The scar did not sleep.
Anna noticed it before dawn, when the world was still gray and undecided, when the river held its breath between currents. Lexus lay beside her on the woven furs they’d claimed as a bed, his breathing even but shallow, his body caught in a tension that sleep hadn’t earned.
The axe-mark across his back glimmered faintly in the low light.
Not glowing.
Remembering.
She shifted closer, careful not to wake him, and traced the edge of it with two fingers—not healing, not soothing, just acknowledging. The scar felt wrong beneath her touch. Not corrupted. Not poisoned.
Anchored.
As if something in this world had learned his name and refused to forget it.
Lexus stirred.
“Don’t look at it like that,” he murmured.
Anna froze. “Like what?”
“Like you’re deciding wheth
