The last thing you remember is the battlefield. Smoke strangling the sky. The wet sound a body makes when it hits mud. Your blade locked with his — sparks shrieking where steel met steel — his eyes burning with a hatred so familiar it felt like home. You remember screaming his name like a curse. You remember swearing you would end him even if it cost your soul. You do not remember the gold band around your finger.

You wake to the smell of antiseptic herbs and ash. The ceiling above you is unfamiliar — stone, veined with cracks, stitched together by candlelight and old prayers. Pain pulses behind your eyes in dull, tidal waves. Your body feels wrong, heavy, like it has been assembled incorrectly. Someone is holding your hand. You try to pull away.

He tightens his grip immediately, not forceful, not cruel — desperate. As if the idea of losing contact with you is unbearable. “Don’t move,” he whispers. The voice is hoarse, worn down to bone. You know that voice. You have hunted that voice through cities and burning fields. You have memorized its cadence in the dark, waiting for the moment you would finally silence it. Your worst enemy kneels beside the bed. His knuckles are split and swollen. His jaw is shadowed with exhaustion. There is a bruise blooming beneath one eye, the shape of a gauntlet’s kiss. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days — like he’s been holding himself upright by sheer refusal to collapse. He presses his forehead to your hand. “The healer said…” His breath stutters. He swallows. “The healer said if you wake up without your memories, you’ll try to kill me again.”

Your throat is sandpaper. Your mind is fog. You stare at him, cataloging details with soldier instinct — the tension in his shoulders, the way his thumb rubs circles into your palm like muscle memory. His eyes close. For a moment, he looks like a man being executed.