The air inside the dilapidated inn was thick with the scent of damp earth and stale woodsmoke, a welcome contrast to the biting cold of the city streets. Kael led Lyenne through a dimly lit hallway to a small, unassuming room at the back. It was spartan—a rough cot, a rickety table, and a single, shuttered window—but it offered the one thing Lyenne desperately needed: immediate refuge. He helped her onto the cot, her body trembling with exhaustion and pain. The intricate runes on her cloak, though now fainter, still pulsed with a quiet, persistent energy.
"Stay here," Kael instructed, his voice low. "I'll fetch some water and a cloth for your wound. And something to eat." He knew the rules of this particular safe house. Discreet, minimal questions, and absolute silence from its inhabitants. The landlord, a wizened old woman named Elara, was a master of turning a blind eye, as long as the coin was paid and the peace maintained.
As he moved towards the door, Lyenne's voice, a little stronger now, stopped him. "Kael."
He turned. Her eyes, less wild now, held a profound weariness, but also a sharp intelligence. "The Crown won't give up," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "They want the spell. They want what's inside me." She paused, her gaze dropping to her hand pressed against her side. "It's ancient. Older than Veridia itself. And it remembers everything. Every forgotten king, every buried war, every lost prophecy. It's why I know about you."
Kael felt a chill that had nothing to do with the inn's dampness. It remembers everything. That explained her uncanny knowledge of his curse. His own magic was about erasure, a void. Hers was about absolute retention, a living library of what the world had sought to forget. The implications were staggering. If she truly carried such a power, then the Crown's obsession made horrifying sense. They weren't just hunting a sorceress; they were hunting a walking history, a living repository of truths that could shatter their carefully constructed reign. He saw the enormity of her burden, the sheer weight of what she carried, and for a fleeting moment, his own solitude seemed less profound in comparison.
Kael felt the full weight of Lyenne's words. A living library of truths that could shatter their carefully constructed reign. He, who had always erased the inconvenient, was now sheltering the very embodiment of inconvenient truth. It was a dangerous irony. He saw the enormity of her burden, the sheer weight of what she carried, and for a fleeting moment, his own solitude seemed less profound in comparison. His curse made him forgotten; hers made her a target for everything that wanted to stay hidden.
He knelt beside the cot, reaching for the water pitcher and a clean strip of linen from the small, dusty cupboard. His movements were precise, methodical, masking the sudden surge of responsibility he felt. "The Crown won't rest," he acknowledged, his voice quiet. "If they know what you carry, they'll turn the city inside out." He cleaned her wound with careful, gentle strokes, the glowing runes on her cloak flickering under his touch, a silent testament to the extraordinary power coiled within her. He was intimately familiar with the fear of being hunted, but for Lyenne, it was exponentially worse.
"They want to control it," Lyenne continued, her eyes now closed, a grimace of pain twisting her features as he worked. "To rewrite history as they see fit. To erase anyone who stands in their way." Her words resonated deeply with Kael. Erasing was his power, but her magic was about preventing erasure, about remembering. It was a fundamental clash of forces, and Lyenne was caught squarely in the middle.
"We need to get you proper healing," Kael said, avoiding her gaze as he finished bandaging her side. "And then we need to move. This inn is only temporary. We'll need to leave Veridia." The thought of leaving the only city he'd ever known, the only place where his solitary existence had some semblance of routine, was daunting. But with Lyenne beside him, the very ground beneath his feet seemed to shift. He was no longer just a ghost drifting through life; he was a guardian, albeit an unlikely one, of truths he barely understood.
Lyenne opened her eyes, meeting his. "Where would we go?" she asked, her voice soft, but her gaze was sharp, assessing. "And why would you help me? You could just… forget me, like everyone else."
Kael paused, a flicker of something raw and exposed in his own eyes. "Because you remember," he said, the words heavy with an unspoken meaning. "And some things... some truths... shouldn't be forgotten." The silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant sounds of the city and the faint hum of ancient magic. For the first time, Kael didn't want to be invisible. He wanted to be seen, to be remembered, by the one person who could truly see him.