Chapter 9: A new name

He didn't move for a long time.

Just stood there, half-crouched in the clearing, surrounded by windless trees and distant ashfall. The burn in his chest had faded, but the hollow it left behind remained. Something inside him had gone quiet.

He'd died and he was sure of it.

And yet, here he stood, heartbeat sluggish, lungs tight, bones aching like they didn't belong to him anymore.

"Your eyes," Veyla said softly. "They weren't like that before."

He blinked. "What? What do you mean?"

"They've dimmed. The ember like glow in them. It looks faded now."

He looked away, staring at his reflection in a puddle near the shrine. She was right. The faint, ember-orange light that had clung to his irises when he first awakened… it was duller now. Like someone had turned the fire down.

"What does it mean?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Veyla sheathed her blade, her expression unreadable. "It means you gave something up to come back."

She stepped closer, her voice lower. "Some things the world forgets. Some things… it takes away."

His fingers twitched. "You said I shouldn't be able to come back to life. Why not?"

"Because only those Called by Grace return to the land of the living." She pointed to his chest, not unkindly. "But you weren't called by it. Not truly. Whatever flame touched you, it's not from this world."

He shook his head. "Then how the hell am I still here?"

She didn't answer.

Instead, she sat against the broken shrine, watching him like one staring at a wounded beast, not with pity, but caution.

He didn't join her. He stayed standing, the Site behind him still glowing faintly. Its warmth no longer welcomed him. It just lingered, cool and indifferent.

He looked down at the mark on his palm again. It's pulse had slowed, but it was still there. Still claiming him.

"What or who was that knight?" he finally asked.

Veyla's jaw clenched. "A Hand of Grace. An executioner."

"So Grace sends knights to kill people like me?"

She didn't respond, she just stared away.

"That's what you used to serve, right?" he asked, voice colder than he meant.

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't rise to the bait. "Not all Grace is pure. Not all its servants are just. I didn't leave for no reason."

He nodded slowly, the silence between them thick.

"What did you lose in return to come back?" she asked then, quietly.

He turned to her.

"When you came back. You said you don't know, but something was definitely gone. What was it?"

He tried to answer. Really tried. But there were no words.

Only the sense of something missing in him, something warm, soft, intimate. A smell, maybe a sound or a laugh? A name probably? Or a memory?

He couldn't quite grasp it but he knew it was all gone.

"I don't know," he whispered. "But it hurts....alot."

She nodded like she understood what he meant, and maybe she did.

The two of them sat there for a while, the firelight from the Site casting long shadows behind them. The forest didn't move, the wind didn't blow much either..

Finally, he broke the silence.

"I don't think this world wants me to stay alive."

Veyla tilted her head. "Then why do you keep trying?"

He didn't answer, because he didn't know either. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was something buried deep, older than memory, louder than fear.

Or maybe… it was because dying once had shown him how fragile everything was. And how easy it was to be forgotten.

He wouldn't let that happen again. Not without a fight.

He pushed himself up, steadier this time. The ache in his body was still there, but it didn't rule him. Not now.

Veyla watched him quietly. Then, slowly, she stood up to her feet aswell.

"You'll need a new name," she said. "If yours is gone or forgotten."

He glanced at her. "What?"

"The world knows you died," she said. "But it doesn't know what came back. You can either let it define you… or choose something yourself."

He looked toward the ruined statue. At the way the Site still glowed, even now, even after what it cost him.

A broken flame. A broken name.

He turned back to her. "Riven," he said slowly, the word tasting strange but right.

"Riven Ashur."

She nodded once, like it fit.

And in that moment, something shifted.

Not in the world, but in him.

He might have lost his past, but now he had something else.

A reason to fight.

A name that could burn its way into history, no matter how many times the world tried to forget it.

Riven Ashur would not go quietly.

Not again.