That doesn’t sound like a choice.
I glance at Beckett. He’s staring at his hands like he’s holding them still on purpose.
Whatever just happened, they felt it too.
And none of them are happy about it.
Chapter 11
Vaelor
I can’t stop thinking about the door.
It’s been hours. Training ended. I showered, changed, started prepping dinner like I always do. Normal things. Routine things. But my hands keep pausing mid-motion, and I’m back in that room watching it happen again.
The door opening. The trainer not stopping. Trey’s eyes snapping to her when she said it.
No House marking was identified.
I set down the knife and stare at the cutting board.
No House marking. I keep turning that over, waiting for it to make sense.
I’ve seen the archives. Memory keeps records going back centuries—every birth, every bond, every formation. First mark appears at birth. Always. That’s not policy, that’s biology. The mark shows up because the system claims you.
So what happens when it doesn’t?
There are a handful of documented cases over the centuries—late bloomers, a few faded marks, one or two unusual placements. Rare enough to warrant their own archive sections. But no mark at all?
I’ve got nothing.
Which means either there’s a gap in the archives that Memory House somehow missed for centuries, or Nova is the first person this has ever happened to.
Neither answer makes sense. Neither answer helps.
And then there’s the timing.
Memory doesn’t believe in coincidence. Memory believes in sequence. And that sequence was too clean to be an accident.
The kitchen is quiet. Kyron passed through twenty minutes ago, grabbed water, said nothing. He’s been like that all afternoon—watching things instead of people, which means he’s processing something he doesn’t want to talk about yet. Locke hasn’t spoken more than ten words since we got back. Beckett’s been in the armchair with a book he hasn’t turned a page of.
No one’s said the word “orientation.”
At some point, we’re going to have to. I know that. We can’t just keep circling each other, pretending the room didn’t shift under our feet this morning. But no one wants to be the one to start. No one wants to say it out loud and make it real.
I go back to chopping vegetables. Muscle memory. Something to do with my hands while my brain keeps circling.
Delete
Rane finds me on the back steps an hour before dinner.
I’m not hiding, I don’t think.
I’m just sitting, watching the light change, trying to settle something that won’t settle. He drops down beside me without asking.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
I don’t answer. I already know what he’s going to say.
