Ash fell like slow rain.

The spiral that had burst from the mill floor still spun faintly in the air, its embers tracing red arcs through the mist. Myrren could not tell if it was dying or beginning again. The vial of Failsafe II throbbed once in her palm, the glow inside fading to a dull heartbeat. Corven’s shadow flared and withdrew, struggling against the tether’s recoil.

Then a voice cut through the smoke.

“You failed this village last time.”

Myrren turned. The words felt old, echoes she had already heard in dreams she could not remember. A woman stood at the edge of the ruined square, cloak the color of soot, silver chains glinting faintly beneath the hood. Her eyes caught the dying light like knives polished in water.

Serenya.

No one should have survived the plague here. Yet she looked untouched by dust or grief, skin too smooth, smile too calm. The air around her smelled wrong, sweet like myrrh but edged with metal. Myrren’s breath stuttered; she recognized that scent. Silent Veil incense. The same composition she had once synthesized to test how long a memory could hold its shape before dissolving.

Corven stepped between them, hand half-lifted, shadow trembling with the tether’s strain.
“Back,” he warned.

Serenya’s laughter was low and distant, as if coming from another room. “He always tries,” she said, tilting her head. “Every spiral, every loop. Always the same reach, the same failure.”

The ash wind shivered. Myrren’s pulse tripped over itself.
“What do you mean, every spiral?”

Serenya’s gaze slid to her hand. “Still carrying his chain, are you? It never lasts, Cordelia.”

The name struck like a blow. For a moment Myrren forgot how to breathe.
“I’m not..”

“Not her?” Serenya’s smile widened. “You’ve said that before too.”

Something in the distance cracked, the sound of wood giving way under its own memory. Corven moved closer, the air thickening around him, but Serenya only watched with mild interest, as if studying a repeated experiment.

“Why are you here?” Myrren asked, her voice thin.

“To witness,” Serenya murmured. “You built the cure too soon. You always do. That is why it fails.”

The words tangled with the fading hum of the vial, the same rhythm as the tether in Myrren’s pulse. Ash rose, light dimmed, and for a heartbeat she smelled her own childhood laboratory, glass, rue, honeyroot, death.

Then the spiral shuddered and fell apart like smoke, leaving only Serenya’s smile.

Corven’s shadow coiled tighter, pulling at the edges of the light. “Enough riddles,” he said, voice low. “You do not belong here.”

Serenya ignored him. Her gaze never left Myrren, as if Corven were merely a reflection between them.
“I remember this square when it still breathed,” she said softly. “Children playing, bread cooling on windows. You walked among them once, Cordelia, with your satchel full of remedies that cured nothing at all.”

The name again. It scraped through Myrren’s chest like glass. “My name is Myrren.”
“For now.” Serenya crouched, tracing her finger through the ash spiral at their feet. Each curve flared faintly red, echoing the pulse in Myrren’s hand. “But names are only stable until rewritten.”

Something shimmered between her fingers, a shard of black stone, small as a coin, edges sharp enough to draw blood. Obsidian.

Corven stiffened. “Do not touch that.”

“You know it then,” Serenya said, eyes gleaming. “Of course you do. You have died with one before.”

The tether twitched, pain or memory, Myrren could not tell. She felt Corven’s breath near her ear, his restraint a tremor. “Step back,” he whispered. “She carries the Veil’s mark.”

But Myrren’s curiosity cut deeper than fear. “What is it?”

Serenya held the shard up between them. In the dim light, it caught faint red glimmers, spiraling across the surface like veins of fire trapped under glass. “A memory anchor. It keeps what the world forgets.”

“It poisons the mind,” Corven said. “Do not let her near you.”

Serenya smiled. “He says that every time.”

The shard gleamed once, and Myrren’s surroundings flickered. The mill stood whole again for half a heartbeat; sunlight spilled where dusk had been; Corven’s outline blurred as if submerged in water. Then the vision collapsed, leaving only ruin. She gasped.
“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Serenya said lightly. “Only reminded the air of what it used to be.” She stepped forward, placing the shard in Myrren’s gloved palm. “You will need it soon. Your mind fractures faster each loop.”

The stone was cold at first, then pulsed warm, echoing her heartbeat. For an instant she saw another version of herself kneeling in the same place, hands already bloodied, whispering the same question. What did you do? The echo broke as quickly as it came.

Corven moved sharply, his shadow wrapping around her wrist, but he dared not touch the shard.
“Do not keep it,” he said. “You do not understand what it costs.”

Serenya turned toward him, eyes glinting. “No, you do not. The Veil never built this for her; it built it for you, to see if the tether could be rewritten.”

A sound stirred behind them, hoofbeats faint and cautious. Myrren froze. Through the drifting ash, she glimpsed movement on the ridge, a scout patrol bearing Eirden’s banner. If they saw her kneeling beside Serenya, the shard gleaming like contraband between their hands, they would call her traitor.

Serenya’s smile deepened. “Careful, little scentcrafter. Even loyalty can smell like treason.”

Then she withdrew, leaving the air heavy with myrrh and something darker, like memory burning.

The patrol horn sounded again, closer this time.
Corven caught Myrren’s arm, pulling her toward the cover of the mill. “Move. If they see that shard..”

Serenya’s laughter stopped him cold.
“Oh, let them see,” she murmured. “Eirden loves a spectacle. Every loop, your fear writes the same ending, silence or fire.”

The words carried weight, older than prophecy. Myrren’s breath fogged; the air grew colder. “You keep saying that. What does it mean?”

Serenya’s smile tilted, pitying. “Every spiral ends the same way. One burns, one fades, and one is left to wear the ash.”
Her gaze lingered on Myrren, then drifted to the faint glow under Corven’s collarbone, the tether’s ember pulsing through his shirt. “Light and shadow, always choking each other for her favor.”

Corven’s hand tightened. “Enough.”
“Still pretending you can save her?” Serenya asked softly. “You never could.”

The shard in Myrren’s palm pulsed harder, syncing to her heartbeat until the rhythm blurred. The world flickered, two versions of the same dusk. One where Corven held her, one where he lay dying in the street. The memory was not hers. Or perhaps it was.

Serenya stepped close enough that Myrren smelled the myrrh smoke in her hair. “Do you remember the first time you made a cure?”
“I..” Myrren faltered. “I was a child.”
“You were many things,” Serenya whispered. “Cordelia. Myrren. The girl who thought she could outmix fate.” Her gloved fingers brushed the vial still clutched in Myrren’s other hand. “You keep trying to unmake the spiral, but memory,” she breathed, “memory can be rewritten.”

The shard flared red, searing heat against Myrren’s palm. A whisper slid through her mind, not Serenya’s this time but her own from somewhere distant: Do not let it touch the blood.
Too late. A drop from her cut wrist struck the stone. It hissed, drinking the scarlet, the spiral glowing brighter.

“Myrren,” Corven said, his tone breaking between command and plea.

Serenya smiled, stepping back into the smoke. “You will see me again when the loop begins to fray. Try to last longer this time.”

She was gone before the ash settled.

The patrol’s torchlight washed over the square. Corven yanked Myrren behind a fallen beam, shadows swallowing them both. The shard still burned in her hand, the spiral of light seared onto her skin.

A soldier’s voice drifted through the ruins.
“Report to the Queen. The scentcrafter’s mark has been found.”

Myrren looked down.
Where the shard had touched her palm, a black spiral smoked against her flesh, alive, pulsing and undeniable.

And somewhere beyond the ridge, a flare of gold split the mist. Thane’s fire, searching for her.