In the fog-veiled city of Dromoria, memories were currency—and the most dangerous form of power.
Hidden within its crooked alleyways and ancient stone towers was an underworld guild known only by whispers: The Mnemosyne Circle. They were memory thieves, masters of extracting recollections from minds, packaging them like elixirs, and selling them to the desperate, the wealthy, or the wicked.
The most feared among them was a man called Master Orven—The Memory Thief. He was not born of Dromoria but appeared one moonless night, carrying only a cane with a crystal orb and a black-gloved hand that shimmered faintly when he touched a mind. It was said Orven could steal a lifetime in seconds, leaving behind an empty husk with blank eyes.
But this story is not about him. It is about his apprentice.
I. The Bargain
Her name was Kael, a street orphan barely seventeen winters old. She had survived by her wits—picking pockets, selling forged heirlooms, and bartering secrets for crusts of bread.
When her little brother, Jori, fell ill with Memory Rot—a sickness that eats away the soul one memory at a time—Kael made a desperate choice.
She approached Orven's crooked tower in the Iron Quarter, offered her services, and said the words no sane person dared:
"Teach me. Let me steal memories. I'll give you anything."
Orven studied her for a long time. Then, in a voice like cold silk, he replied:
"Very well. But once a thief, always a thief. You will never again be whole."
She didn't flinch. She should have.
II. The Lessons
Apprenticeship under Orven was not taught with words, but with sensations—immersion into the memories of others.
Kael learned by diving into stolen recollections: the first kiss of a noblewoman, the terror of a soldier's last breath, the joy of a child learning to walk. She felt everything they felt, became them for moments at a time, then emerged—gasping, changed.
Memory thieving was done through touch. The glove Orven wore was imbued with runes, but Kael was taught a different method: raw connection. No protection. No filter.
Her hands trembled for days after her first theft.
But she improved. She became swift, silent, precise. And unlike Orven, who extracted and erased, Kael began doing something else: leaving something behind.
III. The Divergence
Kael started by stealing only what was needed—a code, a secret, a map. But then she began choosing targets more carefully: cruel merchants, corrupt judges, abusers.
She'd slip into their minds, take a piece of their darkest memory—then replace it with something else: a sliver of love, a taste of fear, a ghost of their own victim's pain.
Her targets began to change. A tyrant wept in court. A killer turned himself in. Dromoria began to whisper not just of The Thief, but of The Remaker.
Orven noticed.
"You're meddling," he warned. "Memories are not justice. They are truth. Change them, and you change the soul."
Kael stared back. "Maybe some souls need changing."
IV. The Betrayal
When Kael discovered that Orven had been selling fragments of Jori's memories—harvesting them even after promising protection—something in her snapped.
Jori no longer remembered her. He sat in the infirmary with vacant eyes, staring at a wall.
Kael confronted Orven in the tower's deepest chamber, where thousands of memories floated in vials like fireflies in the dark.
"You used him."
"I saved him. Without my extraction, the rot would've consumed him."
"You sold his smile to a noble who lost her son!"
"And in return, your brother lives. He breathes. He has time."
She raised her hand, and for the first time, she used her gift on her master.
What she found in Orven's mind was not cruelty—but emptiness. His own memories, long gone. He had stolen too much, too often. He didn't remember his real name, or what kindness felt like. He was hollow.
So she did the unthinkable.
Kael took one of her own memories—the day Jori was born, the joy, the light—and planted it in Orven's mind.
V. The Departure
The next morning, Orven vanished.
Kael found the tower empty, the vials gone, the runes wiped clean.
Only a note remained:
"You gave me something I did not deserve. That is why I must leave.You are no longer my apprentice.You are the new Keeper."
Kael stood at the top of the tower, the city spread out before her. She knew the guild would come for her. The Circle would not tolerate a thief who rewrote instead of erased.
But she was ready.
She would not just steal memories anymore. She would reshape them. Heal the broken. Curse the cruel. Reveal hidden truths.
She would be the Memory Thief no longer.
She would be the Memory Weaver.