Tellen kept glancing sideways at him, as they walked back toward the crumbling road. His satchel of scrolls bounced against his hip with each step, but for once, he said nothing.
Not even a sarcastic quip.
Arjuna wasn't sure if that was a relief or a warning.
His hands still ached. Not from the fight—he healed quickly now, even without understanding why—but from gripping the blade too tightly. From holding onto memory that kept slipping like sand between his fingers.
"They weren't revenants," he said at last.
Tellen blinked. "The knights?"
"They didn't fight like corpses. They fought like people trying to be remembered."
Tellen nodded slowly. "Ashwood was a last holdout during the Third Sundering. The knights here swore oaths not to gods, but to you."
Arjuna frowned. "To me?"
"Or who you were, back then. The hero who broke the flame-chain of Vaelar. The man who led a rebellion against divine silence." Tellen's voice was softer now, reverent despite himself. "You were the Vowless Flame. The knight without a god, but somehow stronger than all of them."
Arjuna looked away.
"I don't remember any of it."
Tellen tilted his head. "Then why are you crying?"
He hadn't realized. But the tears were there—silent, stubborn, burning down his cheek. Grief with no name.
Arjuna didn't answer.
They made camp beside a ruined fountain.
At its center stood a statue—a woman carved in white stone, blindfolded, one hand raised to the stars, the other clutching a broken sword. The inscription below had been worn away, but something about her seemed familiar.
Tellen sat cross-legged, unrolling a brittle scroll covered in faded ink.
"This is the Vesper Codex. A forbidden text. Supposedly written by a scribe who survived the fall of Ashwood. She writes about a 'curse upon the commander,' a man who could not remember the names of his own dead."
Arjuna exhaled. "I killed them. Or left them to die."
"No," Tellen said firmly. "The Codex says they chose it. That their last command was to bind themselves in death, so that one day, if you returned, they could guide you."
Arjuna stared into the fire.
"They rose to kill me."
"Maybe. Or maybe they rose to test you. To see if you still had anything left of the knight they followed."
Silence.
Then Tellen reached into his pack, pulling out a small, iron-bound tome. He opened it with a reverence Arjuna rarely saw in him.
"I've been keeping something. It's… a list. A fragmentary record. Names of knights who followed you in the last days of the war. Most are lost, but a few—"
"Read them."
Tellen looked up.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Tellen cleared his throat. The fire crackled. The wind whispered through broken branches.
And the names began:
"Ser Calen of the Red Lance.Lady Briath of the Hollow Court.Gareth the Wall, called 'Unmoving.'Anwen of the Ash Choir.Ser Doran Fell.Mira Flameborn.And Vaelin's brother—Dain."
The last name hit like a blade.
Arjuna clenched his fists. "Dain?"
Tellen nodded. "The Codex says he was taken by the Skin Thief. That his soul might still be… lost."
Arjuna's jaw tightened. The Skin Thief. The name echoed with venom, with an old fury buried beneath unremembered ruin.
The fire flickered.
And for a moment, in the flames, he saw faces. Faint silhouettes of armor and sorrow. They stood in silence, watching.
"Keep reading," Arjuna said.
Tellen hesitated, then continued. Each name was a weight. Each syllable carved a deeper wound.
And Arjuna let it.
Let the pain burn in his chest.
Let the names rise from the grave of his mind.
Let them root again in memory.
When Tellen finished, there were tears on both their faces.
"You remembered some," Tellen whispered.
Arjuna nodded. "Not enough."
He stood. Faced the statue of the blindfolded woman.
"Tell me, Tellen. Do you know her name?"
Tellen looked up at the statue, then down at the page.
"No. No one ever recorded it."
Arjuna placed a hand against the stone.
Then whispered: "Then I'll remember her, too."
And the wind shifted.
The statue's blindfold cracked.
And from within, a faint glow emerged—like starlight trapped in stone.
That night, Arjuna dreamed again.
He stood on a battlefield of ashes. Nyssara walked beside him, her bare feet scorched but unbroken.
"You'll lose everything," she said.
"I already have."
She smiled.
"Then lose it again. That's how we begin."