The street felt wrong before anything appeared.
Not dangerous.
Familiar.
My steps slowed without me deciding to. The fog thinned the closer we came, as if it didn't want to touch the ground here. Broken stones lay scattered across the road, half-buried in ash and dust. The buildings leaned inward on both sides, their upper floors sagging like they were tired of standing.
Claire stopped first.
She didn't say anything. Her shoulders drew in, as if the air itself had turned colder.
"This is where it happened," she said.
My legs halted with her.
Not because I chose to.
Because the fog froze them.
The street was narrow, boxed in by the crooked walls. Windows gaped overhead like blind eyes. Somewhere farther down, metal creaked as it shifted in the wind. The fog was thin here—just enough to blur the ground, just enough to carry sound.
Nothing looked familiar.
And then my hand shifted on the sword hilt.
Adjusted itself.
Claire noticed.
"You feel it," she said.
"I don't remember it."
"That doesn't mean you don't know it."
I stared down the street.
My mind was empty.
But my body wasn't.
My stance lowered.
My weight shifted forward.
My breathing slowed into a rhythm I didn't recognize.
Not thought.
Habit.
Claire swallowed. "We lost two of them here."
I looked at her.
"One vanished," she said. "One died."
The fog pressed against my calves.
Not guiding.
Holding.
I tried to imagine it.
The fight.
The shouting.
The blood.
There was only a smooth blankness where something should have been. Like a wall built inside my head.
My shoulders tensed anyway.
"You're standing like him," she whispered.
"Like who?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
The fog moved first.
Not toward the street.
Toward the shadow at the far end of it.
Something unfolded there—slow, deliberate. A shape pulling itself out of the thin mist like it had been waiting for permission.
Claire stiffened beside me.
"That's…" Her voice caught. "That's not—"
The figure stepped forward.
It walked on two legs, but it didn't walk like a hunter.
Its posture was wrong. Shoulders hunched too far forward. Head tilted as if listening to something I couldn't hear.
My body reacted before my mind did.
My grip tightened.
My stance lowered another inch.
Claire's breath came shallow. "It moves like him."
The shadow lifted its head.
What had once been a face was only an outline now—features blurred, edges unfinished. But its movements were precise.
Familiar.
I tried to force myself to see it as just another thing shaped by the fog. Another corpse wearing motion. Another lie made solid.
My muscles refused.
My shoulders rolled into a guard I didn't remember learning. My weight shifted onto my front foot like I had done it a hundred times before.
The shadow mirrored it.
Like we were standing in the same memory.
It took a step.
The fog around my legs pulled tight.
Not to stop me.
To prepare me.
"Stay back," I said.
Claire didn't move.
"I know that step," she whispered. "He used to lead with his left when he was tired."
The shadow's arm twitched.
I felt the answer in my bones.
It lunged.
The fog dragged my legs forward. My blade met its strike in a clash of dark and steel. The impact shuddered up my arm, into my shoulder, into something deeper than muscle.
We locked for a breath.
Its strength wasn't heavy.
It was certain.
The shadow recoiled.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
It circled us, dragging one foot slightly behind the other.
Claire's hands shook. "That's him," she said. "That's how he used to watch corners."
The shadow rushed again.
It moved faster this time.
I raised my blade too late. The strike slid past my guard and tore through my sleeve, cold mist burning across my skin. My foot skidded back on loose stone.
For a heartbeat, the fog did nothing.
Then it pulled.
My body twisted out of the fall and drove me forward instead. My blade met the shadow's chest where it hadn't been a moment before.
Too clean.
Too practiced.
Every movement felt borrowed.
Like I was remembering something I wasn't allowed to see.
"Raven—" Claire started.
The shadow feinted left.
My blade went right.
It shouldn't have worked.
It did.
The shadow stumbled back, its chest split open. Dark mist poured from the wound instead of blood.
It didn't fall.
It looked at me.
Not like an enemy.
Like it was waiting.
And for a moment, the fog around us pulled thin.
I felt something twist inside my head.
Not a memory.
A door.
Something pressed against it from the other side.
Voices I didn't recognize.
Footsteps I didn't remember walking.
A scream that wasn't Claire's but sounded like it could have been.
My vision swam as pressure built behind my eyes.
The shadow raised its arm again.
The fog pulled me forward.
And I understood without knowing why:
It wasn't attacking.
It was returning.