The door closed behind him, soundless but final.
Auren stood in the center of his chamber, unmoving. The room felt colder than it should've. Or maybe he'd brought the cold in with him.
He hadn't taken off his cloak. It still hung from his shoulders, weighted like damp cloth—even though there was no water, no wind, no rain.
Only weight.
He didn't understand what he had done.
Not exactly.
But he knew the moment hadn't belonged to him.
The girl, Serai, they had called her nothing. A spectacle. A warning. A token of power for his father's court to admire and discard.
But when she looked at him, something else had broken open.
A thread had pulled tight.
And he—without moving,—had reached into her past and brought something forward.
Not power. Not memory. Emotion.
Hope.
Auren exhaled slowly. His breath fogged. That wasn't normal.
He stepped to the mirror across the room. The reflection met him the way it always did—too calm, too pale, too clean.
But his eyes—
They weren't right.
For a second, they weren't his. They were hers. Or… they carried something of hers.
He looked away.
His fingers twitched once, then locked behind his back.
He still felt it in his ribs. Not pain. Something else.
Warmth, Something Familiar. A moment of love not his own. His chest clenched like a string had been tied between bones and pulled just tight enough to notice but not break.
He did not mean to do it.
But it had happened.
The emotion still echoed inside him like a bell struck too softly to fade.
"Impressive," a voice drawled from the chair by the fire.
Auren didn't jump. But his spine straightened. He hadn't heard the door open. He hadn't heard the footsteps.
Of course not, The Wazir sat with one leg crossed over the other, swirling a small, steaming cup that hadn't been there a moment ago.
He smiled like a man who had been waiting a long time to be asked something.
"You reached inside her," the Wazir said, "and found the one thing she'd buried so deep she forgot it ever existed."
"I didn't mean to," Auren said. His voice was low, Controlled, Honest.
"That's the worst kind of power," the Wazir replied. "The kind that doesn't ask."
Auren turned away from the firelight, from the tea, from the stare.
"I felt it too."
"Of course you did. Every thread is two-way. Tug hard enough on someone's past, and their past tugs back."
Silence.
Then—
"What did I really do?"
The Wazir leaned forward, hands clasped, voice quiet but gleaming.
"You gave her a memory she wasn't ready to relive. A memory from when she was safe. Loved. Real. You gave her hope in a world that only speaks in commands."
Auren didn't move. But the muscle in his jaw tightened.
"Will she remember it?" he asked.
"Oh yes," the Wazir said. "She just won't know why."