Chapter 139: The Memory That Answered Back

The golden light swallowed them before either of them could scream.

Rin felt Eryndor’s fingers locked around his own. That was the only thing he could trust. The darkness twisted around them, carrying fragments of the vanished corridor like leaves caught in a storm. Pieces of white stone floated past. A broken door spun overhead. Somewhere in the distance, a child was crying.

Then the falling stopped.

Rin struck his knees against a cold surface and stumbled forward, dragging Eryndor down with him.

"Ow."

Eryndor groaned beside him.

Rin immediately turned. "Are you hurt?"

"Only in places I would prefer not to discuss."

"Can you move?"

"Yes."

"Then complain while standing up."

Eryndor shot him a look but accepted his offered hand. Together, they rose.

The golden light had disappeared. They stood in a circular courtyard beneath a black sky. Pale flowers grew between the cracks in the stone, their petals shining faintly despite the absence of sunlight. Beyond the courtyard stretched a forest of white trees, their branches bare and twisted.

At the center stood a fountain.

It contained no water.

Instead, a dark substance moved slowly inside its basin, reflecting scenes that changed whenever Rin tried to focus on them.

A childhood bedroom.

A burning temple.

A pair of hands covered in golden light.

Then, briefly, a young man standing alone before an enormous gate.

Aelion.

Rin stepped closer.

The image vanished.

"Don’t touch it," Eryndor warned.

"I wasn’t going to."

"You were leaning toward it."

"I was looking."

"You have a concerning habit of looking at dangerous things as though they might become less dangerous if you stare long enough."

Rin glanced at him. "And you have a concerning habit of following me toward them."

"That is because you keep walking toward them."

"Someone has to investigate."

"Someone has to keep you alive long enough to regret investigating."

Rin smiled faintly.

Their familiar argument eased the tension, but it could not erase the uneasiness settling over the courtyard.

The place felt wrong.

Not merely abandoned, but forgotten deliberately, as though someone had taken great care to remove it from the world and then buried every trace of its existence.

"Where are we?" Eryndor asked.

Rin looked at the fountain again.

"I think we’re somewhere Aelion remembers."

Inside his mind, Aelion stirred.

Not exactly.

Rin stiffened.

What does that mean?

This place existed before I remembered it. I only came here once.

When?

Aelion’s silence stretched so long that Rin almost thought the connection had broken.

Before Eryndor received the mark.

Rin looked toward his companion.

Eryndor was examining the white flowers growing beside the fountain. He had not heard the conversation. He knew nothing about the voice speaking privately inside Rin’s mind.

That secret was becoming harder to carry.

Rin wanted to tell Eryndor everything. He wanted to explain why he sometimes answered questions nobody had asked and why certain names seemed to frighten him.

But he could not reveal Aelion without risking the fragile truth they were trying to uncover.

What happened here? Rin asked.

Aelion answered reluctantly.

I came looking for a way to change his fate.

Rin’s gaze sharpened.

And did you find one?

I thought I did.

Before Rin could ask another question, the fountain began to tremble.

The dark substance rose from its basin, forming a thin ribbon that curled through the air. It stretched toward Eryndor’s marked wrist.

"Eryndor, move!"

Rin seized his arm and pulled him backward.

The ribbon struck the stones where Eryndor had been standing. Black veins spread across the courtyard, racing toward the flowers.

Every blossom closed.

Eryndor stared at the spreading darkness.

"What was that?"

"I was hoping you knew."

"I have never seen anything like it."

The black veins reached the fountain and climbed its sides. The substance inside began to rise, gathering into the shape of a person.

A woman emerged.

She wore a long white robe. Her hair fell straight down her back, and her face was hidden behind a thin silver veil.

Rin’s breath caught.

The woman from the garden.

The same figure who had watched the two children beneath the flowering tree.

Eryndor took an involuntary step backward.

"I remember her."

The woman tilted her head.

"Of course you do."

Her voice was gentle, almost affectionate. That made the words more unsettling, not less.

Eryndor’s hand moved toward his marked wrist.

"Who are you?"

The woman did not answer him.

Instead, she looked directly at Rin.

"You brought him here again."

Rin frowned. "Again?"

"You should not have returned."

"I’ve never been here before."

The woman’s veiled face remained turned toward him.

"Not you."

Rin felt the blood drain from his face.

Inside his mind, Aelion whispered a single word.

Mother.

Rin nearly forgot how to breathe.

The woman in white was not Aelion’s mother from House Valen. This was someone from a much older part of his existence, someone whose name carried a weight Aelion had never explained.

Rin forced himself to speak.

"Are you the person who marked Eryndor?"

The woman’s attention shifted toward Eryndor.

"No."

"Then why were you watching him?"

"Because I knew what he would become."

Eryndor’s expression hardened.

"You speak as if my life was decided before I could choose anything."

"It was."

"Then you know nothing about me."

The woman paused.

For the first time, something resembling sadness crossed her posture.

"You are right."

Eryndor seemed unprepared for the answer.

The woman continued, "I knew the possibilities written around you. I knew the power the Gods wanted you to carry. But I did not know what you would choose when given the chance."

Rin stepped between them slightly.

"Why are you telling us this?"

"Because the memory you saw was incomplete."

"We already know that."

"No." The woman lifted one hand. "You saw the moment Eryndor was taken. You saw Aelion protest. You saw the beginning of the mark. But you did not see the bargain."

The courtyard grew colder.

Rin remembered Aelion’s words.

I tried to save him. But I made the wrong choice.

"What bargain?" he asked.

The woman turned toward the fountain.

"Ask him."

Rin felt Aelion withdraw from his thoughts.

No.

You said you wanted to find the truth.

Not this way.

Then tell me another way.

Aelion did not answer.

The woman watched Rin with unnerving patience.

"You can hear him, can’t you?"

Rin froze.

Eryndor turned toward him. "Hear whom?"

Rin’s thoughts raced.

The woman could not be allowed to expose the truth. Not when Eryndor was already struggling to understand the fragments of his past.

"I was talking to myself," Rin said.

Eryndor looked unconvinced, but the woman laughed softly.

"You have always been a poor liar, Aelion."

The name struck Rin like a blow.

Eryndor stared at him.

For one terrible moment, Rin thought the secret had been exposed.

But the woman was not looking at Rin as though she had discovered his true identity. She was looking at him as though she recognized someone who had stood in this courtyard long before.

Eryndor slowly released Rin’s hand.

"Aelion?"

Rin turned toward him.

The question in Eryndor’s face was painful to witness. He had heard the name used before, but now it carried a new meaning. He was trying to connect the boy he remembered with the stranger standing beside him.

Rin forced himself to answer.

"You know who Aelion is."

"Of course I do. He is my closest friend."

"Then trust that I’m still trying to understand what happened to him."

Eryndor searched his face.

"Why does everyone keep speaking as if he is standing here?"

Rin had no answer he could safely give.

The woman in white raised her hand again.

The fountain split down the middle.

Beneath its dark surface lay a staircase descending into the earth. Each step was carved with a name, but the letters shifted whenever Rin tried to read them.

At the bottom, a faint golden light pulsed like a distant heartbeat.

"The bargain was made below," the woman said. "If you want to understand the mark, you must see what Aelion offered in exchange for Eryndor’s life."

Eryndor looked at the staircase.

"And if we refuse?"

"Then you may leave."

Rin blinked.

"That’s it?"

"Yes."

"You’re not going to trap us here or threaten to destroy the city?"

The woman tilted her head.

"Would that make you more comfortable?"

"No. I was just checking."

For a fleeting instant, Eryndor almost smiled.

Then the woman’s expression grew solemn again.

"But understand this: the memory below belongs to Aelion alone. He hid it so deeply that even the city could not preserve it completely. Once you enter, the memory may recognize you as an intruder."

Rin glanced at the staircase.

"What happens if it does?"

"It will try to remove you."

Eryndor frowned. "Remove him from where?"

"From the memory."

"And what does that mean?"

The woman’s voice became quieter.

"It means he may return to his own time without remembering anything he discovered here."

Rin’s stomach tightened.

He had not come this far to lose the answers he had found. More importantly, he could not abandon Eryndor in a place filled with memories capable of tearing themselves apart.

"I’m going down," Rin said.

Eryndor looked at him. "Naturally."

"You don’t have to come."

"That is a remarkably foolish thing to say."

"It might be dangerous."

"It already is."

"You could stay here and wait."

"And allow you to wander into another impossible situation without supervision? Absolutely not."

Rin sighed. "You really are stubborn."

"So I have been told."

Eryndor reached for his hand again.

This time, Rin took it without hesitation.

Together, they descended.

The staircase seemed much longer from within than it had appeared above. The air grew colder with every step, and the walls began to display scenes carved into their surfaces.

Rin saw Aelion standing before the Gods.

He saw Eryndor sleeping beneath a flowering tree.

He saw a silver ring resting in an open palm.

Then the carvings changed.

Aelion knelt before a vast, featureless presence. Golden threads extended from his body, reaching toward something hidden behind a veil of darkness.

Eryndor stopped.

"What is that?"

Rin stared at the carving.

"I don’t know."

Inside his mind, Aelion spoke again, his voice strained.

Rin, we need to turn back.

You said that already.

I didn’t understand what the memory would show you.

Then explain it now.

Aelion’s answer came in fragments.

The Gods told me Eryndor could survive the mark. They said there was a way to preserve him without destroying what made him himself.

Rin’s chest tightened.

And what did they ask for?

Something I believed I could give.

The staircase ended.

Before them stood a pair of enormous doors, black on one side and gold on the other. At their center was a carving of two children holding hands.

One wore white.

The other wore dark clothing, a black mark circling his wrist.

Beneath their feet, a sentence had been engraved in ancient script.

Rin could not read it, yet its meaning appeared in his mind as if someone had spoken directly to him.

ONE LIFE MAY BE SAVED. ONE FUTURE MUST BE SURRENDERED.

Eryndor read the words aloud, his voice unsteady.

"One life may be saved. One future must be surrendered."

He looked at Rin.

"What does that mean?"

Rin stared at the doors.

Inside his mind, Aelion was silent.

Then, very slowly, the golden half of the doors began to open.

A young Aelion stood on the other side.

He was alone, dressed in white, his hands trembling beneath a faint golden glow.

His face was wet with tears.

Before him stood the same veiled woman.

"You understand the terms?" she asked.

The young Aelion nodded.

"If I surrender my future, Eryndor will live?"

"He will live."

"And he will remain himself?"

The woman hesitated.

"He will have the opportunity to choose who he becomes."

Aelion closed his eyes.

For a moment, he looked like nothing more than a frightened boy trying to make a decision no child should ever have been asked to make.

"Then I agree."

Rin stepped forward instinctively.

"No!"

The memory did not hear him.

Young Aelion placed his glowing hand against the black half of the doors.

The golden light vanished from his palm.

At the same instant, the black mark appeared on Eryndor’s wrist.

The younger boy screamed.

Aelion collapsed.

The memory shattered.

Rin felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. Eryndor staggered backward, clutching his marked wrist as though the pain had returned across the years.

The veiled woman’s voice echoed through the collapsing chamber.

"He believed surrendering his future would save Eryndor’s."

Rin stared into the darkness where the memory had been.

"What actually happened?"

The woman appeared at the far end of the passage, her silver veil beginning to dissolve.

"He surrendered more than his future."

Rin’s heart pounded.

"What did he give away?"

The woman looked at him with something close to pity.

"He gave the Gods permission to decide what he was allowed to remember."

The walls cracked.

Eryndor reached for Rin, and Rin caught his hand.

Above them, somewhere beyond the buried city, a bell began to ring.

Aelion’s voice rose inside Rin’s mind, filled with horror.

Now you understand.

Rin shook his head.

"No. I understand what you offered. I still don’t understand why you think it was the wrong choice."

A long silence followed.

Then Aelion whispered the words Rin feared most.

Because the Gods kept their promise.

The bell rang again.

They saved Eryndor.

The passage collapsed around them, and a final fragment of golden light revealed Eryndor’s black mark spreading across his wrist.

But they made me the price.

And somewhere beneath the forgotten city, the memory began to scream.