Chapter Eighty-Four: Ashes of the Unburied

The winds howled like voices that had forgotten language.

The sky above the Field of Lost Names was a tarnished bronze, thick with cinders that never settled. The earth cracked with each step, as if groaning beneath the weight of history too cruel to remember. Bones lay half-buried in the dust—some ancient, some disturbingly fresh.

Ael stared across the ruined battlefield, his cloak flapping behind him in the dry, bitter wind.

"They called this place The Grave Without Peace," Elric muttered beside him. "Mages once tried to sanctify it. The land devoured them."

"And this is where the next shard lies?" Lyra asked quietly.

Orn's echoing voice had guided them this far.

"The second shard of your soul lies in a place where time eats memory. Where the unburied cry out, and the living are not welcome."

Ael nodded. "I remember this place… in a dream."

Not his dream.

But a memory.

From the day he lost his right-hand general—Ser Kaelen—a man who had once been like a brother. They fought side by side to the last, holding a valley against impossible odds.

And Ael had ordered the retreat.

Alone.

Kaelen's body had never been recovered.

Neither had his name.

—

They moved cautiously.

The farther they went, the heavier the air grew.

Not in heat—but weight.

Like walking through regret.

Lyra stumbled once and caught herself. "This place… I can't breathe."

"It's not real," Elric said. "It's pulling our minds into echoes. Trying to bury us in what we fear."

Ael said nothing.

He felt it crawling under his skin.

The second shard was buried here—not physically, but in the form of a broken memory he'd sealed away.

One he never dared to face.

—

They found the broken sword first.

Half-buried in the ash.

Ael knelt beside it.

The hilt bore Kaelen's crest.

Not rusted.

Not decayed.

It shouldn't have been here.

Not after decades.

And yet it gleamed as though it had only just been dropped.

Ael touched it.

And the world tilted.

—

The field changed.

The sky burned red with fire.

Trumpets blared in the distance.

He stood now in the middle of war—not ash, but blood.

All around him, soldiers fought and screamed.

He wore his old armor.

Kaelen stood at his side—fierce, loyal, bleeding from his shoulder.

"Fall back!" Kaelen shouted. "We won't hold!"

Ael hesitated.

Even then—he'd felt nothing.

Just cold logic.

"We stay. Buy time for the others."

"You'll die here, Ael. Let me—"

"Retreat. That's an order."

Kaelen grabbed his arm, fury in his eyes. "They'll write songs about your victories, but none about this. You can't bury me and forget—"

The memory shattered.

Back to the present.

Ael staggered back, breathing hard.

The sword pulsed in his hand.

Then he heard it.

A voice in the ash.

"Why did you leave me?"

A ghost rose from the smoke.

Kaelen.

Not flesh—an echo of pain and betrayal, with eyes that bled shadow.

"You ordered them to sing of your conquest, not of our sacrifice."

Ael raised the blade, but Kaelen's specter flung him back with a wave of cursed wind.

"You locked away the truth to stay strong. Now you'll feel it."

Chains of ash erupted from the ground, wrapping around Ael's limbs, dragging him down.

He didn't resist.

He let them pull him under.

Not in surrender—but in understanding.

"Kaelen…" Ael whispered, "I didn't leave you because I didn't care."

The chains tightened.

"I left you because I couldn't feel."

The ghost hesitated.

"I wasn't human anymore. And I hated that."

The ash stopped moving.

The sword in Ael's hand shimmered.

His hand burned—bright gold fire.

The second shard revealed itself—embedded not in the land, but in the sword. A memory given form.

Ael stood.

He lifted the blade.

"I remember now."

Kaelen's specter looked at him, eyes softening.

The ghost bowed once.

And vanished.

The ash storm died.

The sky cleared—for a moment.

Ael held the sword.

He felt the weight of it—not just metal, but meaning.

He turned to Lyra and Elric.

"I was never meant to forget the people I left behind."

Elric looked down. "We all have ghosts."

"But I buried mine alive," Ael said quietly. "No more."

—

That night, they camped beneath the half-ruined sky.

Ael sat alone, the sword across his knees.

He didn't speak.

But for the first time, he grieved.

Not as a king.

Not as a weapon.

But as a man who'd finally remembered what it meant to lose.