Velora had visited the eastern atrium hundreds of times.
Always in passing. Always with purpose.
But now she walked it with her hands behind her back, her steps slow.
Not searching. Not commanding.
Listening.
The air had weight here.
Not the chill of fear.
Not the warmth of memory.
Just a pressure. A hush.
Like a room that knew something important had been said — and was waiting to be heard again.
A new symbol had appeared that morning.
Folded inside a council ledger.
Drawn in black ink, its lines sharp and careful. A perfect Hollow Star, mirrored at the edges like it was unfolding in on itself.
Beneath it, someone had written a single word:
"Stay."
Velora ran her fingers over the parchment.
The ink wasn't fresh.
But the message was.
In the lower corner of the hall, someone had scribbled on the wall.
Low to the ground. Small enough to miss.
"If I go quietly, will she know I stayed?"
The words looked like they'd been written by someone sitting with their knees tucked up, back against the stone, whispering something they didn't think would ever be read.
Velora knelt beside them, fingertips just barely brushing the edge.
A name flickered in the back of her mind.
She couldn't quite catch it.
"I used to sit there too."
The voice behind her was quiet.
Unassuming.
Not afraid — but gentle, like someone returning to a room they weren't sure still remembered them.
She turned.
A man stood behind her. Lean. Pale. Modest. His coat was ash-gray, cuffs frayed.
Ink-stained fingertips.
Eyes dark and steady.
Velora blinked.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Do I know you?"
He didn't flinch.
Didn't seem surprised.
"No," he said. "But you used to."
"I archived rogue entries with you," he continued. "Sector Seven. Underlight Wing. You called me Arin."
The name was a blade.
It slid through the air and into her chest.
Velora blinked hard.
"I remember the name," she said. "I remember… I remember the way it sounded in my voice."
"But not me," he said quietly.
"No."
Arin nodded once.
He looked down at his hands.
"They said it would be cleaner if we didn't speak," he said. "When the first Rewrite came. But I… didn't let go."
Velora took a step closer.
"You stayed in the system?"
"I stayed near you."
"But I never saw you."
He smiled faintly.
"You saw me all the time. You just didn't know how to recognize me anymore."
The ache behind her ribs spread.
She remembered standing in this atrium after the Rebirth. Remembered reading off new names, assigning new clearance roles.
Arin had stood behind her then.
She hadn't seen him.
"I think I knew," she said, voice shaking. "I just didn't want to remember what I gave up."
He stepped forward, kneeling by the same wall where the message had been scribbled.
"It was mine," he admitted.
"I thought so."
"It wasn't a plea. Just… a question."
"Did I answer it?"
"You're here," he said. "That's enough."
They sat together for a while.
The candles flickered above. No words were spoken.
Then Velora asked, "Why didn't the Rewrite take you?"
He looked at her.
And for the first time, there was something fierce in his silence.
"I never let it in."
Back in her quarters, Velora placed the folded page beside the coin.
The Hollow Star stared up at her.
The lines felt different now.
Not divine.
Not prophetic.
Personal.
A mark someone she once loved had traced — alone, while she forgot him.
She lit a candle.
The flame bent sideways again.
The mirror across the room remained dark.
No reflection this time.
Just words forming in the steam across the surface.
"You remembered the coin.
But not the one who gave it to you."
That night, she dreamed.
Not of gods.
Not of war.
Not of blood.
But of sitting on the Archive floor, legs crossed, back against a pillar.
A boy beside her.
They didn't speak.
He passed her a coin.
She passed him a ring.
They laughed.
A kind of laugh no longer written into memory.
Then someone called her name.
And she stood.
The boy didn't follow.
She turned back once.
He waved.
"Stay," he said.
She didn't.
She woke up crying.