Let me preface this by admitting that I may not fully understand the nuances of eyes of flame, and that there may be some secret lich mojo going on here. That said...

I was fighting Satebos with eyes of flame active and he landed "forget". He then fled and returned while I was fighting his zombie. When he returned, I saw the normal eyes of flame "attack" echo, but he wasn't drawn into combat, so I was unable to redirect onto him (using "hit").

Now, in the past when I've been in situations like this, eyes seems to pull the person into combat even if I'm fighting something else. Specifically, I seem to remember one fight against Waris where he fled, leaving me aiming at his night walker, then returned. Seems like I got the eyes echo and was immediately able to redirect onto him.

My guess is you saw "You do the best you can!", which is what you see when you try to murder someone while fighting. By design.