Kael dreamed of her laugh.
Not the way it was.
Not how she used to tilt her head and bite her bottom lip when she was trying not to smile too wide.
No.
This laugh was wrong.
Too slow. Too clean. Like it had been recorded, cut apart, and stitched back together by something that didn't understand humans.
He woke gasping.
Dario sat across from him in the dim hotel room, shirt off, cigarette burning to the filter, pistol in his lap.
"Another one?" he asked.
Kael nodded.
"They're not just dreams anymore."
Dario looked at him. Quiet. Heavy.
"Is she in them?"
Kael hesitated.
"She is them."
The curse wasn't just in his blood.
It was rewriting his memories.
Twisting old moments like broken film reels.
Last night, he swore he remembered Aria trying to stab him in bed.
But that never happened.
Or… it didn't used to.
He couldn't tell anymore.
That's what the witch promised her: revenge through forgetting.
But it wasn't just Kael forgetting Aria.
It was Kael forgetting himself.
Elsewhere — The Witch's Den
Aria sat in a basin of melted candle wax and crushed salt.
Naked. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
Salvara whispered into her skull, not with words — with scenes.
Kael alone.
Kael angry.
Kael holding Dario too tightly. Too long.
Kael choosing someone who wasn't her.
"Why are you showing me this?" Aria whispered.
"You asked to feel nothing," the witch said. "But anger is still feeling. Let me carve out the rest."
"I don't want to forget him."
"You won't. You'll just remember him wrong."
A blade of obsidian hovered above her chest.
The witch grinned.
"I'm giving you the power to break their bond."
Aria's eyes opened.
"I don't want to break it."
"I know."
Then she drove the knife into Aria's shadow.
Back in Mortano — early morning
Kael stood over a butchered body hanging in front of a courthouse.
Dario joined him, coffee in one hand, gun in the other.
The body wasn't someone they knew.
But the sigil painted on the chest was unmistakable:
A knife through a heart.
And in the blood, a name:
KAEL.
"She's sending you fanmail," Dario said.
Kael didn't flinch.
"She's unraveling."
"Maybe."
Dario looked at the body again.
"Or maybe this is exactly what she wants us to think."
Kael ran a hand through his hair. "She's bleeding into everything. Every whisper, every move, every fucking breath—"
"—starts to feel like her," Dario finished. "I know."
Kael looked at him, eyes flickering.
And then, without planning it, without logic, he kissed him.
It wasn't soft.
It was brutal.
A memory-lashing, breath-stealing kind of kiss.
Dario didn't pull away.
But when it broke, he whispered:
"You're not kissing me. You're kissing the hole she left."
Kael's voice cracked.
"Maybe. But it still burns."
Elsewhere — Aria's vision
She saw it.
The kiss.
She saw them from a distance her body couldn't cross — her soul curled in pain inside the witch's fire.
Her heart stopped.
Then shattered again.
Salvara whispered:
"Now you understand why he must be forgotten."
———Where Her Voice Lingers
Kael and Dario enter an abandoned church. rumored to house a black market spell reader. They need answers about how deep the curse goes.
They find more than that.
They find her voice.
Aria isn't there.
But her voice is etched into the walls.
A spell, a loop, a warning.
"Kael.
You let me burn.
Now I burn through you.
Come find me. Or forget me.
Either way…
you will not survive me."
Kael falls to his knees.
And for the first time since coming back—
He cries.
Not from guilt.
Not from grief.
But because for a split second…
He doesn't remember what her face looked like.
Underground tunnels — one hour later
Mortano had always had secrets, but some were older than the mafia. Older than the bloodlines.
Dario led Kael through an iron hatch hidden beneath an old pawn shop, down a staircase slick with moss and grime.
"Where are we?" Kael asked, voice echoing.
Dario didn't look back. "One of the places they used to hide witches. Before they started making deals with them."
Kael ran his fingers along the wall. Symbols burned into stone — protection, binding, memory loss.
They passed empty cells. Chains still bolted into the ground. Dried stains no one had ever bothered to clean.
"I used to think this place was myth," Kael muttered.
Dario paused at a rusted door. "Myths are just memories the city got too scared to keep."
He opened the door.
Inside was a boy.
No older than twenty. Pale. Thin. But his eyes were completely black. Not like ink. Like hunger.
"This is Rune," Dario said. "Half-witch. Born from a blood curse during a raid in Hollow's End."
Rune smiled without warmth.
"You're the drowned one."
Kael stiffened. "I was."
Rune tilted his head. "Not anymore."
Kael stepped closer. "We need to know how deep the spell goes."
Rune sniffed the air.
"It's not just a spell. It's woven. Threaded into you like veins."
He placed one palm against Kael's chest.
Kael flinched.
Then gasped.
Because suddenly—
He remembered Aria's laugh. The real one.
He remembered her singing off-key in the shower.
Her fingers tracing his scars like they were poetry.
Her voice when she first told him, "If you leave me, don't die. I want to kill you myself."
He stumbled back, hand on the wall, breathing hard.
Rune pulled away, trembling slightly. "The witch is clever. She didn't erase her. She buried her under false memories. And every time you touch the wrong one—something of you dies."
Kael's mouth was dry. "Can you fix it?"
Rune's smile returned. "Do you want to fix it?"
Dario's hand hovered near his gun. "Don't play games."
But Kael didn't flinch.
"I want to remember her. The real her. Not the weapon she's become."
Rune's grin sharpened.
"Then bleed for it."
Elsewhere — Aria's firelit chamber
She was carving another name into the floor with a dagger of bone.
Her hand didn't tremble.
Behind her, Salvara wove smoke into maps.
"Kael is seeking memories," the witch said.
"I know," Aria replied.
"He's trying to remember who you were."
"I know."
Salvara watched her.
"Do you want him to?"
Aria paused. "No."
Salvara stepped closer.
"Then let me finish the spell. Let me cut the root."
Aria's eyes glistened. "What if there's a part of me that still loves him?"
The witch reached down and touched her chest.
"Then I'll cut that out, too."
Aria closed her eyes.
"Do it."
Mortano's north quarter — a bar with no name
Kael and Dario sat in the back booth, Rune beside them, a silver bowl in front of him filled with blood and wine and the ash of Kael's old prison clothes.
Rune's hand moved in small circles, muttering words older than the city.
Kael gritted his teeth.
Pain throbbed behind his eyes. Inside his ribs. His memories shifted — like books torn from a shelf and thrown back in the wrong order.
Then—
A moment surfaced.
Clear. Untouched.
Aria, barefoot in the kitchen, spinning in an oversized shirt.
Laughing.
Kael's voice in the background, teasing her about burning toast.
He gasped.
Dario leaned in. "What did you see?"
Kael's voice cracked. "Her. Before the war. Before the blood."
Rune opened his eyes.
"I pulled up one real memory. But if we go further… it'll hurt worse. And she'll feel it. Wherever she is."
Kael wiped a tear off his cheek.
"I want all of it."
Dario looked at him for a long time.
Then said, quietly, "Even if it breaks you?"
Kael nodded.
"Especially then."
Later — rooftop overlooking the city
The sky burned with a thousand streetlights. Mortano pulsed beneath them like a beast that never stopped breathing.
Kael smoked in silence. Dario stood beside him.
"You ever wonder what we'd be if this city didn't make us into monsters?" Kael asked.
Dario shrugged. "No. Because this city did. And there's no 'us' without the scars."
Kael nodded. "I remembered something tonight."
Dario turned.
"She used to say I was her safe place."
Dario lit his cigarette. "Now you're her target."
Kael exhaled slowly.
"Maybe that's fair."
Dario's voice was quiet.
"You're still mine."
Kael looked over, startled.
And for a moment, it wasn't about Aria.
It was about them.
And the space between them — no longer wide enough for regret to hide in.
— Aria's chamber, nightfall
The witch stood over her, knife raised.
"This is the last piece," Salvara said. "The one where you told him you'd never leave."
Aria bit her lip.
Tears ran hot down her cheeks.
"Do it," she whispered.
The witch hesitated.
Then carved the spell.
And just like that—
That promise was gone.
Erased.
Replaced by fire.
A hidden cathedral — South Mortano, 3:47 a.m.
Kael and Dario moved like shadows through the abandoned cathedral, their boots echoing softly against the marble. What was once a sacred place had become something else. Broken pews. Shattered stained glass. Symbols scorched into the pulpit.
The last known location of someone they thought long-dead:Brother Malek.
One of the oldest spellbinders in Mortano.
The only man who'd ever broken a witch's curse without dying.
"Why are we here again?" Dario asked, blade in hand.
Kael kept moving. "Because I can feel her inside my skin now. Like she's learning to breathe through my memories."
They reached the altar.
Blood was smeared across it—fresh.
Not human.
Animal. Maybe.
Then a voice behind them.
"Some things weren't meant to be pulled back into the light."
They turned, guns already drawn.
A man stepped from behind the ruined confessional. Cloaked. Hooded. But his voice was iron wrapped in regret.
"Kael," he said. "You were supposed to stay buried."
Kael didn't lower the gun. "And yet here I am."
Malek pushed his hood back. His eyes were burned-out sockets glowing faintly with sigils. His face was cracked like old stone.
"You brought the curse back with you."
Kael nodded. "She gave it to me. Now I want to tear it out."
Malek's expression twisted. "You don't tear out something you've bonded with. You unravel. You bleed. And when you're done—there may not be anything left of you."
Kael's voice didn't waver. "Then show me how."
Elsewhere — Hollow Valley
Aria stood over a circle of graves. Unmarked. Cold. Forgotten.
She didn't remember the names.
Because she'd given them away.
"Are you happy?" Salvara asked.
"No."
"Are you stronger?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you trembling?"
Aria stared at her own hands.
"They were my friends. My family."
"Then let the memories die so they can rest."
"I loved them."
Salvara touched her cheek.
"You love what they were. Not what they became."
Aria said nothing.
But her eyes stayed fixed on the dirt.
And in the wind, Kael's voice whispered her name.
She screamed—and the graves caught fire.
Mortano's under-bridge black market — same night
Dario leaned on a rusted railing, waiting while Kael bled into a silver bowl behind the cathedral's ruins.
He lit a cigarette. Tried not to think of the kiss. Or the way Kael still smelled like gunpowder and longing.
A man stepped up beside him.
Younger. Tall. Dressed in Cazetti black.
"You're Dario," he said.
Dario didn't look over. "You're not from around here."
"No," the boy said. "But I have something for you."
He held out a small box.
Dario opened it carefully.
Inside: a bullet.
But not just any bullet.
Hand-forged.
Etched with Aria's old family crest.
And Kael's name.
The boy smiled. "She said if he won't come to her, she'll carve her way back through you."
Dario looked at the bullet.
Then shoved the boy off the bridge.
No scream.
Just splash.
Then silence.
Kael emerged moments later, pale and shaking.
"She's pushing harder," he said.
Dario handed him the bullet.
Kael stared at it for a long time.
Then said softly:
"She's not hunting us. She's warning us."
Elsewhere — The Church of Hollow Flame
Aria kneeled in front of a massive altar of bone and fire.
Dozens of witches surrounded her, humming low, threading her skin with smoke-runes. They were forging her final weapon:
The Knife of Remembrance.
A blade that cuts not just flesh… but history.
Once forged, she could erase Kael from more than just her heart.
She could erase him from Mortano.
Salvara whispered:
"Say the word, and he'll be nothing but blood and myth."
Aria's fingers curled around the half-formed blade.
But she hesitated.
And for one aching second—
She remembered his voice in the dark.
"Don't die for me. Live for something that hurts less."
She flinched.
The spell snapped.
Salvara screamed.
Fire exploded outward—but Aria was already gone.
— Cemetery of No Names
Kael stood over a grave with no headstone.
Just black earth.
He dropped the bullet on it.
Dario waited behind him.
"She's not going to stop," he said.
Kael nodded. "Neither are we."
"She's going to make you choose."
Kael turned.
"I already did."
Dario's brow lifted. "And?"
Kael's voice was low. Raw.
"I'll bleed for both of you. But only one of you gets to walk away."