Chapter 14: Silent Field

The fog got thicker sometime after midnight.

Not the same kind of fog they were used to. This one felt colder. Heavier. Like something wasn't hiding in it, but was the fog itself.

They crossed a ridge of broken stone, both of them worn out, silent since the last campfire. The sky above was dull gray, no stars, no moon. The kind of colorless dark that left you without direction.

Even Veyla looked uneasy. Her hand kept brushing the hilt of her blade. Not like she expected a fight, more like she didn't trust her surroundings enough to not draw it.

"Still want to keep going?" she asked.

He didn't answer with words. Just kept walking.

He wasn't sure why.

His body didn't feel tired anymore. That was the Rune at work. He knew it, but he remembered what Veyla told him.

Strength that comes with silence is never free.

They reached the edge of a slope, and Riven stopped walking.

The fog parted just enough for him to see what lay below.

It wasn't a battlefield, it wasn't ruins either.

It was… quiet.

Spread out in all directions, across a sunken stretch of land, were what looked like hundreds of figures, all standing, some leaning, some crouched in the dirt. None seemed to be moving.

All wearing the mark.

Each of them had a rune. Different shapes. Different scars. But they shared the same weight. The same ash clinging to their armor. Most of it was old. Worn. Split. Some still had weapons. Others didn't.

But none of them moved.

None of them spoke.

Veyla came up beside him. Her face went still.

"The Silent Field," she said under her breath. "I thought it was a myth."

"What is this place?"

"It's where the forgotten go."

He looked at her, confused.

"Not dead," she said. "Just….. soldiers who are not remembered."

He didn't understand. And yet, somehow, he did.

He took a step down the slope.

The fog thickened as he walked into it. The figures didn't look at him. Didn't react. One of them, a massive warrior with a halberd cracked in half, swayed slightly as if caught in some slow-motion fall that never finished. Another sat cross-legged on the ground, head bowed, helm split down the middle.

They weren't statues, they were alive.

But just surviving barely.

Cinders, some of them were marked by the ashen rune like him.

But empty now.

He passed a woman in cracked bronze armor. Her face was open. Soft. She might've been beautiful once. Her eyes were wide, but blank. She didn't blink.

Her mark was burned into her throat. A spiral like his, but faded. Hollowed out.

"They don't speak?" Riven asked quietly.

"No," Veyla said behind him. "They've lost their names and souls."

He stopped.

She stepped closer, her voice lower now. "These were all once called. Just like you. But they lost too much. Took in too much Ash. Forgot too much of who they were."

Riven crouched next to one of them. A younger man. Small armor. Thin blade resting across his lap. His mouth was slightly open. No breath came out.

He wasn't dead.

But he wasn't living, either.

"What are they waiting for?" Riven whispered.

"No one knows."

He stood up, scanning the field.

Hundreds. Maybe more. As far as the fog would let him see.

And all of them the same.

Frozen in their last purpose.

Or maybe after it.

And he knew, this wasn't a punishment.

It was a warning for him.

The Ash didn't kill them. It emptied them. Bit by bit, until there was nothing left to hold on to.

No name. No memories. No self.

The Rune on his chest burned once, sharp, like a pin dragged along bone.

He grabbed at it instinctively, and then it happened again.

A vision, a flicker.

Not a memory, but a pressure. Something whispering along the back of his mind.

"We remember what you forget."

He gasped.

The fog around him stirred for the first time.

And every figure in the field turned to look at him.

Not fast. Not in unison. Just slowly, like the way old trees lean toward the sun.

Their heads lifted.

Eyes wide.

Empty.

But still looking.

Riven took a step back.

Then another.

They didn't follow.

They just… watched.

And when the moment passed, they returned back to their stillness.

As if they'd never moved.

As if that moment of recognition hadn't happened at all.

He turned to Veyla. "Did you see...."

"I saw it," she said, voice tight.

He looked down at his hands.

Still steady.

Still strong.

But now he understood what strength like his turned into when there was no one left inside to carry it.

This wasn't a battlefield.

It was a mirror.

A place that waited for him.

"Is there a way to fix them?" he asked.

Veyla shook her head. "No one knows....no one's ever come back from this. Not really."

He nodded slowly.

And walked on ahead.

They moved through the field in silence, stepping carefully between the fallen and the forgotten.

Once, they passed a man kneeling in front of a small, weather-worn stone. It might have been a grave, but no name marked it. Just a swirl. Burned into the rock by fire, then worn smooth by time.

Riven felt his throat tighten.

None of these people had names.

And that was what terrified him more than death.

Not being remembered.

Not even by himself.

They reached the far end of the field just as the fog began to lift. The sun never came, but the sky lightened slightly. And as they passed through the last row of ash-marked figures, Riven felt the Rune pulse again.

Quieter this time.

Like it had seen something it didn't like.

Like it had been warned.

He didn't speak until the ruins were far behind them.

Then, softly, he said, "That's where I'm headed, isn't it?"

Veyla looked over. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

He smiled faintly. "Even if it's my choice?"

"That's the problem," she muttered. "The longer this goes on, the less of a choice it becomes."

He didn't argue.

He couldn't.

The fog behind them rolled slow, covering the field once again.

And all across the Silent Field, the nameless soldiers stood still.