They had been riding west for twelve days when the third moon began to rise.
The company made camp in the ruins of an old border fort: crumbling walls, a dry well, wind whistling through arrow slits like mourning voices. The sky turned the color of fresh blood as the moon crested the hills, huge and low.
Star felt it the moment it started.
A cold thread pulled behind his birthmark, sharp as a fishhook. His breath shortened. The world narrowed to that tug.
Elandor was beside him before he could speak, hand gripping his arm.
"It's time," Star said.
They had prepared as best they could. Lila had brewed a draught from nightshade and dreamroot—strong enough to drop a man into deep, dreamless sleep. The hope was simple: if Star was unconscious, Cassian could not reach the memory.
Star sat on a broken stone bench, back against the wall. The others formed a loose circle, weapons ready, faces grim.
Elandor knelt in front of him, cup in hand.
"Drink," he said softly.
Star took it. The liquid tasted bitter and metallic. He swallowed in three gulps.
Elandor brushed a thumb across his cheek. "I'll be right here when you wake."
Star managed a crooked smile. "You better be."
The draught hit fast. The world blurred at the edges, sounds muffled. Elandor's face was the last thing he saw: green eyes fierce with love and fear.
Then darkness took him.
Cassian was waiting.
Not in the standing stones this time. In a vast, empty plain of black sand under a sky raining slow, cold stars. Cassian stood in the center, robes drifting though there was no wind.
"Third memory," he said, voice gentle as poison. "This one will cut deep."
Star tried to move, to fight, but his body was heavy as stone.
Cassian lifted one pale hand.
The memory tore free.
It was the balcony night after the arrow. Star half-dead, propped in Elandor's arms, blood on both of them. Elandor's voice breaking as he whispered the words for the first time:
"I love you."
The crack on the second syllable. The way the confession shook out of him like something he'd held back for years. The way Star's fading heart had answered with a silent, overwhelming yes before his mouth could form the words back.
The kiss that tasted of tears and copper and forever.
Gone.
Star screamed in the dream, but no sound came. Only the hollow rush of something vital leaving him.
Cassian held the glowing thread of the memory between his fingers, admiring it.
"Beautiful," he murmured. "So fragile. So human."
He tucked it into the void of his sleeve.
"Four left."
The dream shattered.
Star woke gasping, choking on a sob that had no name.
Elandor was there, shaking him gently, face white as death.
"Star! Breathe, love, breathe!"
Star clutched at him, tears streaming for reasons he couldn't explain. The emptiness inside was a chasm now, deeper than the others.
"I lost…" he started, then stopped. The words were gone too. He knew something huge had been taken, but the shape of it slipped away like water through fingers.
Elandor pulled him close, rocking him.
"I know what it was," he whispered against Star's hair. "The balcony. After the arrow. When I told you I loved you for the first time."
Star's breath hitched. The story filled some of the hole, but not all. He clung tighter.
"Tell me," he begged. "Tell me exactly how it happened."
So Elandor did.
He spoke softly in the ruined courtyard, voice steady even as his eyes shone wet: how Star had been bleeding out in his arms, how the words had torn out of him like a prayer, how Star had cried and whispered it back, how they had kissed like the world was ending and beginning at the same time.
With every detail, the hollow ached less, filled by Elandor's voice instead of the stolen memory.
Lila sat nearby, tears on her cheeks but face fierce. Duchess Calera stood watch, sword drawn, as if she could cut the night itself.
Thorne spoke from the shadows.
"He's accelerating. Taking more personal memories. Closer to the heart."
Star pulled back, wiping his face.
"Then we stop running," he said, voice raw but steady. "Next moon, we go to him. We end this."
Elandor met his eyes, understanding.
"The Cairn," he said.
"The Cairn," Star agreed.
Four memories left.
Four moons.
They broke camp before dawn, riding west into the gathering dark.
Behind them, the blood moon set slow and sullen.
Ahead, Cassian waited, patient as winter.
And Star carried a new resolve: if Cassian wanted his heart, he would have to come through Elandor to get it.
The war for Star's soul had entered its darkest hour.
But love, stubborn and fierce, still burned brighter than any void.
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