Chapter 25 – The Man Who Buried Names

The morning broke with a copper-colored sky, the kind that bled into the land like old wine poured over ash. The plains beyond the monoliths offered little cover, just broken stone and twisted patches of windburnt grass. But Kael could feel it—this place was not lifeless. It was simply... waiting.

They broke camp with quiet efficiency. Liora helped bundle their supplies with practiced hands, her silence no longer distant but calm, observant. Kael had started to notice the way her gaze lingered on everything—blades of grass bending in wind, stones split down the middle by age, birds too afraid to sing. She was studying the world the way a lost child studies a dream.

Wren led the group now, her footsteps almost too quiet for someone wearing boots. She hadn't said much after last night's watch. Something had shifted in her, some realization she hadn't voiced yet. Kael didn't press. He'd learned by now that she spoke when it mattered.

But it was Seran who lingered, unusually quiet, dragging his boots slightly in the dust, as if walking pulled more from him than he wanted to give.

Kael fell back to match his pace.

"You limping?" he asked.

Seran gave a half-shrug. "No more than usual."

"Something on your mind?"

"Always."

The reply was flat, but not cold. Kael could hear it—a weariness layered over years of old jokes and casual grins. Seran had always carried his past like a cloak made of stories, stitched with irony and wine. But now it was fraying.

Kael waited.

They walked past another stone monolith, this one cracked down the middle like a wound. Faint glyphs shimmered along the seam—older than even the language carved into Wren's blade.

Seran finally spoke, voice low.

"Do you know what this place was called, once?"

Kael shook his head.

"Neither do I," Seran said. "And that's the problem."

They made camp earlier that day.

The air had shifted—not in temperature, but in tension. As if the ground itself remembered footsteps it had buried. Kael and Wren pitched their tents while Liora gathered dry grass. She didn't speak, but when she placed the bundles beside the fire pit, she sat down without being told.

She was watching Seran now.

He stood by the edge of camp, facing one of the broken spires, fingers resting lightly on the hilt of his short sword. His posture was loose, but something about it felt fragile. Kael walked over, letting the firelight cast long shadows behind them.

"She's watching you," Kael said.

"I noticed."

"Want to tell me why you've been walking like there's a grave on your back?"

Seran snorted. "Because there is."

Kael waited.

Seran didn't turn. His voice came softer, almost a whisper. "I buried them here. My unit. Years ago."

Kael said nothing. The wind did not interrupt. Even Wren, across the fire, was still.

"I was part of the Flame Veil," Seran continued. "The Emperor's Seekers. We came here chasing echoes—runes left behind from the old god-wars. Forbidden magic, you know the kind."

Kael's brow furrowed. "I thought the Flame Veil was disbanded decades ago."

"They were. After this."

Seran finally turned, eyes tired but not ashamed. "We opened something we weren't meant to find. A ruin buried beneath the hills. It sang, Kael. Not with words—just... sound. Harmonics that scraped the soul raw. We lost three men to madness before we even stepped inside."

Kael let the silence breathe between them.

Seran continued. "I made it out with five. Three died on the way back. Two more after we sealed the valley. I buried them all. Right where your daughter drew those runes yesterday."

Kael's stomach sank.

"She didn't know," Seran added quickly. "There's no way she could have. That's the part that scares me."

"She's not the one who woke it," Kael said. "You are. Just by remembering."

Seran's smile was faint, bitter. "I think this place wants to be remembered."

Wren approached then, dropping a pouch at Seran's feet.

"Dried apricots," she said. "Eat something before your guilt eats you first."

Seran managed a small chuckle. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Don't make me regret it," Wren replied and walked back.

That night, Liora dreamed aloud.

She lay beside the fire, murmuring names none of them recognized. Kael sat beside her, brushing hair from her face, listening as syllables fell from her lips like scattered leaves.

"Kael," she whispered.

His heart caught. "I'm here."

"I saw a throne. Covered in roots."

He stroked her brow gently. "What else?"

"Someone was crying beneath it. A girl with eyes like cinders."

Kael looked up.

Wren was already watching him. Across the fire, Seran had gone very still.

"You've heard it too," Kael said.

Seran nodded slowly. "That place... beneath the valley... the throne was there. But it wasn't stone."

"What was it?"

"Bones. Thousands of them. All kneeling."

The wind stirred. The fire crackled.

Liora's breathing calmed.

Kael felt something old shift in his chest—not fear, not yet—but memory. A phantom ache in a place he had forgotten to guard.

The next day, they reached the valley's rim.

It opened before them like a scar—sunken earth surrounded by half-collapsed stone and twisted trees clinging to its edge. Runes marked the boundary, faintly humming.

Kael stepped forward, then paused.

"We don't have to go in today."

Wren looked at him. "You want to wait?"

"No," Kael said. "But she might."

Liora walked past them both.

She stood at the edge and tilted her head, as if listening.

"It's not just a ruin," she said softly. "It's a graveyard."

Kael moved beside her.

Liora reached down and touched the dirt.

"It remembers the names they forgot."

Then she looked up, eyes glowing faintly.

"And it's waiting for ours."