Thojin sat in silence, the dagger resting across his knees, its weight anchoring him more than its blade. Around him, the broken bones of Drellhok loomed in every direction—collapsed pillars, twisted iron, stone blackened by centuries of sorrow. But he saw none of it.
His mind was somewhere else. Somewhere far below the ash.
He remembered her hands first. Callused from hours gripping steel, always warm. She had taught him how to wrap his fingers properly around a hilt—tight, but never rigid. "The blade is alive," she would say. "It needs breath to move."
They'd trained in secret after lights-out, in the narrow crawlspace behind the water vents. No one went there. It stank of rust and fungus, but they made it their place. She carved practice sigils into the walls with the edge of her dagger, teaching him what little she'd gleaned from their father before he vanished.
He remembered how she laughed when he first blocked one of her attacks. Not a mocking laugh—one of pride. She had clapped his shoulder, breathless, and said, "Now you're worth teaching."
Their bond was forged in whispers and bruises, in rebellion shaped not by speeches but by survival.
Most others in the dormitory forgot their parents early. Not them. Their mother's voice had stayed in their heads long after she was gone—serene, but with a fire beneath. She used to whisper old names into their ears, names from before the dark, and made them repeat them until they fell asleep before bedtime.
Their father had walked with the straight spine of a man who refused to bow. Even when the Sentinels dragged him away, he didn't plead. He looked at them one last time and simply nodded. As if passing something down without words.
Seren never spoke about it. But that night, she sharpened her dagger until the whetstone cracked in half.
Thojin exhaled slowly. He ran his fingers along the dagger again, tracing the edge where her grip had worn it smoothly. He remembered the scar she had, the one she never explained. He had asked once. She'd only replied: "Some things you don't block. You learn from them."
In the dark nights, when the air stank of burning oil and the screams echoed through the vents, they had huddled back-to-back under the old grating. She always kept one hand on the blade, the other near him. He pretended not to notice, but it mattered more than she knew.
He remembered the way she looked at the sky. Rare moments, between patrols and hunger, she'd glance upward and say, "It used to be clean." He had no idea how she knew. Maybe it was something she read. Or maybe… maybe it was blood memory.
And now she was gone.
Not a body to bury. No grave to speak to. Just the mark on his arm, and this dagger—the only piece of her that hadn't faded.
He brought the blade up and rested it against his brow.
"You saw further than any of us," he whispered. "You fought like the world still had worth. I didn't understand it then. I think I do now."
His voice trembled, but he didn't stop.
"I don't know what this mark means. But I won't forget. I won't stop moving."
A breeze stirred the ash. Somewhere distant, a rusted bell rang—a broken chime. The kind no one tended anymore.
He stood. Slowly. Every joint protested, but the pain felt earned.
The dagger went back into its sheath—tight against his chest, where it had always belonged.
He looked at the edges of the ruined sector. He had never crossed beyond. That was where the old stone ended. Where the unknown began.
But Seren would've gone without hesitation.
So, he would too.
Thojin didn't leave the ruins immediately.
Instead, he found shelter in the hollow of a collapsed storage vault — long abandoned, half-swallowed by moss and stone. For the first time in days, he let his body rest. But his mind did not.
He couldn't stop staring at the mark on his arm.
He hadn't carved the shape at random. It had come to him in the moment, pulled from grief — but now he began to wonder. Had he seen it before? In one of their father's old sketches? In the rebel glyphs Seren had studied?
He didn't know what it meant. But he knew one thing: it wasn't finished.
And he had to follow it.
By nightfall, he began gathering what little he could. Torn cloth for bandages. A cracked waterskin from a half-buried rebel cache. Rusted flint. Broken coins. He bound his ribs with fabric, tucked Seren's dagger tight beneath his belt, and cut a strip of leather to tie around his left forearm — covering the mark, but keeping it close.
Every scavenged item felt sacred. Like a piece of her.
When he stood again, the city felt different.
Not safer.
But smaller.
Like it no longer held his place.
He looked to the far distance — where the tiered streets bent into shadow, and beyond that, into forgotten sectors no one dared cross. Places erased from the ration maps. Places where truth, or madness, might still hide.
He wasn't sure which he hoped to find.
But he would go.
Not because he had answers.
But because the questions were all he had left.