The Executioner awoke in the deep folds of dusk, where the light bent unnaturally and even the wind dared not howl. He stood at the edge of the Hollow Sea, where the shoreline writhed with whispering voices—fragments of forgotten names, once etched in souls now blank.
A single command echoed through his mind:
"Silence them."
No further words were needed. The Empress had spoken. He would obey.
Draped in robes of midnight stitched from the threads of forsaken dreams, the Executioner turned toward the north. His face was hidden, as always. Not behind a mask, but by absence itself. No one could describe what he looked like. Those who tried would blink, forget, and weep for reasons they couldn't name.
He began walking—not across roads, but through the seams of the world, leaving no trace.
His destination: the Keep of Echoes.
Back at the keep, Althar sat in the chapel's half-repaired pews, flanked by new souls.
Most were quiet. Some cried softly. And one—an old woman with a jagged scar across her temple—sang a lullaby in a forgotten tongue. A child at her feet stared up in wonder.
Garven entered with purpose, motioning Althar aside.
"We found it," he said, voice tight. "A brand."
Althar narrowed his eyes. "A spy?"
Garven nodded. "One of the new arrivals. The battle-priest. Her back bears the Mark of Obedience."
Althar's jaw tightened. The Mark was old magic, burned into flesh to bind loyalty to the Empress through memory-tethers. But if she was here, if the Mark remained...
"She might be a sleeper," Althar murmured. "She may not even know."
"She doesn't. Yet," Garven said. "But when she remembers—if the tether activates…"
"She'll become a beacon," Althar finished grimly.
Ael approached them, having overheard.
"We can't kill her," the boy said, eyes resolute. "She's not the enemy. She came here because some part of her still resists. If we throw her out, or worse—what does that make us?"
The words struck Althar deeply.
In his past life, he wouldn't have hesitated.
But now... things were changing.
He was changing.
"Then we help her remember," Althar said at last. "On her own terms. No force."
Garven's brow furrowed. "If she turns—"
"Then we deal with it," Althar said. "But we do not become the monsters we escaped."
Ael looked relieved. Garven still looked troubled.
Outside, the fog thickened.
Down in the keep's lower vaults, the grey-eyed woman, Elen, lit a series of bluefire wards. The old runes hummed with resistance magic—one of the last remnants of the age when names were sacred and magic was bound to truth.
She paused as she heard a whisper—so soft, it barely kissed the edge of her hearing.
Her eyes flicked toward the dark passage that led deeper underground.
Someone had entered the keep. But not through the gates.
Her hand moved to the dagger at her waist.
Far across the fields, unnoticed by all, the wind halted.
Not stilled.
Silenced.
A figure stepped onto the first of the northern hills. He bore no torch, no pack, no scent.
The Executioner did not need them.
With every step he took, the grass beneath withered. The earth forgot how to grow. Birds fell from the sky, mid-flight, their names unspoken.
He reached a lone shepherd's hut by nightfall.
Inside were four people.
A child with her name etched into a wooden pendant.
A man who once fought in the Empress's army.
A woman who still wore her wedding ring.
And an old dog, blind but loyal.
The next morning, the hut was still there. Untouched.
But inside, it was empty.
Not just of life—but of memory.
As if no one had ever lived there at all.
Back at the keep, Althar stared up at the old mural on the chapel ceiling—revealed only recently beneath layers of soot. It depicted a throne, unoccupied, under a silver sky. Behind it, faceless kings stretched toward the stars.
He had begun to wonder what ruled before names.
Before kings.
Before memory.
A knock on the stone door interrupted his thoughts.
It was Elen.
"We need to talk," she said. "There's something in the lower vaults."
"What kind of something?" Althar asked, standing.
"Something that remembers too much," she replied.