The air in Lirael's chamber shifted the moment the Unmarked's hand touched Aarinen's shoulder.Not with magic.Not with force.With a quiet certainty that made the walls feel narrower and the world outside feel farther away.
Rafi pressed himself against the stone as if hoping to melt into it. "S-saevel, is this… safe?"
Saevel did not answer.Her hand hovered near her dagger, uncertain whether to defend Aarinen or stay still for her own survival.
Lirael, eyes lowered but attentive, whispered, "Do not interrupt. No matter what you see."
Torren grunted. "I wasn't planning to."
But even he watched with uncharacteristic silence.
Aarinen felt the Unmarked's hand—steady, unhurried, unbearably familiar. Like a touch he'd tried to forget. Like an echo from childhood that had never belonged to his childhood.
The Unmarked leaned slightly forward."Step," he said.
Aarinen stepped.
Not by will.By instinct.
The room darkened.
Lirael whispered sharply, "He's opening a veil—brace yourselves."
The shop vanished.
Not violently.Not abruptly.
It simply folded away, the way a memory folds behind another.
A Place Between Worlds
Aarinen blinked.
He stood not in Lirael's chamber but at the top of a barren crest—rock and dust stretching beneath a bruised sky.A horizon washed in the fading light of a sun that seemed both near and impossibly far.
Rafi's voice cracked behind him. "Where—where are we?!"
Saevel staggered as the ground shifted under her boots. "This isn't Karathra."
Lirael's eyes narrowed. "It is a memory-space. A place carved from thought."
Torren swore softly. "Of course it is. Why not tear open reality today, too?"
The Unmarked stood still, face turned toward the distant horizon.His posture carried a quiet resignation, as though he'd stood here before.Many times.
Aarinen stepped beside him."What is this place?"
The Unmarked answered without looking at him."A crossroads."
Rafi gulped. "W-what kind of crossroads?"
"The kind where decisions reshape more than the person who makes them."
Saevel swept her gaze around the barren ridge. "You brought us into a broken world?"
"No," the Unmarked said quietly. "I brought you into mine."
Aarinen felt the wind shift—if it was wind at all.Something brushed past him like the breath of a forgotten truth.
He asked, "Is this your memory?"
"Part of it."
"And the rest?"
The Unmarked finally turned.
"The rest," he said, "is a lesson."
He raised a hand toward the horizon.
A ripple pulsed through the air—like a line drawn across reality.
The sun stuttered.The sky fractured into shades of orange and violet.The ridge beneath them split into two streams of terrain, each diverging in opposite directions.
One path darkened.The other brightened.
Rafi yelped. "It's—breaking! The ground is breaking!"
Torren slapped a hand over his heart. "This is why I don't leave my shop."
Lirael stared without blinking. "He's showing us choice."
Saevel frowned. "Choice?"
The Unmarked nodded toward the brightening path."A path of obedience."
Then toward the darkening one."And a path of defiance."
Aarinen looked from one to the other, then back at the Unmarked."You walk the darker."
"Yes."
"And failed."
The Unmarked did not flinch."Yes."
Rafi whispered, "Maybe we should all go home."
Saevel gave him a sharp look. "This is home now."
Rafi whimpered.
Aarinen stepped forward, studying the diverging paths.
"Why show me this?"
"Because," the Unmarked said, "fate has already reached for you. You must understand what it asks—and what it fears."
Aarinen frowned. "Fate fears?"
"Yes."
"What?"
The Unmarked's eyes softened, almost imperceptibly.
"Choice."
Aarinen blinked. "I don't understand."
"You will."
The Unmarked approached the darker path and knelt, pressing his fingers to the fractured stone.
A vision flared—brief, sharp, like a flash of lightning behind closed eyes.
A younger version of him.Scar unformed.Eyes more alive.
Walking alone.
Always alone.
Aarinen inhaled sharply."You walked that path."
The Unmarked nodded. "I believed resistance would break fate. I believed defiance was strength."
"And it wasn't?"
"It was," the Unmarked said."It just wasn't enough."
Saevel stepped beside Aarinen. "Enough for what?"
"For shattering the Weave."
Lirael's breath caught."You attempted to tear the Weave?"
Rafi squeaked, "What is the Weave?!"
Torren muttered, "Everything that holds reality together."
The Unmarked stood again. His shadow—long, impossible—fell across both paths.
"I failed to break it. I only tore it."
Aarinen tensed. "You created the Tear."
The Unmarked nodded.
Saevel whispered, "The Tear is why the Orders formed."
Lirael added, "Why beasts shift with fate. Why memory sometimes bends. Why the Root grows restless."
Torren kicked a rock. "So this man is responsible for every major disaster in the last fifty years. Excellent."
The Unmarked did not defend himself.
He simply looked at Aarinen.
"You will face the same crossroads."
Aarinen met his gaze. "I will not choose either path blindly."
"That is why you are here."
Rafi raised a trembling hand. "S-sorry to interrupt the world-shaking prophecy lesson, but why are we here? Couldn't this have been a private tutoring session?"
The Unmarked turned toward him.
Rafi fainted on the spot.
Saevel sighed. "That answers that."
The Edge of Memory
The Unmarked motioned Aarinen forward.
"Walk."
Aarinen stepped toward the darker path.
But before his foot touched it, he felt a pull—like cord unraveling inside his chest.
Visions flickered:
A dying man in the forest, whispering a name written before Aarinen's birth.The Root's roots twisting around his fears.A face he had tried not to remember.A mother's laughter carried on distant wind.
Aarinen staggered.
The Unmarked caught his arm.
"Steady."
Aarinen breathed. "This place… it's alive."
"It listens."
"To what?"
"To you."
Aarinen steadied himself and looked up.
The horizon shifted.Images shimmered inside the sky—like reflections trapped in the wrong surface.
A boy with ash-dark hair.A girl with bright blue eyes running along a riverbank.A woman with a necklace shaped like the sun.A masked figure standing beneath a dying tree.
Aarinen whispered, "Who are they?"
The Unmarked answered, "Possibilities."
"Of what?"
"Of your past."
Aarinen tensed."My past is gone."
The Unmarked shook his head. "Only hidden."
Saevel stepped closer, cautious. "Hidden by the Root?"
"No."
Lirael inhaled sharply. "By someone else."
The Unmarked did not elaborate.
Aarinen clenched his jaw. "Why hide my past?"
"Because knowing it too soon would have broken you."
Aarinen took a long breath."Is that why you came to me?"
"No."
Aarinen frowned. "Then why?"
The Unmarked straightened."To return what I took."
The air stilled.
Even the fractured sky paused.
Aarinen's heart stuttered."You took something from me."
"Yes."
"What?"
The Unmarked's eyes—those pale, steady eyes—held the answer.
"Your fear."
Aarinen blinked. "My… what?"
"When you were a child," the Unmarked said, "fate reached for you prematurely. It would have devoured you. I intervened. I removed the fear that would have consumed your mind."
Aarinen stepped back."You—removed it?"
"Yes."
"And put what in its place?"
"Laughter."
The wind seemed to hold its breath.
Aarinen felt the ground tilt beneath him.
"You made me laugh at pain."
"No," the Unmarked said."I gave your fear somewhere to go."
Saevel whispered, "Aarinen…"
But Aarinen did not hear her.
He stared at the Unmarked, breath tight in his chest.
"You did that to me?"
"Yes."
"You changed who I am."
"I saved who you are."
Aarinen's hands curled into fists."Why didn't you tell me?"
"You were a child," the Unmarked said softly."And I was not meant to be part of your life."
Aarinen's voice turned hollow. "But you were."
The Unmarked's silence answered.
Aarinen stepped closer, anger and confusion and recognition twisting inside him.
"You took my fear to save me. And now you return to give me a choice."
"Yes."
Aarinen swallowed hard."Why me?"
The Unmarked met his gaze without hesitation.
"Because the world bends around those who walk alone."
The words struck Aarinen like a blow.
His mother's voice had said those same words.Exactly.Softly.Once.
Aarinen's eyes widened."You knew her."
The Unmarked did not answer.
He did not need to.
Aarinen's heartbeat roared in his ears.
"Tell me."
The Unmarked closed his eyes.For the first time, his voice carried weight—real weight, not certainty.
"She saved my life," he said quietly."And I failed to save hers."
The world held its breath.
Aarinen felt it—not understanding fully, but feeling the shape of truth.
The Unmarked added, "You deserved to grow without her shadow. Without mine."
Aarinen whispered, "But I grew with it anyway."
The Unmarked opened his eyes—filled with an old grief.
"Yes."
Aarinen took one long breath.
"Teach me."
The Unmarked nodded once.
"Then stand."
Aarinen did.
The sky rippled.
The ridge shook.
And the memory-world shifted to reveal something deeper:
A boundless field of threads—glowing, twisting, intersecting like veins of light.
The Weave.
Rafi stirred awake, blinked at the sight, and immediately fainted again.
Saevel whispered, "That's fate."
Lirael nodded. "In its raw form."
Aarinen felt the pull—gentle, but inevitable.
"What now?" he whispered.
The Unmarked stepped beside him.
"Now," he said, "you learn how to walk against a world that insists you follow its path."
Aarinen inhaled sharply.The threads shivered in response.
And the Unmarked—once a stranger, once a shadow, once a memory—began to teach him.
Because the world had begun to turn.
And Aarinen was standing in its center.