The room was dark again, but this time it was not a dream.
He sat on the cold stone slab they called a bed, chains dangling from his wrists like the memory of control — rune-stamped steel etched with heatless sigils. The metal bit lightly into his skin, yet it felt almost ceremonial, a reminder that even iron feared proximity. His ankles were shackled, loose, indifferent. As though the steel itself had been trained to wait.
The mark on his chest pulsed gently. Not in hunger. Not in pain. Not in warning. But in memory. Something ancient, like a faint heartbeat echoing through veins that were not entirely his own.
The silence of the Isolation Wing was not empty. It waited. It breathed. It pressed against the edges of thought and reason, reminding him that even absence has weight.
Then the lock turned.
A shriek of iron. A groan like a buried god awakening from centuries of forgetfulness.
The door swung open, torchlight stabbing into darkness like blades of pale fire. Two guards stepped through, expressionless, measured, their eyes averted. No words. No commands. No curses. Just mechanical duty. Their hands gripped his arms, firm but distant, as though handling a blade they did not understand.
Chains clinked, steel scraped across skin. He was hauled upright, shoulders biting against the cold metal. The tunnels stretched before them — but this time, not down to the pits. Not to trials of flame, shadow, or blood. The scent was different. No iron, no rot, no heat. Only stone. Old stone. Buried roots. Secrets that had survived the fall of sunlight and the rot of men.
He expected another test. Another pit. Another silent trial. But the chamber that awaited him at the end of the corridor was… different.
Circular. Open. Endless in its quiet. In the center stood a post — simple, unadorned, yet impossible to ignore. Across from it, already waiting, was her.
The beastkin.
White-silver hair coiled in a knot behind her ear. Eyes like wildfire frozen mid-burn. Her posture was perfect — relaxed, yet impossible to mistake for casual. Every movement hinted at coiled potential energy, the spring beneath the silk.
She was not chained. She was not bound.
Rei stopped walking. That small fact fractured expectation, broke preconceptions. The guards did not acknowledge his pause. They chained him to the post, and without ceremony, left. The door slammed. Silence returned.
It did not soothe. It waited.
"You're still breathing," she said.
Her voice was low, dry, a blade sheathed in snow.
He exhaled. A laugh, but not a laugh. A sound of survival.
"I get that a lot lately," he said.
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing like shards of sunlight caught in frost. "Do you remember anything?"
He shifted against the iron, throat raw. The mark pulsed in response, soft, steady.
"…Flashes," he murmured. "Neon signs. Rain on pavement. A vending machine. Curry bread."
A single blink from her. "Strange memories to die with," she said.
He looked down. "I don't think I died," he whispered. "I think I… slipped."
The air thickened. Frost seemed to bloom in the corners of the room. She remained silent. Then:
"I'm Kaia," she said.
He raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"My name," she repeated, slower, deliberate. "Kaia. Daughter of Nhal'Tara. Last blood of the Frostfang Clan."
There was no flourish, no pride. Just weight. A name pronounced as a promise against forgetting.
Kaia. Not beastkin. Not a number. Not a prisoner. A name with edges sharp enough to cut memory and leave scent. Mountain wind. Moonlit pine. Bloodline.
"…And you?" she asked.
The chains felt heavier than before. The mark beneath his ribs pulsed — not hot, not cold, just alive. He closed his eyes.
Memory came unbidden. Rain hammering glass. A 24-hour konbini glowing in neon light. A cracked stool. A tired boy in a threadbare hoodie. Pork bun half-eaten, steam rising. A cheap game, flickering, warmth in his hands. Tokyo, outside, roaring with light and life. And inside him? Solitude.
"…Rei," he whispered.
The name barely escaped his lips, yet it anchored him. He opened his eyes. Frosty breath fogged the air.
"I think… I'm Rei," he said.
Kaia's ears twitched. "Just Rei?"
He gave a faint smile. "That's all I remember."
Before either could adjust to this fragile truce, the door opened again.
The air shifted. Not warmth. Not chill. Absence of permission.
Overseer Malrec entered. He did not need height, armor, or gold to carry menace; silence alone wrapped around him like a blade. He smelled of old paper, dying stars, and ink drained dry by centuries of truth.
He did not look directly at them. He measured them instead.
"The monster speaks," he said, voice soft, surgical. "The exile listens. How quaint."
Neither moved.
He paced slowly, boots never touching runes, hands folded behind him. "You are both anomalies. Fractures. Wounds in the tapestry of this world."
His gaze slid to Rei. "But only one of you bleeds in colors I have never charted."
Then to Kaia. Longer. Slower. "Bloodlines are curious things. Especially when they echo."
Kaia's teeth bared — not a snarl, but enough to shift the air, to make presence physical.
"You'll regret this," she said.
Malrec tilted his head, a faint smile ghosting over his face, as though recalling a joke long buried with corpses.
"I already regret not crushing you when your Grove still stood."
Rei flinched. Kaia did not.
He turned to leave, satisfaction in measured steps.
But Rei's voice cut through the space between life and stone, quiet, unwavering.
"Whatever comes…"
A pause.
"…we face it together."
Kaia did not answer. She did not need to. Her golden eyes never left his — and this time, they would not.
The door closed. Chains rattled softly in the emptiness. Frost bloomed and faded along the iron seams.
The Isolation Wing remained, patient, watching, waiting.
Two names now breathed in unison beneath the pulse of violet light. The Riftborn, and the last daughter of frost and storm.
And somewhere deep below, Malrec's retreating steps hummed with anticipation, knowing the threads he could not yet untangle had begun to twist against him.