Marked by my past life

Chapter three

The castle did not feel like a place meant to hold prisoners, at least not for her. It felt like a place that had once known her.

Astrid told herself that was impossible and yet her steps slowed as she moved through the corridor, her body hesitating in ways her mind refused to understand. The walls were carved with symbols she couldn’t read, but something in her chest tightened every time she passed them. Memory without permission.

A door opened ahead of her and this made Astrid stop in her tracks. There was no one beyond it. No guard. No servant. No Ryker. Only darkness, she should have turned back, but she didn’t. Because staying still felt worse.

Astrid stepped forward, the hem of her dress brushing softly against the stone as she moved, the dark fabric, loose and unfamiliar, falling longer than anything she remembered wearing. It dragged slightly at her ankles, just enough to disrupt her stride.

She glanced down briefly. It wasn’t hers, or at least—not something she remembered choosing. The sleeves fell past her wrists, the material thin despite the cold, yet she barely felt it.

She slowed and stepped through the doorway. The room beyond stretched wide and hollow—a training hall, or something that had once been. Stone floors scarred by impact. Pillars fractured down the middle. Blackened scorch marks climbed the walls like something had tried to burn its way out and failed.

At the center was a circle. It was carved deep into the stone. The lines weren’t clean, but layered clean, etched over, again and again, as though it had been rewritten by different hands… or the same hand, over time.

Astrid didn’t realize she was moving toward it, only that she was suddenly standing inside it.

The moment her foot crossed the edge, the air changed. Pain didn’t come first. Memory did, and it hit fast, sharp and completely.

Her hand raised, light spilling from her palm, it wasn’t as bright as fire but darker, like ink bleeding into a storm.not bright. Then she heard a voice laugh, it wasn’t Ryker’s but hers.

Astrid staggered backward.

“No…” she breathed. “No, that’s not…”

The circle pulsed beneath her feet, once, as if it had heard her and disagreed, the second surge hit harder, and she was here again, but this time, she was not alone. Ryker stood across from her, not different in form, but in presence.

Just watching her like someone witnessing something already too far gone to stop.

“You’re pushing too far,” he said.

Astrid, the other Astrid smiled. This version was calmer and more certain.

“I haven’t even started.”

The memory snapped and Astrid dropped to one knee, dragging in a sharp breath.

Her hands shook violently now. “That’s not mine,” she said quickly. “That’s not me.”

But the air didn’t agree, the symbols beneath her feet began to glow—faint at first, then stronger, reacting to something she hadn’t meant to give.

Slow footsteps echoed behind her, but Astrid didn’t turn. Ryker entered the hall and his gaze moved immediately to the circle, then to her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

Astrid let out a short, brittle laugh.

“That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes sense.”

He stepped closer and stopped at the edge but didn’t cross it.

Astrid noticed and she hated that she did.

“You triggered it,” Ryker said.

“What is it?” she demanded.

Silence.

Long enough to feel intentional.

“A wound.”

The answer shouldn’t have made sense, but it did. The circle pulsed again, this time harder.

Astrid flinched as another memory forced its way through, but this was clearer.

She stood in the same place, but everything was burning. The castle was collapsing inward, folding like something tearing at its own edges, and she was holding it open. Ryker stood there again, but he wasn’t watching this time, he was trying to stop her.

“Stop,” he said.

Her voice answered without hesitation.

“I did once.”

A pause.

“I won’t again.”

Astrid screamed.

“No…stop!”

But the hall didn’t respond, instead, something inside her did. The air cracked, not in sound, but in pressure. Astrid felt it in her bones as something surged outward from her chest.

The circle ignited and symbols started flaring to life all at once, reacting too fast, too violently—like something waking up before it was ready.

Ryker moved fast and, for the first time, he stepped into the circle and the moment he did, the energy shifted, it wasn’t towards him but around him, like it recognized him.

Astrid’s breath caught.

“You feel it too,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer.

His focus was fixed on her hand, where something was forming without her control.

When he finally spoke, his voice was lower.

“Yes. That’s the problem.”

The circle flared again.

The hall trembled and Astrid’s vision split, but it wasn’t just memory this time because she felt it. A voice, not hers, whispered from somewhere inside her mind:

Not yet.

Ryker’s voice cut through it at the same moment.

“She’s waking up too fast.”

And everything stopped, the energy froze mid-surge and Astrid collapsed, gasping, the glow draining from her hands like a dying pulse.

Ryker didn’t move immediately, he just stood there, watching her.

“You should not be in here,” he said again, quieter now.

Astrid looked up at him, breathing unsteady. “Then why did you bring me here?” she demanded. “Why am I here?”

Silence.

Ryker didn’t have an answer, and that terrified her more than anything else in this place. He turned slightly, breaking eye contact, he didn’t leave, just… stepping away from the question.

“You don’t understand what you are,” he said.

Astrid forced herself to stand.

“Then explain it.”

There was a pause and his voice lowered.

“If I do…”

He looked back at her.

“…you may not stay long enough to hate me properly.”