The morning came gray and slow, as though the sky itself mourned what had passed. Smoke still hung low over the ruins of the Whispering Vale, curling from the fractured stones and ash-covered roots like phantom breath. The trees stood still, not swaying but listening—touched, perhaps, by what had been awakened the night before.
Kael sat at the edge of a shallow ravine, where the cracked earth had split under the weight of fire and memory. He stared at his hands. The marks from the Codex still gleamed faintly beneath the grime—sigils etched in the shape of thorned circles, impossible to clean, impossible to forget.
Vaelarith's voice no longer rang in his mind, but its presence—her presence—remained. Dormant. Coiled.
Elen approached without sound, dropping beside him with a soft grunt. She passed him a piece of flatbread wrapped in cloth. Neither spoke.
She finally broke the silence. "You didn't scream in your sleep this time."
Kael tore the bread in half and gave her a portion. "Didn't sleep."
A beat passed. "You never used to lie. Not even little ones."
He didn't answer.
She chewed thoughtfully, eyes scanning the still forest. "The fire you summoned—"
"I didn't summon it."
"Whatever you did," she corrected, "it wasn't normal. That… thing was eaten by flame. Not burned—undone. That's not Thornbearer magic."
"No," Kael said. "It's not."
Silence again. The wind rustled low, sifting through the ash, and Kael could swear it carried whispers—just beneath the range of hearing. Or maybe memory.
Behind them, Thorne stood at the base of a shattered pillar, marking sigils into the stone with a dagger tip. He was muttering, tracing old runes in a language Kael was beginning to recognize—but not understand. It was the tongue of Thornbearers before the Fall. Ancient. Sharp. Like a name you were never meant to speak aloud.
Kael rose. "We should move soon."
"Thorne said we shouldn't travel the western path," Elen warned, brushing her hands clean. "Something's hunting there."
Kael glanced back at the old warrior. "The factions?"
"Worse," she said. "Whatever's hunting Thornbearers now… it isn't just after power. It wants silence."
They traveled north by midmorning, leaving the scorched ruins behind. The trail wound through sharp, frostbitten undergrowth and brittle trees that didn't belong to any known forest. Sometimes Kael thought he saw faces in the bark. Sometimes he was sure they blinked.
They didn't speak often. Not since the Name-Eaters.
That night's encounter had left more than one scar. Two of their group—Var and Saela—had chosen to turn back. The sight of the flame-drunk beast being unraveled by living fire had been too much.
Kael didn't blame them. If he could've walked away from himself, he might have.
By nightfall, they made camp beneath an outcrop of black stone. There was no wood to burn, so Thorne etched a ring of sigils around the group and whispered a word that turned the glyphs to ember. It gave no heat—but no creature crossed the line.
Elen sat sharpening her blade. "Have you noticed the birds?"
Kael glanced up. "What birds?"
"Exactly," she said. "Not one since the ruins. No crows, no thrush. Not even the whisper-birds. Just silence."
Kael listened. The forest, even by night, was dead. No insects. No wind. Just the low hum of Thorne's warding magic.
Something was wrong.
That night, Kael dreamed—or something close to it.
He stood on a great plain of ash and bone. In the sky above, a black sun burned, shedding no light. Beneath it, a thousand swords stood upright in the ground, their hilts carved with forgotten names. One by one, the names flaked away like bark, and where they vanished, screams echoed in the dark.
A shape moved between the swords.
Massive. Coiled. A serpent of smoke and fire.
Vaelarith.
Her voice was not a whisper this time. It was a song made of memory.
You walk among the husks of forgotten men.
Each step burns another name away.
Will you carry yours, or feed it to the fire?
Kael fell to his knees. "I don't know who I am."
Then become.
Name yourself.
Or something else will.
The dragon's wings unfurled, and the ash rose like waves. Kael screamed—not from fear, but from recognition.
And then he woke.
"Something's watching us."
Kael turned to see Thorne crouched at the tree line, fingers brushing the damp soil. The old warrior's voice was quiet but hard. "Tracks. Not human."
Elen joined him. "How fresh?"
"Hours. No more." He stood, eyes narrowing. "Whatever it is, it circles us. Always just out of reach."
Kael felt the Codex stir in his pack. The pages rustled—not from wind, but of their own volition. Like they knew.
"We keep moving," Thorne said. "Until we reach the Sunken Shrine."
Kael frowned. "That's beyond the Reach. Why go there?"
Thorne looked at him with something unreadable in his gaze. "Because if we don't, we die."
The forest narrowed the farther they traveled. The trees leaned inward unnaturally, forming shapes that pressed like ribs from a rotting beast. Even Elen stopped making sarcastic remarks. The deeper they went, the more they felt it—something ancient had walked this path long before them. And it might return.
They passed bones. Not animal.
Not clean.
Some had names carved into them.
Kael touched one, and for a brief moment, he remembered dying.
He pulled back fast, breath caught. "This place is cursed."
Thorne didn't look at him right away. Instead, he crouched near the bone, tracing the carved name with a gloved hand. His voice was low. "No. It's remembered."
"What?"
"This is where Thornbearers came to forget who they were. Where the world helped them do it."
Kael looked down the path. The trees had started whispering again.
Thorne rose slowly, brushing ash from his knees. "To forget is not to lose," he said. "It is to choose silence over suffering. But even silence remembers, in time."
That night, Kael stood watch alone. The others slept fitfully, surrounded by the warding glyphs, but Kael could not close his eyes. Not after the dream. Not after the names.
He stared into the trees.
And something stared back.
A shape—vaguely human—stood just beyond the warding circle. Its face was smeared with ash. Its eyes were pits of glimmering memory. When it opened its mouth, no sound came. Only smoke.
Kael rose, heart hammering. "Who are you?"
The figure raised a hand. In its palm, Kael saw a symbol. His symbol. The Thornmark.
But warped.
Burned.
Forgotten.
"Name-Eater," Kael whispered.
The figure smiled—and turned away.
Vanished.