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CHAPTER 42 — The Handprint on His Heart
The world did not return all at once this time.
Aren opened his eyes slowly, expecting the forest, expecting the cold soil, expecting Lirien's worried voice.
Instead…
Silence.
A whispering kind of silence.
Alive.
Listening.
He sat up.
He was in the forest — yet something felt rewritten, like someone had changed a single sentence in a long book, and now everything read differently. The trees leaned in closer. The mist had a weight, like heavy breath against the back of his neck.
Lirien knelt a few steps away, clutching her blade so tightly her knuckles were white.
Her eyes didn't move.
They stayed fixed on Aren.
"Lirien…?" Aren whispered.
She exhaled shakily. "Aren, don't—don't touch your chest."
He froze.
Because for the first time since waking, he felt it:
A warmth.
Right over his heart.
Soft… but wrong.
He slowly looked down.
His shirt was open at the collar, torn from the earlier chaos. And there—against pale skin—
A handprint.
Small.
Almost child-sized.
Darkened like an old bruise but glowing faintly from beneath the skin, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Aren's breath shattered.
"I… didn't do this," he whispered.
"I know," Lirien said. "It appeared the moment the shadow vanished."
Aren swallowed.
"What does it mean?"
Lirien hesitated. Not fear.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
"Aren… I've seen marks like that before. Not in the living world. In the Fractures."
A chill crawled slowly up Aren's spine.
"So Echo… left this?"
Lirien's jaw tightened. "If it was her — she's no longer just a memory. That mark means she touched your existence."
Aren felt sick. "Touched… my existence?"
"It means she isn't a hallucination. She isn't a ghost. She's tied to you. Bound."
Aren tried to stand, but the moment he moved, the handprint burned — a deep, dragging ache that spread through his ribs like someone curling their fingers under his skin.
"Aren!" Lirien rushed forward and caught him before he fell. "Don't move like that."
He gritted his teeth. "Why does it hurt? She didn't touch me in the forest—"
"No," Lirien whispered. "She touched you in the fracture."
And then Aren remembered—
Echo stepping toward him in the hallway.
Her bare feet leaving steaming prints.
Her voice breaking:
"You never came back for me."
His stomach twisted.
"Lirien…" His voice came out thin. "What if she isn't angry? What if she's… calling me back?"
The wind died completely. The forest stilled around them.
Lirien's expression hardened. "If the Fracture wants you back, we have to keep moving. Staying in one place is dangerous."
A branch cracked somewhere deep behind them.
Not a normal sound.
Aren felt it — like pressure on the back of his skull. Like something mapping the forest through him.
He whispered, "It's still here, isn't it?"
Lirien nodded. "Shadows don't die. They track. They wait for doors."
The burning in Aren's chest pulsed faster.
One beat.
Two.
Three—
The trees shifted.
Not physically — but in the way a room shifts when a memory slides back into place.
The smell of chemicals.
The buzz of fluorescent lights.
Cold tile.
Aren stumbled back, choking on sudden panic.
Not here.
Not now.
Please.
Lirien caught his arm. "Aren! Stay with me—look at me!"
He forced his eyes open.
The forest returned.
The tile faded.
But the handprint still glowed.
Still pulsed.
Still called.
"Aren…" Lirien's voice softened painfully. "What did you see in that hallway? Who was Echo to you?"
Aren shook his head helplessly. "I don't know. I don't remember anything like that in my life. But she—she spoke like I abandoned her. Like I left someone behind."
Lirien hesitated.
"But what if you did?"
Aren felt the world tilt. "I don't remember anything like that. My past wasn't… wasn't like—"
He stopped.
Because suddenly…
He wasn't sure.
Not anymore.
Lirien's voice lowered. "The Fractures don't invent lies, Aren. They reveal the pieces your mind locked away."
Aren's breath trembled.
"So that hallway… that door… Echo…"
"Yes," Lirien whispered. "They're yours."
Aren closed his eyes.
And the burning handprint pulsed once more — slow, deep, possessive.
As if answering her words.
Lirien stood and lifted him gently to his feet.
"We need to keep moving. Whatever followed you out of that hallway will try to open the door again."
Aren nodded weakly.
But inside — beneath the fear — something else stirred.
Not quite dread.
Not quite longing.
Something darker.
A feeling he couldn't place.
A memory struggling to surface.
The handprint pulsed again.
This time—
He heard a whisper.
Soft.
Familiar.
Broken.
"Don't leave me again."
Aren froze.
Lirien looked back sharply. "What is it?"
Aren's voice shook.
"Lirien… Echo is calling me."
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