Mara gripped the newly formed key with burning fingers.
With its sharp edges biting into her palm, it pounded like a living thing, drinking the memory of it rather than blood.
With his stolen face alternating between hers and Jarek's, the heir watched.
"Hurry now," he commanded. "The cup grows impatient."
The shadow-child held out the black vessel behind him, its rim broken where Mara's dagger had pierced it ages before.
…..
Flesh and fate fused as the golden thread burned into his palm.
Veyra's skin started to glow, and the thing wearing Veyra's stolen face giggled.
"You were always meant to be the bridge," she muttered as her childlike form disintegrated into starlight and bark. The person who links all of her broken deaths together.
Ethan gasped as the visions came.
Mara's first life, smiling as she gave him the clay cup.
She let out a scream as he was unable to stop the blade.
As the world came to an end, her fingers brushed his in this eighth life.
Their captive children were released when the glass trees broke.
…..
The chains of memories faded into murmurs and soaked into his tattoo.
"You were never the villain," the voices sighed. "Just the shield."
Jarek stumbled toward Mara, his inked skin now alive with moving scenes, centuries of Ravenscrofts standing between the cup and the world.
The heir gave a tsk.
"Pathetic. You don't even remember your own name."
He snapped his fingers.
And Jarek recalled.
…..
With a voice like a thousand dying stars, the child with the cup spoke for the first time.
"Kneel, Lior."
Jarek, Lior—collapsed, his true name a brand across his soul.
Mara took a step back.
"That's impossible. Lior was a Dawnheir—"
"The first Dawnheir," the heir clarified with a charming smile. "Who became the first Ravenscroft. Who constructed the vault to conceal his actions?
The child extended the cup toward Mara.
"Your turn."
…..
The key she was holding melted and reformed into a thorn.
the original.
The one that had started it all.
Ethan's golden thread grasped her chest tightly.
"Don't," he begged.
The heir laughed.
"She already has."
The thorn was placed into the cup by Mara.
…..
The world unmade itself in spirals.
Light bursts from the vault's memories.
The shape of the heir vanishing into darkness.
The child's face transforms into Mara's.
And then—
Silence.
A single, perfect moment where everything stopped.
…..
Mara stood by herself in a field of broken glass, the cup in her hands now whole and as clear as morning dew instead of black.
Ethan's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"You finally remembered."
She looked down.
Her reflection was visible in the cup.
And on her head, the crown of thorns.