A raw, metallic tang filled Isolde’s mouth. Cassian’s weight pressed her into the cold stone floor of the vault, an unbearable pressure. Every muscle screamed, but she held herself rigid, a silent prayer for strength forming in her mind. His breath, hot and stale, ghosted across her cheek, an invasive probing. His wild, unkempt hair, thick and dark, brushed her collarbone. It had grown long, tangled like untended briars. Roughspun fabric, stained with dirt and dried something she didn’t want to identify, clung to his powerful frame. He was taller than she remembered, broader. Each sinew beneath her trapped hand felt like coiled wire, humming with barely contained energy. His light-coloured eyes, the hue of ancient river stones, flickered. They burned with a vacant intensity, like embers on the edge of extinction. No recognition. Only an animalistic appraisal. Her stomach clenched. A wave of ice seeped through her veins. He shifted, a low growl rumbling in his chest, and his grip tightened on her shoulder, not releasing her. Those eyes. So clear, so empty. A pit of forgotten things. Terror coiled in her gut. He had her pinned, utterly at his mercy. He had seen her face before the last containment spell took him, before he crashed against the vault's outer seal. Could he remember that last, brutal struggle? The image of her, face contorted with fear and desperate resolve, as she condemned him back to his prison? "You... you smell familiar," Cassian rasped, his voice a low, gravelly sound, unused and raw. A tremor ran through her. Her breath hitched, catching in her throat. His blank expression offered no solace, only a deeper chill. Her blood ran cold. He pulled back an inch, his gaze unsettlingly steady. "Cassian," he whispered, testing the name on his tongue, a foreign sound. The word was a dull echo in the vast, echoing vault. "Cassian. Is that… mine?" He looked at her, his head tilted. "Are you important to me?" A pause. His eyes narrowed, predatory. "Or are you prey?" Isolde’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. Her pulse throbbed in her ears. She forced herself to meet his gaze, desperately searching for a flicker of something human. Nothing. Only the cold, calculating intelligence of a hunter. She had to think. Now. Cassian’s hand drifted from her shoulder, feeling along the cold stone beside them. His fingers brushed a jagged shard of obsidian, broken from the ancient carvings that adorned the vault walls. He picked it up, testing its edge. He ran the sharp point along the pad of his thumb, a slow, deliberate motion. A bead of dark, rich blood welled up, then dripped onto the stone, a stark, crimson bloom. Her eyes fixated on the ruby drop. He was testing his own limits, perhaps, but to Isolde, his gaze felt like a butcher appraising his meat. "Don't... don't say that." Her voice came out thin, reedy, barely a whisper. A ragged gasp escaped her. "I am very important to you, Cassian. For real. You just… don't remember yet." She strained against his weight, a futile gesture. "We've met for longer than you think." Her mind raced, grasping at straws. The unspoken vow, the ancient pact that bound her family to his, a grim heritage. "We're intertwined in a complicated way. We can't… just end our relationship at will." She thought of Valerius’s words, echoing through the shadowed corridors of the manor. The terrible truth of the Thorne lineage, the binding pact, the necessity of his containment. Those grim, spectral memories of Valerius's threats, the crushing weight of her duty, all converged. She wished she had simply allowed the moorland to reclaim him, to let the wild consume him entirely. Anything but this. "Ahh!" Isolde cried out as Cassian's free hand shot out, clamping around her jaw. His fingers dug into her cheeks, squeezing. The force was immense. Her teeth ground together. Sharp pain radiated through her skull. He wasn’t controlling his strength, not in the slightest. Her jaw felt like it might snap. "You told me you're important to me," he rasped, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Then why are you trembling?" His eyes bore into hers. "N-no, I'm not!" she choked, the words distorted by his grip. "Were you chained here?" he continued, a strange, mocking lilt in his tone. "Bound to this vault like a dog? To lick the boots of a master who cannot think or move?" The crude words clawed at her, sharp and unexpected. She couldn’t believe her ears, but their raw brutality, their complete lack of civility, rang chillingly true. "Why can I only remember such… broken words?" Cassian pressed a hand to his temple, a flicker of confusion crossing his feral features. He tightened his grip on her face. Her vision blurred with pain. All her focus narrowed to the tendons taut across the back of his hand, stark against his pale skin. She could feel the pressure on her jawbones, her molars protesting. "Please, don't scream. My ears hurt," he muttered, his expression suddenly vulnerable, then just as quickly, hard again. Isolde clenched her teeth, a fresh wave of agony spreading across her face. Her small frame had no power against his colossal strength. She lay there, trapped, tears welling in her eyes, stinging. Not for pity, but for the unfairness of her fate. She knew so little of him, only the name, the ancient family lore, the terrible purpose of her family’s vow. His age, his life before the vault, his true nature—all lost to the mists of time and madness. Her mind spun, trying to find an argument, a truth, any scrap of a memory that might penetrate the fog of his fury. No escape plans came. Just the image of him, wild and untamed, the raw power of the moorland itself. Even in the harsh, unforgiving Whispering Moors, life found a way. The gnarled rowan, clinging to a rock face. The bitter nightshade, thriving in shadow. It was a battle. A continuous, desperate battle for survival. She knew that now. Isolde clenched her teeth, gathering a sliver of desperate courage. She reached out, grabbing his wrist with her free hand, her fingers surprisingly strong. "Cassian!" Her voice was sharp, a command rather than a plea. "Cassian!" His brows furrowed slightly. He lowered his hand, his grip loosening enough for her to gasp for air. His light eyes widened, fixing on the vivid red handprints blooming starkly against the pallor of her cheeks. A slight frown, a flicker of something she couldn't quite decipher, crossed his face. "We are not that kind of… relationship!" Isolde rushed, trying to fill the sudden silence. Her voice cracked, but she pushed through. "Don't misunderstand me. We… we got along very well! You were… very kind to me. You always were." A desperate, blatant lie, born of pure terror. She needed him to believe her, just for a moment. Her fingers instinctively grazed the cold, smooth metal of the containment seal, the binding charm around her neck, a constant, chilling reminder of her true purpose. "You even… gave me a charm. A special one." She tried to sound natural, but the words felt brittle, ready to shatter. Cassian looked down at her, his expression unreadable, a blank canvas of feral intensity. "So, did you… clean it for me?" he asked, his voice low, guttural. "Did I keep you like a pet?" "What do you mean?" Isolde whispered, her composure on the verge of splintering. "Because you speak like someone who has been… trained," he countered, a strange inflection in his tone, a mix of accusation and bewildered curiosity. She shook her head, a frantic denial. "No, no, no!" she cried out, her mind screaming. *It is I who tries to train you, you feral beast! If only you would yield!* The silent lie was a burden on her soul. A strange annoyance flared within her. To be swayed by this unthinking, monstrous version of him was unbearable. "You never treated me badly," she forced herself to say, the lies flowing now, a desperate torrent. "You never used violence. You never threatened me." Each word was a fabrication, a desperate attempt to rewrite a history of brutal containment and psychological warfare. She just needed him to believe it. Just enough to let her go.

The Memory's Edge