The ruin didn't belong in the forest.
It pulsed softly beneath a canopy of twisted trees, bathed in silver glyph-light. The stone looked older than anything Kaelen had seen—smooth yet fractured, as if the world had grown around it but never dared to claim it.
"Where are we?" Kaelen asked.
Selene stepped forward cautiously, her voice hushed. "Not where. What. This place... wasn't built by mages."
She ran her hand along the carved archway. The sigils sparked faintly at her touch, reacting not to her magic—but something else. Familiarity, maybe.
"Then who—"
A low pulse echoed from deep inside the ruin. Like a heartbeat. Faint but undeniable.
Kaelen's mark flared in response.
A sudden, sharp warmth flooded his chest.
Selene noticed. "Your sigil. It's reacting."
"Not just reacting," Kaelen muttered. "It's... calling."
He didn't wait for permission. He stepped through the archway.
The air inside was cold—but not dead. The kind of cold that lived in places left untouched for centuries. Dust rose around his boots with every step, disturbed for the first time in who knows how long.
The hallway narrowed.
The glyphs lining the walls whispered to his eyes like language he almost understood. Familiar, yet elusive. Like something he'd once forgotten but never truly let go.
Behind him, Selene's voice cut through the quiet.
"Kaelen—slow down. These ruins could be warded, or—"
He didn't hear the rest.
Because as he stepped beneath the central archway, the world stopped.
The stone under his feet shifted.
Not physically—but spiritually. His pulse aligned with something deep in the structure, and then—everything went white.
Vision Sequence(Triggering Veritas memory echo)
He was somewhere else.
Some when else.
He stood in a massive stone chamber that stretched far beyond the ruin's limits. Glowing silver glyphs spiraled overhead, drawn in living magic. A cloaked figure stood at the center, arms outstretched.
A woman.
Not Selene—but...
She had her eyes.
Or rather—her eyes had that look. That same burn of sorrow and control. The way you hold pain so it doesn't hold you.
"Veritas burns in the boy," she said aloud. "We do not choose him. He chooses the flame."
Kaelen tried to speak, but the memory wasn't listening.
"He will find me again," the woman said, placing her palm on a circular tablet carved with interlocking rings. "And when he does... you must let him remember."
She turned.
Her face came into view—and for a heartbeat, it was Selene.
And then the world shattered.
Kaelen gasped, falling to his knees in the middle of the ruin.
Stone.
Dust.
The present.
Selene was crouched beside him, hands on his shoulders. "Kaelen! What happened?"
He stared at her. Really looked.
Same face.
Different time.
"You..."
His voice broke.
"You were in it. In the vision."
She stiffened, eyes narrowing. "What do you mean?"
"There was a woman. In the past. She had your face. Or your blood. I think she... I think she was a version of you."
Selene didn't speak.
Didn't breathe.
Kaelen frowned. "You said you don't remember your parents. That the Tower raised you."
"I said what I was told."
"So it could be true."
A long silence.
Selene stood slowly and turned her back. Her voice was calm, but it cracked at the edge.
"I don't know what's true anymore."
They left the ruin just before nightfall.
The glyphs didn't stop glowing behind them.
As they walked, Kaelen stayed a step behind her. Not because he didn't want to speak—but because he could feel her retreating again. Emotionally, this time.
Walls. Higher than ever.
So he tried something small.
"You know," he said, gently, "when I said you looked like her... I meant it as a compliment."
Selene didn't turn around.
But her steps slowed.
"Don't say things you don't mean," she said softly.
"I do mean it."
"I'm dangerous, Kaelen."
He exhaled. "You keep saying that like I haven't noticed."
A pause.
Then she stopped completely and looked back at him.
The wind pulled a strand of her hair across her face. The moon lit her eyes silver.
"Then why do you still stay?"
He could've lied.
But he didn't.
"Because even if you're dangerous... you're the first person who's ever made me feel like I belong."
The silence between them held a new weight.
Then, slowly—carefully—she walked back to him.
She didn't touch him.
But she stood close enough that he felt her warmth.
Then quietly, like it cost her everything to say:
"I don't want to lose you."
Later that night, they sat beside another small fire.
Not quite touching.
But no longer apart.
Kaelen ran his fingers along the edge of his glyph, staring into the flame.
"Do you think... the Tower made me to be something?"
Selene replied without looking at him.
"I think they fear what you could become if they didn't make you something."
"And you?"
Her gaze finally met his.
"I think you're already becoming someone they'll regret creating."
Kaelen laughed under his breath. "That sounds vaguely encouraging."
"Don't get used to it."
He smiled.
But beneath it, the vision haunted him.
That woman.
Those words.
"Let him remember."
And the feeling that something had begun—a path not of his choosing, but already tied to his soul.