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"Riven Vale."
He froze. Hand on the doorknob, heart already kicking.
The voice came from inside his room. Low. Calm. Female.
"You took something that doesn't belong to you."
Riven pushed the door open slow.
She was sitting on his bed. Boots still on. Knife laid across her knee like she wanted him to see it first. Not holding it. Just letting it rest there.
His hand went to his pocket. The ember pulsed warm through the fabric.
"You're gonna have to be more specific," he said. "I take a lot of things."
She stood. Tall—two inches on him, maybe three. Dark coat that didn't move right, lined with something stiff. Her hair was pinned back tight enough to hurt. She looked at him the way a doctor looks at a wound.
"The ember," she said. "The one you stole from the auction. The one currently burning a hole in your coat."
Riven kept his face bored. "Don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do." She picked up the knife. Didn't point it. Just held it. "My name is Selene Marr. I'm a Memory Collector, second circle, licensed under the Archivist's Council. That ember is prohibited material. You're going to give it to me, or I'm going to take it."
He'd heard of Collectors. Everyone had. They were the ones who showed up after you signed the wrong contract. After you sold the wrong memory. They didn't arrest you. They just made you forget you'd ever done it.
Neat. Efficient. Terrifying.
Riven pulled the ember out.
It sat in his palm like a coal. Glowing faint orange, no bigger than a marble. It didn't burn. Should've, but it didn't. Just sat there, warm and patient, whispering a name he didn't remember learning.
Selene's eyes narrowed. "Put it down."
"You want it?" Riven grinned. "Come get it."
She moved fast. Three steps, blade angled low. Riven jerked back and the ember flared hot—not burning, just awake.
Selene stopped.
Her hand was an inch from his. She was staring at the ember. At him. Her jaw tight.
"You already bonded it," she said.
"I don't even know what that means."
"It means you're an idiot." She pulled her hand back. The knife stayed ready. "It means the ember's inside you now. Rewriting your core memory. If I pull it out by force, you die."
Riven laughed. It came out too sharp. "So don't pull it out."
"I'm not asking your permission." Selene's voice stayed level, but something behind her eyes shifted. Colder. "I'm telling you what happens next. You give me the ember willingly—let me sever the bond. It'll hurt. You'll lose everything the ember showed you. But you'll live."
She stepped closer. The blade gleamed dull in the low light.
"Or I take it by force," she said. "And you don't."
Riven's throat went dry. The ember pulsed once. Soft. Steady. Like a heartbeat that wasn't his.
"What if I run?"
"You won't make it to the stairs."
She wasn't bluffing. He could see it in the way she held the knife. The way her weight was already shifting forward. She'd done this before. Probably a hundred times.
He should've given it to her. Should've nodded and played the victim and let her do whatever Collectors did.
But the ember was still whispering. And the name it whispered was his—not Riven, the name he'd bought off a dead man's paperwork, but the one from before. The one someone had burned away.
"No," he said.
Selene tilted her head. "No?"
"I'm not giving it to you."
She didn't sigh. Didn't roll her eyes. Just stepped forward and pressed the flat of the blade against his chest. Right over his heart.
"Then I'm sorry," she said.
And she meant it. That was the worst part. She actually meant it.
Riven's hand closed around the ember.
It flared white-hot.
The room disappeared.
He was five years old. Maybe six. Standing in a kitchen he didn't recognize—wooden floor, blue tiles, a window that looked out on nothing. Someone was calling his name. His real name. The air smelled like cinnamon and smoke.
He turned.
The whole world was on fire.
Not the kitchen. Him. The fire was inside him, eating through his ribs, his lungs, his name. He opened his mouth to scream and nothing came out. Just ash. Just heat. Just the sound of someone crying, far away, too far to reach.
Then he was back.
On the floor. Gasping. Selene was crouched next to him, one hand on his shoulder, the other still holding the knife. Her face was pale.
"What—" Riven's voice cracked. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything." She pulled her hand back like he'd burned her. "The ember did. It showed me your memory. One second of it."
He couldn't breathe right. His chest hurt. Not the knife. Not her. The memory. The fire. The name he couldn't hold onto.
"What did you see?" he said.
Selene didn't answer right away. She was looking at her hand. At him. At the ember, still glowing faint and steady in his grip.
"A child," she said quietly. "Burning."
Riven barked a laugh. It hurt. "Great. That's great. So what now? You kill me anyway?"
"No." Selene stood. She slid the knife back into her coat. "Now we have a problem."
"We?"
"The ember's not just bonded to you. It's infected." She looked down at him, and for the first time, her expression cracked. Not pity. Something sharper. "Someone tampered with it. Locked a memory inside and tied it to a person. If I take it from you, you die. If you keep it, it'll burn through every memory you have left until there's nothing. You have maybe a week. Two, if you're lucky."
Riven shoved himself to his feet. His legs shook. "Then fix it."
"I can't."
"You're a Collector. You—"
"I collect memories. I don't repair them." Selene's jaw tightened. "Embers like this aren't supposed to exist. Whoever made it knew what they were doing. The only way to stop it is to find the person who created it and make them undo the lock."
"So find them."
"I don't know who they are." She shook her head. "And even if I did, they're not going to help you out of kindness."
Riven's pulse hammered. The ember sat in his hand like a promise. Like a threat.
"Then I'm dead," he said.
"Maybe." Selene reached into her coat and pulled out a thin chain. Silver. Covered in marks he didn't recognize—script or sigils or something older. "Or we make a contract."
"A contract."
"You and me. Bound terms." She held the chain out. "I help you find the ember's creator. You give me the ember once it's safe to remove. No lies. No running. Seventy-two hours to find answers, or we both lose what's left."
Riven stared at her. "Both?"
"The ember's already inside you. It saw me. It'll spread." Her jaw tightened. "I touched it. That means I'm infected too."
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to throw the ember at her and run. But she was still standing there, holding the chain, and her hand wasn't shaking.
"Why would you do that?" he said. "Why help me?"
Selene's eyes were dark. Unreadable.
"Because I saw what's inside you," she said. "And I want to know who put it there."
She held out the chain.
Riven looked at it. At her. At the ember still glowing in his hand.
He took the chain.
The moment his fingers touched the silver, it moved. Not in his hand—on his hand. The chain uncoiled like a living thing, smooth and fast, and wrapped around his wrist. He yelped and tried to shake it off, but it was already tightening. Links fusing into a solid cuff.
It didn't hurt. It just locked.
Selene's wrist lit up with the same silver mark.
She didn't flinch. Just looked down at the cuff, then at him.
"Seventy-two hours," she said.
Riven's wrist burned cold. The ember pulsed once, slow and certain. And in the center of the silver cuff, thin as a thread, a line of light began to move.
Counting down.
"Wait," Riven said. "What happens if we don't—"
The line pulsed.
The ember flared.
And somewhere deep in his chest, something he couldn't name started to unravel.