The rain had eased, leaving the corridors slick and silent. Myrren moved through them like a body already emptied of breath. The parchment lay folded in her hand, its spiral seal cold against her palm. The Queen’s ink still clung to her gloves like iron sharp, undercut with something sweet her senses refused to name. The scent of control.

Holt waited at the gate, soaked with a cloak heavy on his shoulders, sword sheathed. He said nothing until she reached him, then pressed a packet into her palm. “You’ll need this. Map’s inside. Read between the marks.” His voice cracked with dry humor. “Try not to die before you do.”

Ori stepped from the carriage shadows, eyes red. “You’ll forget things out there. Keep this close.” She slipped a sprig of memory root into Myrren’s satchel, then hugged her tight with soap and sorrow clinging to the folds of her coat.

The courtyard bell struck.

Myrren climbed into the carriage, leaving behind light and crown alike.

The road from Eirden’s Keep wound through a valley of pale fog and frostbitten grain. The world smelled of wet earth and spent firewood, as if even the land were tired of being burned. Myrren kept her eyes on the horizon. Behind her, the palace towers dissolved into mist.

Corven rode beside the carriage, silent, his cloak trailing in the wind like a torn shadow. He had said only one word when they departed: ready. The sound still lingered, low and even, as if the silence itself answered him.

Inside the carriage, Myrren’s fingers traced the folded map Holt had given her. Lines overlapped in a pattern that made no sense until she looked sideways. Then the ink revealed faint glimmers, letters hidden in smudges: bind, break, crown. The same words carved into the spiral prophecy, repeating again as if language itself were trapped in the same loop.

She closed the map quickly. The parchment carried the same scent as the Queen’s decree like iron and myrrh. She wondered if Holt had noticed, or if he too had been used as another of her instruments.

The wheels struck a rut. The jolt threw Myrren forward. Her palm scraped against a splintered edge of the bench, sharp enough to draw blood. She hissed softly and reached for her handkerchief, but before she could press it to the wound, the carriage slowed.

Corven appeared at the open door. “You are hurt.” It was not a question.

“It is nothing,” she said, but her voice betrayed her.

He took her hand anyway, turning it toward the light. His fingers were warm despite the morning chill, his touch careful, almost reverent. He tore a strip from his glove and wrapped it around her palm. When the cloth touched the cut, a low vibration shivered through her skin. The tether. It pulsed like a living heartbeat, then steadied in rhythm with her own.

Myrren caught her breath. The hum deepened as his thumb brushed her wrist, the same pulse she had felt once before when he dragged her from darkness. “It responds to pain,” she whispered, unable to stop herself.

Corven met her gaze briefly. “Or to truth.” Then he released her and stepped back into the fog.

The carriage rolled on. Her hand burned beneath the makeshift bandage, but the pain was almost tender. The tether had heard her again.

The fog thickened as morning crept on. Frost glazed the grass, and the horses’ breath rose in pale ribbons. The carriage wheels whispered over damp earth. Every sound felt distant, smothered beneath the weight of silence.

Myrren leaned against the window, watching gray fields slide past. Her bandaged hand pulsed in her lap, the tether’s rhythm mirroring her own. It felt alive beneath the cloth, as if Corven’s touch had left a memory that refused to fade.

She inhaled deeply. The air smelled of rain and rusted iron. Beneath it, a second note lingered, faint and unmistakable. The Queen’s ink. It clung to the carriage like a trapped perfume. The parchment lay tucked beside her satchel. Its scent had survived the journey.

A chill ran down her spine. If ink could carry magic, this decree had been written to follow her.

Corven rode ahead, a dark figure against the silver mist. His pace was steady, unhurried. When the wheels struck a stone, he turned slightly, as if the tether warned him before she even moved. Did he feel the hum too? Or was she alone in its echo?

The satchel shifted. She drew out the map, unfolded it across her knees, and studied the blurred lines. Holt’s blunt script hid something deliberate. Bind. Break. Crown. The Queen’s creed disguised as a soldier’s riddle.

The words pulsed in her mind until they became a chant. Bind. Break. Crown. The Seer’s cadence, dream residue and prophecy echo. It tightened her throat.

Holt would never write those words by accident.

She folded the map and tucked it away. The leather seat felt damp with seeped dew. A soft rattle from the satchel pulled her attention down. She adjusted the jars. A clean scent rose with mint and roots.

Memoryroot. Ori’s gift.

The oils had begun to release, cutting through ink and iron. The scent stilled her. Then she felt it, the tether’s hum softened slowly. She opened the satchel wider. The hum weakened. She shut it. It surged again.

Her breath caught.

Memoryroot did not just preserve memory. It disrupted the tether. Ori had handed her protection she hadn’t understood.

A crow cried once and vanished into the fog. Corven slowed, glancing back. Even through the mist, his eyes found hers. The tether pulled taut, invisible and inescapable. Her pulse answered.

He turned forward again, urging his horse on.

The carriage rolled past the last silhouette of the palace. Myrren pressed her bandaged hand to her chest. The hum steadied. Low. Faint and Unyielding.

Somewhere deep inside, the spiral turned.

They made camp near a stream that whispered through frostbitten reeds. The fog thinned at dusk, revealing brittle stars above bare branches. Corven lit no fire. He sat a short distance away, sharpening a blade that made no sound. The horses drank. The silence held.

Myrren stayed beside the carriage, her satchel in her lap. She had no appetite, no warmth to seek. Only questions. She drew out the map.

The paper had softened from the ride, the edges slightly curled. She spread it across her knees once more, this time ignoring the roads and terrain. Her fingers followed the faint, curved smudges hidden beneath the ink spiral-shaped, just shy of deliberate.

She pressed her injured hand flat against the center mark.

The tether pulsed, deep and sudden. Not pain, this time. Something older. Recognition.

Her heart skipped.

She traced the ink lines again. The same silent chant filled her thoughts. Bind. Break. Crown. The rhythm of the prophecy. It didn’t just echo from Holt’s script, it radiated from the page like a sigil still alive.

Not a map. A spell in disguise.

The Queen’s ink had smelled of iron and warmth. This one did too. Holt had carried the scent unknowingly. He had passed her a path already chosen.

A trap with her name written in the margins.

She reached for the satchel again. The glass vials clicked softly, and the scent of mint rose up, crisp and clean. Memoryroot.

Ori’s gift.

She lifted the sprig gently. The oils had begun to release, their clarity cutting through the fog of iron and ash. The moment the scent filled her lungs, the hum beneath her skin shifted and less sharp but more distant. As if the root dulled the tether’s reach.

She tested it. Closed the satchel. The hum surged back.

She opened it and the vibration eased.

Her breath hitched. The memoryroot didn’t just protect against forgetfulness. It interfered with the spiral’s pull. Ori had handed her something sacred, whether she knew it or not.

Across the clearing, Corven looked up. His gaze found her through the mist and dark. He said nothing.

But the tether thrummed once, low and unmistakable.

A signal. A claim.

And then night fell completely.

Sleep came slowly. Myrren curled beneath her cloak, the cold seeping through the earth into her bones. Corven had not moved from his post. The night breathed in silence.

When her eyes finally closed, the world shifted.

She stood in a field she did not recognize. Wildflowers swayed around her ankles, silvered by moonlight. The air was warm, rich with honeysuckle and smoke. Somewhere nearby, water rushed over stone.

And Corven was there.

He did not speak. He simply reached for her hand, as if it belonged in his. No gloves, no bandage. Only skin meeting skin, and the tether singing through her veins like music she had once forgotten.

He stepped closer. His breath brushed her cheek, warm as firelight. When he kissed her, it was not urgent or claiming. It was quiet. A vow unspoken, and carried in silence. The kind of kiss that remembered too much.

Her hands rose to his chest. The spiral mark at her wrist flared hot. The tether pulled, not hard, but deep, as though it knew what came next.

But then the dream changed.

The warmth drained away. The flowers wilted. The moonlight flickered. Her lips still touched his, but the shape of his mouth shifted, not gentle but firm, not shadow but flame.

Thane.

The kiss did not break. It became him.

His light pressed against her like a tide returning. Devotion wrapped around her throat like silk. He smelled of cedar and smoke and something burning at the edge of memory. Her heart stuttered.

She opened her mouth to speak his name.

And woke up.

The sky was still dark, the stars hard and cold above her. Frost rimed the edge of her cloak. Corven had moved closer, his cloak draped over her shoulders. The tether still pulsed, faint but steady, like a hand pressed to her ribs.

Her lips were cold. Her breath came too fast.

“Thane,” she whispered, before she could stop herself.

The sound broke the quiet.

Corven’s head turned sharply. His expression unreadable, his jaw set. He rose without a word, the tether vibrating like a held breath.

Myrren closed her eyes, heart pounding.

The spiral in her satchel pulsed once.

The hum did not fade.