The light moved like it had purpose.
Not flickering like a torch, nor flickering like flame. It pulsed in a slow rhythm, drifting through the trees—low to the earth, weaving between the roots, and vanishing into fog-draped hollows.
Arjuna followed.
Not blindly. The new blade—he still didn't know its name—shimmered faintly at his side, warm in his grip, as if humming in answer to some unheard song.
The woods beyond Ashwood Hold were not normal.
The trees bled sap that glittered silver under moonlight. The wind smelled of old incense and dry bones. Each step Arjuna took left no imprint in the earth. It was as if the land refused to remember his passing.
A fitting place, he thought bitterly, for a man cursed to forget.
He crossed a ridge where the stones had been carved into old faces. Their mouths were sewn shut with moss. Their eyes, hollow and weeping. Tellen had once mentioned the old burial shrines of the Ashborn monks—fanatics who worshipped death not as an end, but as a teacher.
Arjuna did not stop to pray.
The light was growing stronger. Closer.
He reached the clearing just as the fog parted.
And there she was.
A woman in white.
Standing beneath an ancient, broken tree, her face half-shrouded by a veil of spun silk. Her hair, black as night, fell across her shoulders in twin braids. She did not move. Her hands were folded in front of her, as if waiting.
For him.
"You're late," she said.
The voice was too clear to be a ghost's. Too sharp to be a memory. But Arjuna didn't recognize her.
"I don't know you," he said cautiously.
"Not yet," she replied. "But you will. I've waited a long time for you to reach this place, Arjuna of the Vowless Flame."
His sword pulsed.
He took a step closer, narrowing his eyes.
"Who are you?"
"A mourner. A witness. A keeper of what you lost."
She knelt and brushed aside the leaves at her feet, revealing a small grave marker. Stone, cracked and moss-covered, but the writing upon it remained strangely pristine:
Ser Calen of the Red LanceKnight-Commander of Ashwood HoldHe remembered the name that should not be spoken.
"One of yours?" she asked.
Arjuna's head ached.
He knelt beside the grave. Traced the name with a trembling hand.
A flash of memory:A red-haired knight laughing beside a fire.The clash of steel and stone.A fall from a tower.A scream—"Arjuna, don't forget who you are!"—then silence.
"...He was," Arjuna said quietly.
"You forgot him," the woman whispered. "And now only I remember."
"Why are you showing me this?"
She stood slowly. Her veil blew in the wind, revealing pale eyes like moonstone."Because every name you forget becomes a scar on the world. And Ashwood still bleeds."
Thunder cracked overhead. Not from storm—but from something older.
Beneath their feet, the earth groaned.
Roots split. Bones shifted.
And the grave marker shattered.
From the soil, a hand burst forth. Wrapped in chain. Clawed.
A knight's corpse dragged itself free—its armor blackened, its helm crushed inward, yet its eyes burned with violet light.
It was not alone.
All around the clearing, other graves cracked open. Dozens. Hundreds.
Ashwood's dead were rising.
"Why now?" Arjuna demanded.
"Because you woke the sword," the woman said.
She turned and vanished into the trees.
Arjuna didn't have time to chase.
The first knight charged, dragging a rusted greatsword.
Arjuna met it with a cry and a flare of his new blade. The impact shook the clearing. Sparks flew. Bone shattered.
But the knight did not fall.
"Memory binds them," Arjuna hissed. "They're not just undead—they're echoes."
The blade whispered again.
Not words. But intent.
Burn them.
Arjuna stepped into the next strike. Let the blade drink the motion. Let his curse surge down his arm. The rune on his chest glowed bright enough to blind.
And the knight turned to ash.
One by one, they came. Silent. Relentless.
One by one, they fell.
But it cost him.
By the time the last knight lay scattered in dust and rusted steel, Arjuna was on his knees. Breath ragged. Vision swimming.
In the ash, he saw faces. Names. Brief flashes of things lost.
A wedding under starlight.A child laughing with silver hair.Nyssara—smiling through blood, her eyes burning with defiance.
He reached for them.
And again, they were gone.
When Tellen found him the next morning, Arjuna was sitting alone in the clearing. A ring of scorched earth surrounded him. The roots had all burned away.
Tellen knelt, carefully avoiding the ashes.
"Gods," he murmured. "What happened?"
Arjuna stared at the sword in his lap.
"They remembered me. Even when I couldn't remember them."
"Who?"
"My knights," he said. "My brothers."
Tellen swallowed.
"And the woman?"
"She's not done with me."
He stood slowly, sheathing the blade.
"None of them are."