The wind changed after the veil closed.
No longer sharp with frost or thick with silence, but heavy—expectant, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. Arjuna walked slowly back into Hollowmere. The villagers made way without a word, many bowing, some whispering prayers.
He didn't hear them.
His thoughts still echoed with the shade's words:
"You left us behind. You let her burn."
Beside him, Tellen stayed silent, for once. The historian's face was unusually pale, his hands tucked deep into his robes.
They reached the inn. Lanternlight flickered behind shuttered windows. A single candle burned on the table, steady and still.
"You remember more now," Tellen said at last.
Arjuna nodded. "Not fully. But… the vow. The sword. Her voice."
Tellen's eyes lit up. "Her? You mean—Nyssara?"
Arjuna didn't reply. He was staring out the window.
Across the village square, the memory-bloom on the shrine still glowed.
By morning, the Hollow Lights had passed. The air was clean again, and the children returned to the streets, barefoot and laughing. But the villagers looked older than before. Wearier.
That's the price, Tellen had said. One night a year, they live with ghosts.
Before they left, the village elder—Mara—asked Arjuna for a private word. She was a thin woman with skin like bark and a voice like old stone.
"You carry a sword that remembers," she said. "And a face that time refused."
Arjuna said nothing.
Mara continued. "Long ago, before Hollowmere became Hollow, there was a holdfast here. A place of knights. Ashwood."
The name struck him like cold water.
She watched him carefully. "It was said that Ashwood stood between two worlds—between life and the realm beyond. Its knights swore themselves to the veil, not kings. Their leader was the one called the Godsworn."
Arjuna flinched.
"You were him, weren't you?" she asked softly. "The oath-keeper. The one who bled for both worlds."
He turned away. "I don't remember enough."
"That's not true," Mara said. "Last night, you sealed the veil again. No living soul could've done that."
She handed him a small box. Inside was a shard of blackened steel, engraved with a symbol: a sword crossed with a flame.
"The mark of Ashwood," she said. "Take it. If you are who I think… the fortress is calling."
They left Hollowmere at dusk.
Tellen, unusually quiet, finally spoke as they followed the old road into the deeper woods.
"I lied to you," he said.
Arjuna raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
Tellen looked sheepish. "About this place. I didn't just find you wandering. I was looking for you. Following… signs."
"What kind of signs?"
Tellen pulled out an old, battered book from his satchel. Its cover was leather, cracked and scorched. Inside were hand-sketched maps, sigils, and one name repeated over and over:
Arjuna.
"This is a codex of forgotten heroes. I've spent years chasing legends. And your name… it's everywhere. Buried under ten other names. Vanished from every chronicle except the ones no one reads."
He flipped to a page. There, in elegant script:
Arjuna of Ashwood. Vow-Bound. Sword-Saint. Betrayer of Heaven.
Arjuna stared at it.
"I don't know if any of it's true," Tellen said. "But the world remembers you, even if you don't."
By nightfall, they reached a ridge overlooking a ravine. Across it, veiled in mist, stood crumbling stone towers tangled in vines and half-swallowed by forest.
Ashwood Hold.
Even ruined, it loomed. Massive. Familiar.
Arjuna's breath caught.
The wind carried whispers. Not from the trees—from the stone.
And his sword, still sheathed, hummed faintly.
Tellen looked around uneasily. "You feel that?"
"I do," Arjuna said.
It wasn't just memory.
It was recognition.
As if the ruin itself remembered him.
They made camp in the shadow of the outer wall. Tellen fell asleep quickly, murmuring to himself, curled beneath a moth-eaten cloak.
But Arjuna sat alone beneath the broken archway.
And as the moon rose…
He heard a voice.
"You swore to protect us. You failed. But still, we wait."
He turned.
The trees were still.
But at the gate of Ashwood Hold, a figure stood.
Not a ghost. Not a shade.
A knight in broken silver armor, helm in hand. One eye glowed faint red.
And on his chest: the mark of Ashwood.
"Brother," the knight said. "You're late."