At dawn, the mist returned.
Thick, silver, cloying. It rolled down from the hills and swallowed the village in silence. Arjuna stood at the edge of the Binding Tree, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He hadn't slept.
Tellen arrived, yawning and disheveled, clutching a satchel of ink and scrolls.
"They'll call the gathering soon," the historian muttered. "The final rite. It's always held on the ninth morning."
Arjuna didn't move. "What happens if someone refuses to give a memory?"
Tellen frowned. "Then the dead keep what's theirs. And the village keeps what's left."
Arjuna looked down at his hand. It trembled faintly.
"I don't know what's mine anymore," he whispered.
The Gathering took place in the square.
Villagers stood in a loose circle, wearing their bone-paint and hollow masks. The air tasted like iron. Children had stopped laughing. Even the crows perched silent on the eaves.
In the center stood the Eldest—a crone draped in moss and skull-beads. She lifted her staff and intoned:
"On the ninth day, memory must be weighed. For the dead do not forget. And neither should we."
Each villager stepped forward, offering a name or story to the Emberfire.
A woman wept as she spoke of her lost son.
A boy gave the name of a forgotten brother.
One by one, the flames consumed the offerings, flaring blue and gold.
Then the Eldest looked to Arjuna.
"Knight of no past," she said. "What memory will you give the dead?"
He stepped forward.
And hesitated.
The villagers watched, breathless. Even the fire seemed to wait.
"I remember…" Arjuna began, voice low.
"…a battlefield. A woman with ashfire eyes. She called me by a name I've forgotten. She smiled through blood. And she told me—"
He stopped.
The memory flickered.
And for a heartbeat, it slipped.
Gone.
The Emberfire hissed.
The Eldest frowned.
"You lie," she rasped. "Or you forget."
Arjuna's vision blurred. His knees buckled.
Then a child stepped forward.
The same pale boy with white hair who had followed him days ago.
"I remember him," the boy said.
The villagers gasped. "No soulbound may speak," someone hissed.
But the child ignored them. His eyes burned with an eerie light. Not cruel. Not kind.
Just… old.
"I remember what he forgot."
Everything broke.
The Emberfire exploded into violet flame. Screams erupted.
The Binding Tree shook, shedding thousands of red ribbons like blood.
Arjuna felt a sharp pull in his mind—like a thread yanked from a seam. He fell, clutching his head, and the memory returned:
Vaelin on a cliffside. Her blade to his throat. Kissing him instead.
The warmth. The fear. The betrayal.
The boy laughed—a strange, echoing sound.
"I am Hollowborn. Made from his lost years."
Tellen dragged Arjuna away as the villagers turned on the boy, terrified.
The Eldest screamed, "He is memory unbound—he must be cast out!"
But it was too late.
The child vanished in a ripple of smoke and frost.
Later, in the woods, Tellen bandaged Arjuna's arm.
"You've drawn the attention of something ancient," he said grimly. "That child—he was no ghost."
Arjuna stared at the ribbon still tied to his wrist. It had turned black.
"Am I cursed?" he asked.
Tellen didn't answer.
Instead, he reached into his satchel and pulled out an old parchment. It showed a map—twisted, unfamiliar, marked with inked ruins and forgotten cities.
"This is where we go next," Tellen said. "A kingdom of bandits. They call it the Broken Crown."
"Why?"
"Because its king waits for the god he thinks you are."
Arjuna looked up. Wind howled through the trees.
"I'm no god."
"No," Tellen said. "But to those who remember war, a dead god is still worth following."
Far away, in the Obsidian Spire, Nyssara clutched her mirror.
She had seen the boy.
Her voice shook with fear—and something like awe.
"So it begins," she whispered.
"The Black Vow wakes."