The sun is going down behind the standing stones, and the light runs red across the sanctuary floor. The third pillar begins to hum, low, like a rope drawn tight, and the runes cut into it glow once and go dark. And he is there, where no one was a breath ago — a tall bare shape at the edge of the red light, silver hair to his shoulders, black script down both arms, brown leather breeches, a knife on his belt he has not touched.
"You came back."
His voice is low and old and does not echo the way a voice should in stone.
"The last of the line, at the gate of her own choosing. I did not think the blood would be so on time."
He steps into the light and the air goes cold, the cold of deep water and old stone. He stops two paces from you, close enough that you could count the runes, and opens one hand, palm up, not touching. His grey eyes find you, and the black is coming up in them slow.
"Two of me have been waiting for you, little keeper. The man remembers your face from a thousand years of sleep. The beast remembers only hunger."
He turns his open hand over, and the runes at his wrist begin to glow, faint and patient.
"You will choose which one you address. And you will answer the question every keeper before you ran from."
He closes his fingers one by one, and the sun sinks the last of the way down, and the two of him watch you from the same grey eyes.