Page 89 of The First Scar
The baby laughed. Didn't understand the words. But his Soulbinder Mark kindled once, a crimson light that didn't fade. It expanded, bleeding out of the memory, twisting into a thread that hung in the air of our room. Answering the song like it recognized a perennial melody.
Eryndor.That baby wasEryndor.
The vision fractured again and shifted.
I knew this place.
A forest clearing, wild and green, sunlight streaming through the canopy. Girls in a circle—seven, maybe eight of them—their voices high and clear as they chanted. I was one of them. Small. Five years old, maybe six. Dancing with the others, barefoot in the moss, not knowing what the words meant. Just loving the rhythm. The power of it.
"Touch hand to heart and heart to hand."
Our voices braided together—the girls in the clearing, the nanny in the nursery, Eryndor alone in the ruins. Layering. Building. Threading across years, across lives.
"Mend the sky, and heal the land."
The sound swelled until it wasn't sound anymore. Until it was vibration, pressure, a weight against me that felt like the whole world leaning in to listen.
Then—light.
Blinding. Searing. Cracking the vision apart like glass.
I gasped back into my body, back into our quarters, Serenya's hand still pressed to my forehead. She was shaking. Her eyes were wide and glassed over.
"You saw it," she whispered. "You saw him. The same song. The same—"
"That doesn't mean anything." The words came out trembling with a defensiveness I couldn't quite hide. "It's a children's rhyme. Half the realm probably knows it."
"Amaria." Her voice splintered. "Hisnannysang it to him. Over hisBindingMark. The same words, the same melody, pressed to his heart just like the prophecy says—"
"Stop."
But she didn't stop. She snatched up her prophecy notes and pressed a finger to one of the symbols.
"It's the same. The same threading pattern, the same binding sequence. It's all in here." Her eyes were too bright. Too certain. "Let meshowyou."
She laid her palm flat against my Marks.
"Close your eyes."
"Serenya—"
"Trust me."
I closed my eyes.
The Memory-Weaving took hold—gentler this time, a soft current instead of a flood. And then I saw it.
My Marks. Hovering in the dark behind my eyelids, rendered in thread-light. The silver spiral of my Luminar. The ink-black slash of my Shadow. Both glowing, pulsing,familiar.
And then—a third shape. A red circle, weaving itself between them, binding them together. A new glyph. A symbol I'd never seen before.
My eyes snapped open.
"What the hell was that?"
Serenya was pale, her hand trembling where it still rested against me. "That's the prophecy symbol, Amaria. I've been staring at it for weeks, trying to understand what it meant." She pulled the parchment into my line of sight, pointing to a faded drawing. "Look. Your Light sigil. Your Shadow sigil. And a third ring, overlapping them both."
I looked.
