The wind was colder now.
Not simply cold as in air, but cold as in memory—old, brittle, and close to breaking.
Kaien hadn't spoken since the monolith. Since the name VAEL had returned to his hand like an open wound.
Eira hadn't asked. Not yet.
They proceeded through the iron-thorned trail in quiet, the crater far behind them. The sky overhead had no stars tonight, only slow-turning clouds like forgotten pages.
"Does it feel different?" Eira asked finally.
Kaien didn't glance at her. "What?"
"Carrying your name again."
He exhaled.
"It doesn't feel like I got something back," he remarked. "It feels like I picked up something I buried for a reason."
They made camp beneath the splintered ribs of a skyfallen tower. Not one of the Citadel spires – something older, its glyphs long rusted away.
Kaien sat with Mourncaller across his lap. The blade hadn't spoken since the monolith. It hadn't trembled either.
It felt… silent.
Eira was watching him again. Not cautiously, not gently. Just watching — like she was waiting to see if he'd crumble.
"Earlier," she said. "You saw something in the mirror. Back in the valley. The one that showed the burning city."
Kaien nodded.
"I saw myself. Sitting on a throne made of ash."
"And what were you doing?"
"Naming things," he said. "And when I did… the world broke."
Eira looked aside. "Maybe that's why the rain fell."
Kaien didn't answer.
Because maybe she was right.
They journeyed east by deadlight - the faded glimmer of skyglass veins coursing under the earth. Once used to direct caravans. Now hardly powerful enough to see by.
Kaien's grasp on Mourncaller was tighter now. His body remembered how to manoeuvre through danger.
Even if his thoughts didn't.
They reached a ridge overlooking a shallow basin of relic-ash. What should've been dry was burning. Not fresh — memory-smoke. A recent brawl.
Someone had burned something they shouldn't have.
That's when Kaien heard it.
The scratch of boots across stone.
The air shimmered.
And from it stepped The Archivist.
He appeared unchanged.
Same bone-white mask. Same robes embroidered with forbidden sigils. But there was a heaviness about his attitude now, like he'd been travelling through fading worlds.
"You opened the monolith," he remarked.
Kaien stood but didn't sketch.
"I didn't mean to."
"You were always going to. It remembers blood, not intent."
Eira stayed back, silent. Watching.
The Archivist gazed at her. "You remember him now, don't you?"
She flinched. Just slightly.
"I don't know what I remember," she said.
"That's how it starts."
He turned to Kaien.
"And now you're wearing it again. The name."
Kaien gazed at his hand.
"I want to know," he said.
"What you were?"
"No."
Kaien stepped forward.
"I want to know who burned it into me."
The Archivist didn't answer.
Not at first.
He delved into his robes and drew out a little piece of black glass. Inside it swirled smoke. Words attempting to become form.
He tossed it to Kaien.
Kaien caught it. The shard was heated.
"What is this?"
"A memory. Your voice. Screaming something the world forgot."
Kaien stared at it.
"Did you burn my name into me?"
"No," the Archivist responded. "I stole it. Hid it from you. You seared it into yourself."
"Why?"
"Because you led the rebellion against the Twelve. Because you turned towns into ash to avert a second downpour. Because you betrayed the Sovereigns… to become one."
Kaien's fingers clenched.
"None of that makes sense."
"Not yet," the Archivist responded. "But it will. When the sky sings again."
Kaien didn't wait.
He touched the shard to his palm.
And the world fell.
Memory. War. A fractured sky.
Kaien stood atop a fortress wall, yelling to fighters below. He wore black armor laced with blood-glyphs. His voice reverberated with strength.
He screamed a name – not his. A word so forceful the air shattered. And as it did, a metropolis below caved in on itself. No flame. No battle.
Just erasure.
Thornwake.
He'd unmade it.
And then he had burned his name into his own skin so no one else could ever wear it again.
He woke in a chilly sweat.
Eira knelt alongside him.
"You said a word in your sleep," she said.
Kaien looked up.
"What was it?"
She paused.
"Thornwake."
Kaien's breath caught.
"I destroyed it," he murmured.
Eira gazed at his hand.
The name was blazing again.
Not simply VAEL.
But something beneath it.
Faint. Not yet whole.
Another name.
Waiting.
They strolled beneath a scarred sky, the clouds thick with unspoken names. The phrase Thornwake still echoed in his head. Not loud. Just… steady. Like a heartbeat buried in ash.
Eira continued staring at him, but never enquired. Maybe she didn't want the answer.
Mourncaller, slung across his back, began to sing again – weak, uneven, like a broken lullaby.
They reached the ridge about lunchtime. A small stretch of land flanked by skeleton towers constructed of skyglass – relics of a listening array from before the flood.
Eira called them Echo Spires.
"They recorded sound," she added. "Not for messages. For memory. Each tower remembers a moment. But only if someone strong enough walks past to agitate it."
Kaien raised a brow. "Strong how?"
"Strong like… your name doesn't flinch when someone else speaks it."
He didn't answer. Just walked.
As he passed the first spire, it stayed stationary. Silent.
The second buzzed weakly.
The third—
Spoke.
"Vael… please. Not this way."
Kaien froze.
The voice wasn't one he remembered. But it remembered him.
Eira said nothing.
They moved on.
More spires triggered now — echoing not words, but moments. Screams. Ashfall. The sound of a metropolis folding in on itself.
Kaien's skull throbbed.
The ridge narrowed. The wind picked up.
And then, the sky changed.
It wasn't weather.
The clouds above them shifted like something waking. Not drifting — moving. A low hum began to fill the air.
It wasn't thunder. It wasn't memory. It was… a song.
Wordless. Familiar.
Eira looked up. Her lips parted.
"The train," she muttered. "Calla's song."
But Calla was gone. Long gone.
The hum grew louder.
Kaien's mark pulsed.
The word VAEL shone softly, and beneath it fresh glyphs were forming. Incomplete. Crawling out of him like scars unhealed.
They reached the top of the ridge just as the hum reached its height.
A spire there – higher, charred by past fire leaned into the sky like a question.
Inside, they found a relic.
It was a lens. Glass cracked at the edges. Shaped like an eye.
Kaien lifted it.
"Relic?"
Eira nodded. "An Ash-Lens. Lets you glimpse a memory… the way it actually happened. Not the way people tell it."
Kaien raised it to his eye.
And the world bled.
A city burning. Thornwake.
Kaien stood on a dais, cloaked in black. People below chanted. Not screaming — chants. Devotion.
He wasn't a despot. He was a leader.
He spoke one word.
The city collapsed into ash.
No fire. No blood. Just absence.
Eira saw it too. Reflected in the glass.
She turned away.
Kaien lowered the lens.
The buzz disappeared.
The sky… watched.
As they descended the ridge, Kaien's hand throbbed again.
The symbols beneath VAEL twisted. Formed lines.
Not a name. Not yet.
Just the shape of something that remembered him.
Behind them, the wind sang once again.