Morning came cloaked in silence.
The sky was the color of bruised lilac, pale and swollen with unshed snow. Aerin stood at the watchtower's edge, the wind combing through her hair, eyes fixed on the horizon as if she could outstare destiny itself.
Behind her, the fire had gone cold.
Cassius hadn't slept. She could hear him pacing inside, slow and deliberate, like a beast circling the boundaries of its cage.
When she finally turned back, he was leaning over the hearth, tracing one of the old sigils carved into the stone.
"What's that?" she asked, stepping inside.
He didn't look up. "A seal. Placed by my father. It binds what's beneath the tower."
Aerin's skin prickled. "Beneath?"
Cassius nodded slowly, fingers brushing over the weathered markings. "There's a crypt. Or a vault. My father used to say it was a prison built for things older than our kingdom."
She hesitated. "And you never thought to open it?"
"I did," he said. "Once. When I was young and stupid and angry. It nearly killed me."
He turned to her then, expression unreadable. "It spoke."
Aerin swallowed. "What did it say?"
Cassius's voice was quiet, but the weight of the memory clung to it like frost. "It said my name. In my mother's voice."
They left the tower by noon.
Snow had begun to fall, thick and wet, and the horses struggled through the narrowing path. Cassius guided them west, toward the Veilwood—a vast forest that once served as a border between kingdoms, and now belonged to no one.
"We'll be safer beneath the canopy," he said. "Harder to track."
But they were already being followed.
Three leagues behind, the air shimmered—and a figure stepped from nothing.
She wore no cloak, no armor, only a long gown of black gauze and a blindfold made from crow feathers. Her bare feet left no trace in the snow. Where she passed, trees bent away, bark blackening, as if the very earth feared her touch.
The Bonebound Seer had awakened.
And she hungered for blood.
Meanwhile, in a distant province…
A fire crackled in a hearth built from riverstone. The cottage was small, humble, forgotten by maps—but its occupant was anything but.
A woman stirred tea over the fire, her hands weathered but strong. Her eyes—pale green like frostbitten moss—lifted when a crow landed on the sill.
It cawed once. Then fell silent.
She sighed. "So. The boy has begun to remember."
She poured the tea into a second cup and set it across from her.
As if expecting someone.
Then, very quietly, she whispered: "Come home, Cassius."
Cassius did not know why he turned his head, only that a cold breath ghosted down his spine like the memory of hands once familiar.
Aerin noticed.
"You heard something," she said.
He shook his head, but not in denial—in uncertainty. "A voice. Far away."
She looked at him, really looked.
"You're changing," she said.
He didn't argue.
"I feel it too," she added. "Since the binding. Sometimes I wake and know things. Things I couldn't possibly know. I dream of places I've never seen."
Cassius stopped walking. Snow spiraled around them, thickening.
"What did you see last night?" he asked.
Aerin hesitated. "A tree. Massive. Hollow at the base, but full of light inside. There was a girl—me, I think—sitting at its roots, reading from a book written in ash."
His expression darkened.
"That's the Yharnen Tree. It was burned during the Mage Wars."
"Then how did I—?"
"Because it remembers," Cassius said. "And now... so do you."
A gust of wind tore through the trees.
Then, silence.
Then—
Snap.
A branch broke behind them.
Cassius moved instantly, positioning himself between Aerin and the sound. His hand fell to the hilt of his dagger.
The woods were too quiet.
No birds. No wind. Only breath.
Then the snow parted—and she appeared.
The Bonebound Seer.
Aerin's breath hitched. "What is that?"
Cassius stepped back, drawing his blade. "A relic. My father's hound."
The Seer didn't speak. She lifted one skeletal hand, palm up. A faint red light flickered over her fingertips.
Blood-sight.
Cassius felt it skim across his skin like cold fire, felt her mind pressing into his, peeling back memory, one layer at a time.
"No," he growled. "Not this time."
He struck—but she vanished.
Then reappeared behind him.
Aerin shouted, but he was already spinning, blade slashing upward.
The Seer staggered back. A gash opened across her side, dark smoke hissing from the wound.
She touched it—and laughed.
Her voice was like a thousand whispers dying in the dark. "You cannot kill what has already been forsaken."
Cassius's face hardened. "Then I'll do worse."
He drew a vial from his coat—liquid silver, swirling with crimson threads—and hurled it.
The glass shattered on her chest.
The reaction was immediate.
She screamed, and the trees screamed with her—branches twisting, trunks splitting, snow melting into blood.
Cassius grabbed Aerin's hand.
"Run!"
They didn't stop until the sun dipped below the horizon.
When they finally collapsed near a frozen brook, Aerin gasped, "What... what the hell was that?"
Cassius wiped his blade, breath shallow. "A creature that should not be. My father keeps her for one purpose—to track what he cannot control."
Aerin looked at him. "Like you."
He didn't reply.
She moved closer, brushing a strand of hair from his cheek. "You protected me."
"I always will," he said hoarsely.
She leaned forward then, heart thundering.
Their lips met again—this time not in haste or fear, but something quieter. Something real.
And in that kiss, the bond flared again—but not just between them.
The earth responded.
Roots trembled. Trees leaned in. Somewhere far below, something ancient stirred.
The oath had awakened.
And the world would not forget.