The ruins appeared just before sunrise.
A half-buried temple, carved into the bones of a fallen colossus. The ribs of a long-dead behemoth arched above the entrance like the jaws of an open dragon skull. Faded glyphs glowed faintly along the stone steps, humming with echo-static.
Nira traced one of the glyphs with her finger. "This was a shrine of the Forgotten School."
Raen stepped cautiously over a cracked tile. "Sword monks who sealed their emotions into their blades. No disciples. No heirs. Only... memory."
Talin drew his blade. "So naturally we're walking straight into it."
The moment they passed the threshold, they felt it.
Silence. Not ordinary silence—but a crushing vacuum that swallowed thought.
Raen's grip on his sword loosened.
He blinked—then blinked again.
"Wait… what form was I using?"
Talin paused mid-step. "What the—where's my stance?"
Nira gasped, suddenly fumbling her satchel. "My… my seal array is gone! I don't remember the syntax—!"
It hit them all at once.
Their techniques, their training, their instincts—gone.
Raen's mind was blank. Empty. Only fear remained.
A slow, mocking clap echoed through the chamber.
From the shadows of a broken pillar stepped Commander Seyra of the Unspooling Vein.
Tall. Elegant. Cruel.
Her crimson mask bore no eyeholes—just a stitched mouth.
"You're standing inside a Memory Hollow," she said, voice smooth and cold. "Every skill you've ever honed is gone. Devoured by the leech spores I planted three nights ago."
She lifted a hand—and in response, six whisper-beasts slithered from the stone, shaped like liquid spiders, each one wearing a stolen expression on its carapace.
Talin raised his blade—then lowered it again, breathing hard. "I… I don't remember how to parry."
"Don't move," Nira whispered. "They track forgotten thoughts."
Raen's heart pounded.
Kavran's voice? Silent.
Even the Veinblade?
Still.
"I need something," Raen muttered to himself. "Anything. A spark."
He closed his eyes.
Reached inside the void left behind.
And found it.
Not a technique.
Not a sword form.
But pain.
The moment his leg shattered.
The betrayal.
The shame.
He screamed—not out loud, but through will.
And the Veinblade answered.
A surge of red light burst from Raen's wrapped weapon as the seals tore loose. It didn't grant back his memories. It overrode them.
One whisper. One voice.
"Strike as if it's your first and last time."
Raen moved.
Not perfectly. Not with form. Just raw, desperate instinct.
He slashed one whisper-beast in half.
Then another.
Seyra's head tilted, intrigued. "So the sword fights for you now. Fascinating."
Talin, emboldened, charged into the fray with a grunt. "Guess we're doing this the messy way!"
Nira focused on drawing a single glyph in blood. "One memory. Just one…"
Her palm lit.
A protective rune exploded, shielding the others as Raen pushed forward.
Face-to-face with Seyra.
She blocked his strike with her bare hand—metal-on-metal echoing with ancient hate.
"You're not ready," she whispered.
And then vanished into smoke, laughing.
The beasts dissolved with her.
The silence lifted.
Raen collapsed to one knee, breath ragged.
Talin wiped sweat from his brow. "Note to self: Never let weird mist-eating spiders near my face again."
Nira sat down hard. "I got back two glyphs. I'll take it."
Raen stared at his sword, still pulsing faintly.
"I didn't fight with memory," he said. "I fought with pain."
Nira glanced over. "That's dangerous."
Raen nodded.
"But it worked."