Raech Mourne's army surged forward like a black tide—not of men, but of memories twisted into flesh. They screamed with stolen voices and wept with borrowed faces, each one half-formed, unfinished, incomplete.
The pass groaned under the weight of so many echoes.
Dhera stood with her arms outstretched, sweat pouring down her face as she anchored the barrier lattice, layers of mana weaving into a net between the canyon walls.
"These things shouldn't exist," she hissed.
"They don't," Lyra answered, leaping between rocks, her shadow-fused daggers ripping through shades that dissolved only to reform again.
"But here they are anyway."
Valen stood at the front line.
Sword raised.
The Flame of the Forgotten flickered at his back, its light seeping from him like an afterimage, a halo made of regret.
The first wave struck.
He met them.
Steel clashed with smoke. But Sorrowfang was not normal steel. It drank names. And as it carved through the memory-shades, they screamed—not in pain, but in recognition.
"You! You were there!"
"You burned the seal—!"
"You unmade us!"
Valen's face remained cold.
"No. I merely refused to lie."
Further back, Orven, the Echo-Keeper, was whispering into his scrolls, reversing glyphs, casting unbinding runes.
Each incantation caused a shade to freeze, flicker, or shatter.
"These names were erased," he muttered, "but not buried. They can still be rewritten."
Lyra spun beside him, drawing a sigil in the air with her heel, then slashing through a charging remnant. "Speak faster, priest!"
Orven didn't respond—his tongue had turned black from the effort. Blood welled in his throat, but still he whispered.
At the heart of the canyon, Raech Mourne watched.
His body—if it was one—had begun to shift.
The chains binding him melted.
The nails in his chest pulled free.
And what was once a man began to become something else—
A crown of ash took shape above his head.
Not placed.
Remembered.
Raech raised a hand.
And the air screamed.
The cliff walls cracked outward as forgotten structures emerged from the stone—parts of cities that had never existed, fragments of events that had been undone.
A tower.
A gallows.
A crib.
Dhera gasped. "He's rebuilding his timeline."
Lyra asked sharply, "Can that even happen?"
Valen growled, "Only if he believes it more than we do."
Then Raech spoke.
No longer through others.
No longer in whispers.
But with a voice that turned the bones of the earth backward.
"You erased my name."
"You burned my records."
"But I remained."
"I was the breath between your silences."
"I was the child no one claimed."
"I was king where no one ruled."
He stepped forward.
And the sky above the canyon darkened.
Valen lifted Sorrowfang. "I remember what you did, Raech."
"Do you remember why I stopped you?"
Raech's head tilted.
"You didn't stop me."
"You merely interrupted the story."
With a gesture, Raech summoned his past self—not as a memory-shade, but as a concrete truth, formed from the raw substance of history.
Another Raech stepped into the battlefield—young, armored, eyes full of fire.
This was Raech before betrayal.
Before mutilation.
Before erasure.
Lyra's face tightened. "He can double his timeline."
Orven shouted hoarsely, "No! He's creating a paradox! If both exist at once—"
Valen moved.
Fast.
Too fast for words.
He struck at the younger Raech.
Steel met steel.
Memory met the present.
And the canyon screamed.
Time buckled.
For an instant, all of them were elsewhere—
A courtroom of light.
A throne room of bone.
A battlefield of suns.
Valen's sword clashed against the shape of destiny, not just a foe. Sparks were memories. Blood was time.
Dhera's voice echoed from nowhere:
"You have to anchor yourself! Or he'll overwrite you!"
Valen closed his eyes.
And remembered:
The child he once saved.
The oath he once made.
The sunless road he once walked alone.
He reopened them.
And cut.
Straight through the young Raech.
The paradox exploded.
The present Raech howled—not in pain, but in conflict, his form splitting in half, then reforming.
The timeline could not hold two selves.
One had to fall.
Valen pressed forward.
Behind him, Lyra dragged Orven to safety as the cliff crumbled. Dhera was now bleeding from the eyes, still keeping the spell lattice stable with sheer force of will.
"I can't hold it much longer!" she cried.
Valen heard.
He reached the ruined palanquin.
Raech knelt, barely formed.
And Valen placed Sorrowfang against his chest.
"Say your name."
Raech hissed.
"I already did."
Valen leaned closer.
"Then say it one last time—so I can end it."
The Unking stared at him.
And said—
"I was Raech Mourne."
"Now, I am no one."
Valen smiled sadly.
"Then you no longer exist."
He struck.
And the name shattered.
The army of shades dissolved in a wave of smoke and memory.
The drums fell silent.
The sky cleared.
And the Flame of the Forgotten flared once—then steadied.
Mourne was gone.
Valen stood alone at the heart of Mirehold Pass.
Not a victor.
Not a ruler.
Just a witness.
To what memory could become when twisted by rage.
He turned back toward the others.
Lyra limped toward him. "That was… close."
Dhera fell to her knees, gasping. "The seal held. Barely."
Valen sheathed Sorrowfang.
"Raech was the first. He won't be the last."
Orven, pale and broken-throated, looked up.
"There are more names beneath the ash."
Valen nodded.
"Then we keep burning."