Cira didn't sleep that night.
She sat in the low chair near the hearth, knees drawn to her chest, the fire's glow flickering over her skin. The blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders had long since slipped down, forgotten.
Elian still hadn't woken.
But the air around him had… changed.
It wasn't anything loud. No sudden burst of light, no magical wind, no thunderous awakening. Just a hum beneath the silence. A feeling in the bones. Like how the forest warned her before a storm. Subtle. Heavy. Unseen.
Outside, the trees shifted restlessly. The wind stirred—but only near the cottage.
Lumen stayed unusually quiet. He lay curled beside the door, ears twitching now and then, watching Elian with narrowed, starlit eyes.
Cira's thoughts circled endlessly.
Who was he?
How had he wandered so deep into the forest alone?
And why did the trees not fight him off?
They usually did.
The Everveil Forest was old—older than any map, older than the village, older even than the broken stone ruins scattered in the far northern cliffs. It didn't welcome strangers.
Yet Elian had been found.
Placed, even.
She rose before dawn, careful not to make a sound as she approached him. He was still as ever—his brow calm, breath steady now. He looked different in the firelight, less fragile, more… real.
Her eyes lingered on the shape of a mark beneath the edge of his collarbone. Just a glimpse—barely visible through a torn edge of his shirt.
A mark.
Not a bruise. Not a wound.
Something older.
Burned into his skin in an odd, silvery pattern like a spiral meeting a crescent moon.
Cira's breath caught.
She'd seen that symbol once before.
Long ago, carved into a tree deep in the forest's heart. A tree no one was allowed to touch.
She remembered standing before it, heart pounding, a strange wind brushing her face even though the air was still.
She had never told anyone—not even Lumen.
And now it was carved into him.
She stepped back quickly, pulse racing.
Before she could think, Elian's hand twitched.
His fingers clenched into the blanket, eyes fluttering beneath his lids. His chest rose deeper this time, then stilled.
Cira held her breath.
And then—
His eyes opened.
Dark. Sharp. Lost.[1]
But not empty.
He looked at her first. Not around. Not at the fire. Straight at her.
And said, voice rough as cracked stone:
"Don't trust them."
Then he blinked—like waking from a nightmare—and sat bolt upright, gasping for air.
Cira stumbled back, instinct kicking in.
Lumen leapt to his feet, tail bristling.
"Elian," she said, voice steady, cautious.
He didn't seem to hear her.
He stared at his hands. Then his surroundings. Then at the mark on his chest.
He didn't ask where he was.
He asked, in a voice barely audible:
"What day is it?"
__________________________________________________________________________________
"…What day is it?"
His voice cracked like frost underfoot—dry and uncertain.
Cira didn't answer right away.
She studied him instead. His posture—tense. His breath—shallow but evening out. He wasn't panicking, but something in his eyes looked hunted.
She took a cautious step forward, keeping her voice calm.
"It's the fourth day of Summerwane[2]," she said. "Midseason."
Elian blinked. He looked down at his hands, as if trying to feel the truth of time in his skin.
Then slowly—deliberately—he lifted his shirt just enough to expose the mark below his collarbone.
The spiral and crescent shimmered faintly in the firelight, silver-gray like ink pressed into flesh.
Cira's breath stilled, just for a second.
She had seen it before.
A single tree. Deep in the forest. No birds ever perched on it. No flowers grew near its roots. Its bark had been marked with that exact symbol—nearly swallowed by moss, but untouched by time.
She remembered standing before it, her fingertips inches away, the air colder than it should have been. She had thought about telling someone. She never did.
And now that same mark was carved into the skin of a boy with no memory.
But Cira said none of this.
Instead, she knelt slowly, careful not to startle him.
"That mark," she asked gently, "do you remember how you got it?"
Elian didn't answer at first. His brows knit together. He looked at it like it didn't belong to him.
"I don't know," he said finally. "It's always been there, I think. Or… it feels like it has."
He met her eyes then, and the flicker of fear in his gaze had shifted—just slightly—into confusion.
"Do you know what it is?" he asked.
Cira paused.
Lumen shifted behind her, but she didn't glance back.
"No," she said truthfully. "I've never seen anything like it before."
A half-lie.
She didn't know what it meant. But she had seen it. And right now, that was hers to carry.
Not his.
Not yet.
[1] his eyes are dark gray..
[2] In a fantasy world, you can use custom or slightly old-fashioned seasonal terms like:
Springtide – early spring
Highsun – peak of summer
Summerwane – end of summer
Frostfall – autumn
Deepwinter – midwinter