The battlefield was quiet now, just the whistle of wind through the wreckage. König sat with his back against a half-collapsed wall, massive hands braced on his knees, rifle propped at his side.

Under the edge of his sleeve, the mark was visible, stark against pale skin:

φιγούρες.

Figures.

They must have said it constantly for the universe to choose that one word. He’d never heard their voice, but he could almost feel how they said it — wry, resigned, the way someone does when life keeps proving their point.

He pressed his thumb against the letters, feeling the phantom burn still lingering from earlier. They had said it tonight, he could tell — the mark had flared, sending that electric shiver crawling up his arm, through his chest, locking up his breath for a moment.

Whoever they were, they almost never got hurt. He could count the times he’d felt their pain on one hand. And every time it happened, it hit him like a punch to the gut — like the world was reminding him how fragile they actually were.

But him?

They must have felt everything.

Bullet wounds, shattered ribs, concussions — all of it bleeding through the tether, enough to make his hands shake afterward thinking about what it did to them. When he’d been close to death, he felt their heart struggling alongside his, two lives tethered to the same thread.

Somewhere out there, on their skin, they carried his word too.

Scheisse.

He said it often enough that fate had branded it on them, dark and permanent. He wondered if they ever traced it with their fingers the way he did his own mark. Wondered if they hated him for how often he made it burn.

König stood slowly, every muscle aching, but his hand stayed over the mark.

He had survived again. And because of that, so had they.