Fire sings to blood.
Not wood.
Not stone.
Blood.
I remember fire, old as Hollowreach, old as bone. No name for it, only hunger. Long ago, before the kingdom carved borders, before the Ash Clergy salted the sky with silence, I saw a child burn without flame.
His scream echoes in my marrow, his mark—jagged, thorned, a spiral—pulses through the world's veins. I perch, claws on tower stone, third eye cracked open, seeing what was, what is, what burns. I remember. Crows always remember.
The Gut breathes ash below, alleys coiling, thorns clawing stone like scars. The boy walks—Teon, they call him, name stitched by men, meaningless. His mark is louder, a spiral under skin, thorned, raw, like the log he carved in snow, like the crate he carries now.
His blood hums, calls. I tilt my head, see him as he was: a baby, crying, Mayla's arms tight, her voice sharp, defying.
The rot that remembers will name the world lost.
She sang into the storm, Week of Knives, blood on snow, jagged, thorned, a spiral that answered. Her mother's words:
They fear what sings.
I perched on her sill, third eye blinking sideways, Hollowreach-born, seeing her blood spill, her song stay. Clergy burned her, burned her words, but I kept them.
Crows do not forget.
Before her, Vraek. Blade in shadow, eyes like dead stars, hands red with Hollowreach dust. He carved spirals—not in wood, in bone, in children, in mothers.
His whisper: The flame comes. I perched on his shoulder, heard the king's order: Burn Ruttenmark. His chest bore a spiral, thorned, not his, mine—a gift, a curse.
You will be remembered, even if you break.
His fires rose, fell, rose again, a wound never closed.
His sigil—three eyes, thorned beak—etched in ruins, older than kings, older than gods. The whisperer spoke through him, through stone, through blood. I flew, wings singed, remembering.
Spirals turn. In caves, in ash, in dreams. Before Mayla, before Vraek, they curled in Hollowreach stone, bled in rivers, sang in storms.
Marked ones came, marked ones fell, their blood a door, a call. Clergy burned scrolls, banned songs, but spirals stay—jagged, thorned, alive. I see them in the Gut, scratched by children, hands moving like ghosts, blood humming Mayla's song. I see them in the crate, its lid splintered, thorned, in the scroll's hum—a thousand whispers, not human, not mine.
The tower exhales lies, stale, sweet, rotted. Teon stands, scroll in hand, whispering
Call them, wake them, burn them.
His pack—Sura, blood-scarred, humming; Brik, iron and hurt; Lune, sword-eyed, broken; Doma, priest of a silent god—grief-loud, prophecy-bound. I hop, claws clicking stone older than oaths, third eye seeing their scars: Sura's spiral, hidden, burning for Teon; Lune's pit-brands, chains not spirals; Doma's red-ringed eyes, seeing what I see.
The ledger lies open, its three-eyed crow sigil—my sigil—thorned, watching.
Crows gather, on rooftops, gutters, iron gates bleeding frost. Some bear extra eyes, slip through air like torn cloth. Some hide spiral brands under wings.
We watch.
We listen.
We remember the boy born in knives, the priest whose god fell silent, the song in a cracked music box at Sura's hip.
We remember a lie—Just growing pains—cracking something eternal.
The scroll pulses. Teon's mark itches. The Gut bleeds. Soon, I will speak—not in caws, not in prophecy, but in names.
Names the world tried to erase. Mayla. Vraek. Teon. Sura. The spiral turns, thorned, jagged, alive. The flame walks.
The sky will not hold it back.