"I don't recall being born. But I remember watching you die."
Eira's eyes shimmered like frost over coals—beautiful, brittle, and lethal if you looked too long.
Kaien stood still.
Not because he was terrified, though he certainly should've been. But because her voice had conveyed something heavier than accusation.
It carried remembrance.
"I don't remember dying," he added, trying to mimic her tone.
"You didn't," she said. "But you left a scar in the world. I felt it."
She looked away again, her form framed against a jagged horizon. Mist clung to the valley below like it was hiding something. Maybe it was.
"You said you saw me kill him," Kaien added, getting closer. "The Citadel Hound."
"I see every death within a day's walk," she mumbled. "They come to me, not like dreams—more like echoes."
"Why?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she crouched down, putting her palm to the ash-covered stone beneath her feet. The wind stirred, whispering through burnt grass.
"I've seen death in every shape," Eira muttered. "Some crawl. Some burn. Some scream like they're attempting to cling onto themselves. But yours…" Her fingers clenched on the stone. "Yours was hollow. Like the sword recalled killing before you did."
Kaien gazed down at the weapon strapped on his back. Mourncaller. Quiet again. Not humming. Not burning.
Just sleeping.
Like it didn't want to remember, either.
They wandered in silence for hours.
Not together. But not apart, either. Eira stayed just far enough ahead that Kaien couldn't quite catch up—like she didn't want to be followed but yet didn't want to be alone.
The terrain grew worse.
Twisted roads. Burned bridges. Trees that leaked when chopped.
Once, they passed a pond where reflections didn't match the people staring in. Kaien didn't stop. Neither did she.
Eventually, she spoke again.
"You're not supposed to be alive."
"I've gotten that impression."
"They branded you Sovereign."
Kaien hesitated. "You know what it means?"
"No one does. That's why it's dangerous."
She peered back over her shoulder, her hair twisted with fire and twigs.
"You're not a person anymore. You're a question. And the Citadels loathe questions."
That night, they camped beneath the skeletal remnants of an old temple. It might've once been beautiful—vaulted arches, crescent spires—but now it seemed like it had been fashioned from shadow and left to rot.
Kaien gathered what little dry kindling he could locate. Eira didn't help, but she observed.
He ignited the fire with a sparkstone he didn't recall holding. The blade's hilt warmed at his side.
Eira finally sat across from him, cross-legged, gaze riveted on the flames.
"I only remember one thing," she continued, voice low.
Kaien leaned forward. "What?"
"Every time someone dies near me, I see it. The final moment. Like a sliver of truth searing through fog."
"That sounds like hell."
"It is."
She gazed at him.
"You were quiet when he died. The Hound. That's rare."
Kaien thought about it. Thought about the sword piercing through the man's chest. The quiet that followed.
"I didn't mean to kill him."
"Intent doesn't matter," Eira said. "Memory does."
After they ate—roots she foraged and dried bloodfruit he'd salvaged—they reclined under the shattered sky.
Kaien stared at the stars. Or what was remained of them. Half were blotted out like someone had smeared ink across the firmament.
"Why help me?" he asked.
Eira didn't turn. "I'm not."
"You're not running from me."
"I'm running toward something worse."
Kaien frowned. "Worse than a branded Sovereign?"
"Yes."
She stared up at the stars, and in that instant she seemed older than her body—ancient, tired, already halfway to ruin.
"You remember the sword's name?" she asked.
Kaien nodded. "Mourncaller."
Eira flinched. Just slightly.
"I thought it was lost."
"You know it?"
"I've seen it kill before."
"When?"
"In memories that weren't mine."
The next morning, they reached a ravine that wasn't on any map—Kaien knew because he found a burnt part of one tucked in his coat.
The ravine pulsed.
Not like a heart. Like a wound.
"Do we cross?" he enquired.
Eira shook her head. "It's not real."
Kaien glanced again. The cliff looked steep yet manageable.
"You're saying it's a memory?"
"I'm saying it's bait."
He took a step back.
Just in time to witness the cliff waver—like heat off metal—and dissolve into a hundred shrieking jaws.
A memory trap.
"Citadel enforcers set them along rogue paths," Eira remarked. "They grow stronger the more people forget they're there."
Kaien exhaled. "Then how did you know?"
"I've been here before."
They veered north, following a broken track once used by corpse-scribes.
Eira told him stories—not kindly, but with precision. Names, dates, deaths.
"There was a boy once who remembered too fast," she added. "His skin split open from all the lives inside him. They dubbed him a fake prophet and used his teeth for relic charms."
Kaien grimaced. "How do you live like that?"
"I don't. I just keep walking."
He wanted to say something soothing, but what do you offer someone who's formed of the dead?
So instead, he said, "Why don't you remember anything before you were twelve?"
Eira's face clouded.
"I think I do," she whispered. "But the memory keeps killing me. So I stopped allowing it in."
That night, Kaien dreamt.
Not of his life. But of a throne built of ash.
And someone standing beside it—a masked person, shrouded in ink, carrying a lamp full of screaming mouths.
"You are the echo of a world that deserved to end," the apparition replied.
Kaien reached for the sword on his back, but it was gone.
"You cannot kill what you do not remember."
The candle shattered.
He woke gasping. Eira was already up, blade in hand.
"We have to move," she added.
"What is it?"
"An Archivist just tried to feed you."
Kaien starred. "What?"
"He's near. He's seeking you via memory."
Kaien stood, heart racing. "Why?"
Eira gazed at him.
"For the same reason everyone else is."
She reached toward him.
"You're not Kaien, not really. You're only the final remembrance of someone else."
And then, softly:
"And he was a monster."