The tower felt emptier that morning, though Revyn could not determine why.
Frost clung to the cracked stones, dusting the floor in pale streaks that caught the first weak rays of dawn. The wind hissed through the ruined arches, carrying faint whispers that might have only existed in his imagination. He sat in the circle Liora had carved into the floor the day before, its edges softened by the long night.
The Ashlight within him pulsed faintly. It wasn't urgent or quiet. It was simply there, like something ancient waiting patiently for its moment to awaken.
When he opened his eyes, she was already there.
Liora, leaning against the archway, arms folded, her crimson robes catching the morning sun like fresh blood. Today her gaze was different. It wandered elsewhere, her usual sharpness dulled into something closer to restraint, as if she was holding back pain.
"You have improved," she said, her tone level.
Revyn nodded once. He did not look up at her. "Enough for you to stop throwing gravel at my head?"
A faint sound escaped her then. Not a laugh. More like a hollow breath that could've been laughter in a different life. "Not even close," she replied.
She stepped forward, her boots scuffing against the floor, and held out a folded talisman. The paper was thick and inked with jagged symbols he could not quite read.
"Anchor this to your chest when you sleep," she said. "It will not stop the dreams, but it might keep them from spilling into the room."
He took it in silence, feeling the faint warmth of her hand on the edges of the parchment before she let go. Her eyes lingered on him as though she were trying to solve a puzzle she was no longer sure she wanted the answer to.
Then she spoke again, her voice quieter.
"I will not be here tomorrow."
Revyn's fingers tightened around the talisman. The paper creased under his grip.
"Why?"
Her gaze flicked briefly to the floor, and he caught the faintest flicker of something like frustration pass over her expression before she mastered it again.
"The Alliance sent a messenger this morning," she said. "My summon came sooner than expected."
Revyn frowned faintly. "Because of the altar?"
"No." Her eyes hardened. "Something else. A tremor. Someone noticed something strange moving through the Mortal Domain. Some higher hand has decided they want answers."
Revyn forced his hands to steady and looked down at the talisman. "Strange," he said evenly. "What kind of strange?"
"They did not say what. Only that something is stirring. And they want it watched." Her voice dropped lower, almost to herself, though he still heard it. "They shouldn't be looking with all the pressure from the public. But here we are."
He swallowed the weight that had risen in his throat. "You don't think it's me, right?" he said after a long pause.
Liora tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable. She studied him in silence before finally replying. "You? No. You are just a strange boy with a lot of pent up sadness."
She lingered there a moment longer, her sharp eyes catching on the faint glow curling around his hands, then stepped back toward the doorway.
"Keep training," she said. "Do not draw attention. And do not make me regret showing you anything."
Her voice softened then, though she looked away when she said it. "Do not break before we meet again."
She did not wait for his reply. The crimson hem of her robes whispered over the stones as she left, and then she was gone.
The tower was colder without her.
Revyn sat in the circle long after she had left, staring at his hands as faint glyph-light curled lazily over his skin. The Ashlight felt heavier today, heavier and more alive, as though it was aware of something he was not.
It hummed faintly in his chest as dusk fell.
Later, he lay back on the cracked stones, the talisman pressed flat to his chest. His breath rose in thin clouds against the ceiling of the ruined tower, and his eyes drifted closed.
That was when he felt it.
A pulse.
It was not his own.
It was not hers.
It was distant but clear, like the echo of a bell rung somewhere far beyond his sight. The Ashlight inside him shifted at once, moving on its own, reaching for something beyond himself.
He gasped as his vision blurred.
And then he felt a cold current wash over him.
Water.
Lanterns.
The air was damp and heavy, full of salt and faintly sweet smoke. He stood on a bridge, its wooden rails cool beneath his hands, the river below black as glass.
Above him, the moon hung cracked and broken, bleeding silver light into the distant horizon.
Lanterns floated lazily down the current, their flames small and uncertain against the dark.
And at the farthest edge of the bridge, a girl stood.
She was small, her light grey hair wisping and moving faintly in the still air. Her robe was pale and shimmered faintly in the moonlight, with blue stones scattered throughout.
One hand clutched a journal close to her chest, but its pages fluttered on their own, words appearing and vanishing visibly in the air as though written by a ghost.
Her eyes lifted to his.
And something deep inside his chest tightened.
Not with grief.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
A memory that was not his own.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. The bridge creaked faintly underfoot as he took a hesitant step toward her.
And then the vision shattered.
Revyn sat upright, gasping. His hands clasped at his ribs as though he was holding something inside.
The Ashlight coiled wildly in his veins, whispering through his thoughts.
"Remember,"
It seemed to say, though no voice carried it.
He stared down at his hands. The glyphs glowed faintly, steady now, their light curling up his wrists like smoke.
"Who," he whispered into the silence, "who are you?"
But the Ashlight only pulsed faintly in answer. It did not stop.
Far away, in a city of rivers and mirrors, the girl froze.
Yuna sat at the water's edge, the cracked moon's reflection faintly visible on the river's black surface. Lanterns bobbed on the current, their flames dim against the vastness of the night.
Her pen hovered softly over the empty page of her journal.
But the words refused to come. They seemed trapped in the back of her throat.
It started as a faint tremor beneath her ribs.
She pressed a hand to her chest as her breath caught, and then the light began to coil around her fingers.
The divine glow was soft but insistent, curling between her fingers like dawn creeping over the horizon.
The pages of her journal began to turn on their own.
Her eyes widened as glowing words traced themselves across the page in a language she did not recognise but somehow understood.
The pen slipped from her fingers.
She pressed her palm to the page as though to stop it from moving, but the heat coming from the paper only grew stronger.
And then she saw him.
A boy.
Kneeling on cracked stones in some cold, ruined place, his hands glowing faintly with the same divine light that curled now between her fingers.
She did not know him.
But she remembered him.
Her breath shuddered as the connection broke, leaving her staring down at her journal, the river's whispers loud in the silence.
She swallowed hard, forcing her hand to steady as she lifted the pen again.
And though she could not explain why, she began to write the name that now hummed behind her thoughts.
"Revyn."
The ink shimmered faintly before settling back into black.
She closed her eyes and let her hand fall to her lap.
For the first time in years, she no longer felt alone. As if her strange tendency to daydream wasn't an anomaly to be ashamed of.
But she did not feel safe, either.
The moon was peaking when she finally stood.
The air was colder now, burning her lips. The lanterns on the river had begun to dim one by one.
She tucked her journal into the satchel around her waist and made her way back through the narrow streets. The stones of the buildings still held the faint heat of the day, though the night air bit at her skin more and more.
The faint glow on her hands refused to fade.
Climbing the crooked stairs to her attic room, she paused with her hand on the doorframe, staring at her palm as though it no longer belonged to her.
The rune etched into the simple jade pendant at her throat pulsed faintly in answer.
She whispered the boy's name to herself.
"Revyn."
It felt like a memory she had been waiting to recover.
She closed the door behind her and sat on the edge of her narrow cot.
The pages of her journal had gone blank again, though she could still feel the warmth of the ink beneath her fingers.
Her pen trembled slightly as she wrote another line, the words curling across the page.
"Who are you? Why do I know your name…"
The ink glowed faintly before settling.
She shut the journal and lay back, staring at the wooden beams above.
The Ashlight pulsed faintly in her chest now, and she knew he felt it too.
Far away, in the hollow tower, Revyn still sat in the circle.
Her name clung to his thoughts like a blade.
"Yuna."
And though neither of them could hear the other's breath, both lay awake long into the night, staring into the darkness above them, the Ashlight curling faintly between them like a tether neither had chosen.
Far beyond the Mortal Domain, in a place where even light dared not tread, a forgotten god stirred faintly on his Hollow Throne.
His shattered essence shivered as two of his fragments found one another.
He could not smile.
But he could wait.