It appeared only during the new moon.
Held in the field where no houses stood, its stalls were made of bamboo and bone, lit with fireflies and spirit orbs. Vendors wore masks not to hide, but to show who they honored. Some had antlers, others feathered crowns.
Spirits mingled among the humans: translucent figures with drifting eyes, small floating kaluluwa bartering for incense, even a Diwata of stone who offered blessings in exchange for whispered stories.
Iliya wandered slowly, drawn to a stall that sold only memory beads filled with echoes of prayers, laughter, and final words.
"You look like someone who's carrying too many of your own," said the vendor.
"I'm trying to remember," Iliya replied.
"Then find someone to remember with."
He found her in the resting hall — a small bamboo shelter where travelers slept beside the fire. She sat alone, sharpening a blade curved like a crescent moon.
Her eyes were tired. Her armor was patched and scorched. Across her left arm was a scar shaped like a spirit glyph.
She looked up when he entered.
"Didn't expect to see another cursed one tonight," she said.
Iliya paused. "You can see it?"
"The mark? Like a second sun. Yours shines loud."
"And yours?"
She shrugged. "Mine burned out long ago."
She didn't give her name until later, when he offered rice and silence.
"Salimbay," she said. "Daughter of no house. Walker of war trails."
She once served a fallen Diwata, long before it was cast into madness. When the pacts collapsed, she refused to bow — instead, she walked away from both spirit and tribe.
"I've seen what loyalty costs," she said. "And forgetting costs even more."
By dawn, they had shared enough silence to count as trust.
When Iliya rose to leave, she was already standing beside him.
"You're walking toward something heavy," Salimbay said. "I'll walk with you for a while. Until your echo drowns mine."
He nodded once. He didn't need to ask why.
Some stories don't begin with promises only with steps in the same direction.
The morning mist clung low as Iliya and Salimbay followed the mountain trail east, past bent trees and stones carved with broken glyphs. The silence between them wasn't awkward; it had rhythm, like two drummers who didn't yet share a song but kept pace anyway.
Salimbay walked like a woman always watching corners. Iliya noticed how she touched her blade not with pride, but as if making sure it didn't vanish. She was no ordinary mercenary.
At noon, they paused by a river that ran dark with copper silt. While Iliya refilled his waterskin, he finally asked:
"Why follow me?"
Salimbay didn't answer right away. She knelt, letting water run through her fingers like memory.
"The first time I heard the Echo, I was guarding a sacred grove near Baklawon," she said quietly. "I thought it was a spirit voice just grief. But then... something answered it."
She rolled up her sleeve, revealing the faded spirit glyph etched into her skin.
"It branded me when my oath broke. I ran from the war. My Diwata fell into madness. My sisters died praying. I survived but not because I was brave."
Iliya stared at the mark.
"Now you hear it again?"
She nodded.
"It stirs in the land. In you. That mark of yours it's not just a key. It's a beacon. And maybe if I walk beside you long enough, I'll finally understand what we all lost… and why we're being called back."
The path grew steep and narrow, roots twisting like veins. By dusk, they reached a sunken clearing wrapped in mist.
In its center stood a withered tree. Beneath it, bones too many for one life.
Salimbay froze. "This is a blood grove. The kind left behind after spirit duels."
The air turned cold. From the mist came a voice:
"Help me… please…"
A girl stepped out. Barefoot. Pale. Her face flickered like a candle in the wind.
Iliya took a step forward then stopped.
Something in his mark screamed in silence.
Salimbay's hand went to her blade. "That's not a child."
The figure smiled.
And the grove awoke.
Roots surged from the ground. Branches lashed like whips. A Wraithroot, a forgotten fragment of a broken pact rose, feeding off forgotten prayers and imitating the voices of the dead.
"Don't strike it," Iliya shouted. "It's tied to memory!"
But it didn't wait.
It lashed out, slicing Iliya's shoulder and hurling Salimbay into a stone altar. She gasped, bleeding.
The Wraithroot approached her, its mask shifting to resemble a woman's face familiar. A memory.
"You left us behind," it hissed. "You let us burn."
Salimbay's breath caught. "No…"
"You broke your oath."
It lunged.
But Iliya stepped in front, raising his hand. His mark burst to life golden, spiraled, and pulsing with a memory not his own.
"She grieves," Iliya said. "That is not betrayal."
The light burned through the mist. The Wraithroot staggered, cracking.
And then Salimbay stood her blade lit with faint blue glyphs and drove it through the heart of the spirit.
Not to destroy.
To silence it. To let it rest.
The grove fell still.
They made camp outside the grove, both exhausted and wounded.
Salimbay sat beside him, arms crossed.
"I thought I buried that part of myself," she said. "I didn't know it still bled."
Iliya offered her a bandage.
"We all carry ghosts," he replied. "But maybe we're not meant to carry them alone."
She looked at him. Not with gratitude. But with understanding.
"Next time," she said, "we will fight back to back."
He nodded.
Two paths had begun to align not perfectly, not completely but enough.
Enough for now.