By midday, the ground began to transform again.
Where the blackwater ended, hills of petrified ash took over—gray dunes that crumbled beneath their soles like old bones. The breeze here didn't carry scent or sound, only the impression of something long dead and still watching.
"Do you know where we're headed?" Eira asked.
Kaien nodded. "The Archivist told me once. Before I remembered his face."
"What did he say?"
Kaien narrowed his gaze.
"When you reach the place where even your shadow forgets you, dig."
They stopped at the base of a stone ridge, its face engraved with ancient sigils—eroded nearly to nothing. A narrow cave yawned beneath it, hardly big enough for two persons to stand erect.
Inside, it was dry.
Too dry.
Like nothing had breathed here in decades.
Kaien stepped in first. Mourncaller thrummed weakly against his back. Not fear. Something closer to warning.
"Relic?" Eira asked.
"No. Older."
He knelt by a half-buried metal crate. No lock. No hinge. It responded not to hands, but memories.
As Kaien reached out, the blade on his back shrieked.
Just once.
Then fell silent.
The box clicked open.
Inside was a blade. Not like Mourncaller. Sleek. Sharp. Covered in glyphs he didn't recognize—but his blood did.
The moment he touched it, the cave walls streamed light.
And his vision broke.
Memory skyrocketed.
But not his.
Thousands of images – names without faces, battles without winners, people yelling oaths in dead tongues. At the center of it all stood a tower built of bones, covered in black rain.
A woman stood on it.
She wore no crown, but Kaien knew she reigned. Knew her name the way fire knows wood.
Veyra Vael.
She turned to him.
Not the genuine man. The other Kaien – the one from the Covenant.
And she spoke:
"You will fail, son of ash."
"But failure is how our kind begins."
He toppled backward, coughing smoke.
Eira seized him before he smacked his skull on the stone.
"You saw something."
He nodded. "A memory that wasn't mine."
"Whose?"
Kaien glanced at the newly disclosed blade laying in the box, still shining.
"Someone who died… believing I would fail."
Outside, the wind had changed.
No longer dry. Now it carried voices.
One voice, in particular.
"He's awake."
Eira's eyes sharpened. "That's not an echo."
"No," Kaien answered, drawing Mourncaller again. "That's a tracker."
They ran.
But not fast enough.
From the ridge above, a Citadel Revenant descended — not alive, not quite dead. Wrapped in chain-memories that clattered as it moved, bound by seals that bled ancestral energy like steam.
Its face was concealed by a black mask.
Kaien stepped forward. "You're late."
It didn't respond.
Only drew a sword fashioned from bone and lightning.
Eira yelled, "Kaien, that's a Death-Bound! You can't kill it unless—"
"I remember it," Kaien finished.
He lunged.
Mourncaller met the Revenant's sword, and for a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then—
A flash.
Kaien saw the Revenant's last memory: a battlefield. A burning city. A Sovereign youngster standing among corpses.
The Revenant had died trying to protect them.
He gasped.
The sword in his hand grew heavier.
It remembered too.
Mourncaller screamed—not in pain, but defiance.
It hit again, and this time, it sliced clear through.
The Revenant collapsed. Not into blood, but into whispers. Names. Oaths. Forgotten dreams.
Gone.
Eira exhaled slowly. "You remembered his death."
Kaien nodded. "And now he's free."
They didn't stay long.
The wind was thick with watchers now.
But before they went, Kaien seized both blades — Mourncaller and the unidentified one from the cave — and linked them together with a strip of memory-thread taken from the Revenant.
Two blades. One forgetting, one remembering too much.
Neither complete.
Just like him.
As they descended the slope, Kaien spoke without turning.
"Veyra Vael."
Eira stared at him sternly.
"Who?"
"My ancestor," he said. "Or… maybe my future."
Eira shivered.
Kaien didn't.
He felt warm for the first time in days.
Not safe. Not sure.
But anchored.
The hill behind them vanished in the fog.
Fog that hadn't been there seconds ago.
Kaien didn't question it. Not anymore. Places altered swiftly in the Shatterlands. Especially after memory had been spilled. The soil here swallowed the history like blood.
Eira walked beside him, blade drawn.
She hadn't talked anything since the Revenant fell. Something about the death had troubled her—though she wouldn't say it aloud.
"You heard what it said," Kaien finally mumbled.
"I heard wind," she said.
"No. Before it died."
She didn't answer.
Because she had heard it. Just one word.
"Free."
By twilight, they reached the brink of an abandoned rail line — covered with thorns that bled when touched. Kaien hesitated, pushing a hand on the metal.
It was warm.
"Someone passed through recently," he said.
"Citadel Enforcers?" Eira asked.
He shook his head. "No. Something older. Something that didn't walk."
The rails vibrated.
Then a whisper — not from the wind, not from memory, but from the blade on his back.
Mourncaller.
It talked for the first time.
But not in words.
In remembrance.
A sudden vision crashed into Kaien's skull:
A train screaming through a thunderstorm. Not of water, but of names. Each droplet a forgotten oath. Inside the train—prisoners. All of them sovereignless. None of them remembered what they were. But all of them sung the same tune.
A lullaby with no language.
Only rhythm.
The train never stopped.
Kaien fell to one knee.
Eira steadied him.
"What did it show you?"
He opened his mouth, but the words refused to come.
Instead, he drew Mourncaller and held it lovingly.
"You remember the train," he said.
A weak pulse replied.
Not a yes. Not exactly.
More like: Almost.
Eira knelt. "It's waking up, isn't it?"
Kaien nodded. "But every time I use it… it forgets more."
Eira felt the blade's edge. "Then maybe it's time you stop using it like a weapon."
Kaien frowned. "Then what is it?"
She examined it. "Maybe… a witness."
They made camp in a destroyed switching tower.
The kind originally utilised by memory engineers—artificers who could reroute entire thoughtstreams through blood-sigils and bone keys. Now, just rust and glyph rot remained. Still, the place offered sanctuary.
Kaien spent the night polishing both blades.
Mourncaller stayed silent.
But the fresh blade—the one from the cave—shivered when the heat got too close.
"Not a relic," he mumbled.
"Then what?" Eira asked, snuggling in her cloak.
Kaien flipped it over in his palms. "A remembrance weapon. But not mine."
He ran a finger down the edge.
No cut.
But a flash of memory:
A girl, giggling, swinging the sword with one hand and a mirror with the other. Not Eira. Not anyone Kaien knew. But her eyes were familiar.
Like his.
Like hers.
Before he could go deeper, a sound pierced through the calm.
Footsteps.
Slow. Uneven. One leg metal.
Kaien rose in an instant.
Eira was already at the door, eyes narrow.
From the fog came a figure – crouched, shrouded, with copper discs dangling from his waist like charms. They clinked quietly with every hobbling step.
Kaien didn't recognize him.
But Mourncaller did.
It shouted once—and stopped.
The man lifted his hand.
"I come bearing no oath," he rasped.
Eira raised her sword. "Then what do you bring?"
The man smiled.
"Answers."
His name was Loor.
An echo-born.
"Not a Revenant," he explained, sitting beside the fire without asking permission. "Not a ghost. Not a priest."
Kaien didn't lower Mourncaller.
"You're still dead," he said.
Loor nodded. "But not fully."
He unrolled a scroll from behind his coat. It smelled of ash and ink.
On it: a map.
But not of roads or cities.
Of lost locations.
"Everywhere the black rain fell hardest," Loor explained. "Everywhere memories tried to climb back into the world."
Kaien pointed to a smudge at the center. "What's this?"
Loor's face clouded.
"The place where names go to die."
Kaien felt his pulse stutter.
"I need to go there."
"No one needs to go there," Loor replied quietly. "But if you want to survive what you are… you will."
As the fire died, Loor reached into his robe and drew out a silver shard.
Not metal.
Memory-glass.
He handed it to Kaien.
"Crack it when the sword forgets your name. It will remind you… what it once swore to protect."
Kaien stared at it. "Why help me?"
Loor smiled.
And for the first time, Kaien saw the mark on his palm.
The same word burnt into his.
SOVEREIGN.