it.”

“I wouldn’t.!”

“You did.” His voice was low, flint-struck. “You kissed me, Myrren. Not last night. Not just then. In a life that burned before this one. You said you’d deny it when the spiral began again, but you asked me to hold the truth for you.”

Her breath faltered.

Rain battered the windows. Her pulse beat faster than the storm.

He stepped closer, shadows dragging behind him like chains. “I don’t want to be a prophecy,” he said. “But I’ll be your truth. Even if you keep calling me a lie.”

The spiral in her pocket burned.

And behind her ribs, the mark pulsed back and twinned, as if the truth had found its echo.

She shook her head, desperate to tear free of the moment. “You think that makes it better? That I kissed you in some other life? That I carved some tragic promise into your ribs and now you get to use it against me?”

“I’m not using anything,” he said. “I’m carrying it.”

Her voice cracked. “Well, drop it. Drop me.”

He stepped closer. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because every time you look at me like this, furious and shaking, I remember what it felt like when you looked at me like I was home.”

Myrren turned away, but her breath hitched too loud to hide.

She didn’t speak again.

Not when the fire guttered low.

Not when the silence stretched long enough for the storm to pass.

She stayed turned away, arms braced on the windowsill as if the cold glass could anchor her. The tether ached beneath her skin, quieter now, but not gone. Never gone.

Behind her, Corven didn’t move. But his shadows did.

They crept forward but not reaching, not touching. Just circling. Waiting. Like they knew she was still deciding whether to run or collapse.

“I remember saying it,” she whispered.

Corven stilled. “What?”

“I remember…” Her voice broke. “I remember telling you I couldn’t choose you. Not then. Not yet. And it hurt like hell.” She pressed her forehead to the windowpane. “But this time, this life.. I didn’t say it yet. Not until now. So why does it already feel like I’ve broken something?”

He didn’t answer.

The shadows curved around her feet, soft as breath.

She turned.

Her eyes locked on him and the breath left her.

He stood still, rain-drenched, cloak loose around his shoulders. The fire behind her flickered across his face, gilding his jaw in molten light. He looked both too human and not enough but etched from storm and silence and something ancient.

She crossed the room.

One step. Two.

Her fingers trembled as they lifted.

She reached for the clasp at his cloak but not knowing why. Maybe to remove the barrier. Maybe to prove he wouldn’t stop her.

He didn’t.

She undid it slowly. Metal brushed metal. The fabric fell away.

He didn’t breathe.

Neither did she.

The scent of him struck her with salt and rain, and smoke from the spiral token still burning in her pocket. Her heartbeat stuttered.

Without thinking, she pressed her forehead against his chest. Just for a breath. Just for shelter. His warmth soaked through her skin like a secret.

The shadows didn’t flare, they stilled, as if her touch quieted everything.

She pulled away too fast.

Shame flushed up her throat, but Corven didn’t move. Didn’t reach. He only looked at her like he had no idea what world they stood in, only that she was in it.

“Every time I say no,” she whispered, voice raw, “my body calls me a liar.” his eyes burned.

“You said you wouldn’t bind me,” she said, stepping back.

“I won’t.”

“Even if I lie to you?”

“Especially then.”

Her voice cracked. “I can’t choose you. Not without ruining everything.”

“You already have.”

That was when the tether snapped tight, not with pain, but finality. Like something in her had decided before her mouth had caught up.

Corven took a step back.

But she reached for him again.

Her fingers brushed his collar, desperate.

“I don’t want you,” she lied, for the last time.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch.

“Then don’t want me,” he said. “But if you must chain yourself..”

His voice caught, her breath tangled.

He leaned closer, so close the shadows flickered between them like ink trembling on the edge of parchment.

“..then do it to the shadows.”