The God That Forgets

Some gods wants offerings. This one needs memory.

The Iron Sky did not only sing.

It remembered.

Kaien didn't move in the center of the scarred basin, His eyes lifted toward the sky as it fractured and swirled. The tune wasn't music. It wasn't wind but It was truth being ripped from the air, syllable by syllable, like a scream that had taken years to gather the breath.

Eira held his arm, her fingers trembling.

"Kaien... what is that?"

He didn't answer. Because he didn't know. Not exactly.

But his body did.

His heartbeat mirrored the pace above. The name SINGE, freshly seared on his hand, surged with an unexpected fire. Not burning but branding.

Marking him for something ancient.

Something divine.

Or worse.

The sky peeled open.

Not physically. Not in a way that could be seen.

But felt.

Like the globe had turned its head to look directly at him.

Then a voice.

Not from the heavens. Not from the earth.

From within Kaien himself.

"You have carried too many names. Time to return one."

He dropped to one knee.

Eira shouted his name, but he barely heard it. A pressure seized his chest, like a thousand memories were trying to leave him all at once. Each one clawed at his wits, his ribs, his breath.

One memory yelled louder than the rest:

The day Thornwake fell.

The name. The silence. The surrender of sound.

Kaien forced himself upright. "What are you?"

The voice answered.

"I am the God That Forgets. And I have remembered you."

The sky did not descend.

A figure did.

Not flying. Not walking.

Simply arriving.

They wore no face. Their skin moved like ink in water. Around them, remnants howled. Memory-shards fractured. Mourncaller groaned like it had been forced to kneel.

Eira stepped between Kaien and the figure.

"He's done nothing wrong," she said.

The god's voice rang through her.

"He recalled. That is the oldest sin."

Kaien arose, breath shaky. "Why me?"

The god hesitated.

Then raised one hand.

A mirror appeared in the air between them.

Not of Kaien currently but of Kaien before.

He was cloaked in Sovereign darkness, voice loud, directing armies. Burning names from stone with a just command.

"You led them to unmake a city," Eira muttered.

Kaien nodded. "Because I thought it would save us."

The deity spoke again.

"You shattered memory to forge truth. But truth cannot be shaped by one name alone."

Kaien grabbed hold of Mourncaller. The blade trembled.

"What do you want from me?"

"An offering. One name. Given freely. One memory. Surrendered without opposition."

Kaien clenched his teeth. "If I say no?"

"Then the world will forget you all at once. And you will remember everything alone."

Eira looked at him.

She didn't speak. But her eyes were clear.

Choose.

Kaien stepped forward.

He stretched out his left hand—the one where SINGE still burned.

He thought about all the names.

VAEL. LYREN. KA–

He paused.

And muttered one instead:

"Her."

The girl from the shrine. The co-namer of Thornwake. The one he'd failed.

The god tilted its head.

"You offer her name?"

Kaien nodded, slowly.

"I remember her. But I don't deserve to."

The deity reached forward.

And touched his palm.

Kaien yelled.

Not from pain.

From loss.

Not of a recollection.

But of feeling.

The guilt. The warmth. The voice. The laughing. The hope.

Gone.

He remembered the facts, but not what they felt like.

She became history.

Not love.

Eira caught him as he stumbled.

The god stepped back.

And was gone.

Not in smoke.

But in silence.

When Kaien came to, the Iron Sky was calm.

The name SINGE was still on his palm.

But something else had changed.

His blade—Mourncaller was sobbing.

The runes down its spine have altered.

Where formerly it had forgotten its kills, now it recalled one.

One woman.

No name.

No face.

Just a presence.

Kaien looked at the gloomy sky.

"Was that the price?"

Eira didn't answer.

Because she was crying.

And she didn't know why.

Kaien didn't talk for three days.

Not from grief. Not from pain.

From absence.

Something had been taken from him—and though he knew what it was, he could no longer recall why it mattered. Her name, her face, the warmth she'd once brought him like fire beneath frost... it was all gone.

Only an outline remained.

Like a scar on a region he could no longer reach.

Eira studied him suspiciously. She didn't ask questions. Not at first.

But on the fourth night, as they camped in the shadows of the Spine's edge, she finally broke the stillness.

"She mattered to you."

Kaien looked up from the fire.

"I know," he responded gently. "But I don't know why."

Eira's brow wrinkled. She hesitated before sitting next to him, arms over her knees.

"There was a point," she remarked, "back in the shrine. When you touched that artefact. I watched your face change. Like you had remembered something that wasn't yours."

He nodded. "I guess she gave me something once. A word. Or a vow."

Eira studied him. "Do you miss her?"

Kaien blinked slowly. "I don't remember how."

They continued east.

The environment twisted again—glass gave place to saltrock, then to broad plains broken like scorched skin. A place formerly buried beneath cities that had long since destroyed.

The villagers called it The Silence Below.

And it was here Kaien began to dream again.

But not of himself.

Of her.

In the dream, she stood barefoot on a battleground of swords. Her face was veiled, but her presence was clear.

She clutched something in her hands. Not a weapon. Not a crown.

A reminiscence.

When she stared at him, her voice was wind over a mirror.

"You didn't forget me. You erased the part of you that cared."

Kaien opened his mouth to speak.

But no sound came.

Only a name blazing across the sky:

THORNWAKE

He woke coughing.

Eira was already awake, her blade drawn. "You said her name in your sleep."

Kaien blinked. "I don't know who she is."

Eira didn't move. "But you still dream of her."

Kaien said nothing.

Because it was the worst part.

The dreams were becoming more real than his waking hours.

And in each one, the woman stood further away.

By dusk, they reached a crumbled tower half-buried in the soil. Its top had cracked open like a broken tooth. Runes pulsed along the interior walls—echo-threads from an old memory chamber.

Kaien stepped inside.

The chamber sung.

Not aloud.

In blood.

The memory inside was fragmented, violent. But his body knew it. Mourncaller hummed in rhythm with the echoes.

And then—

Her voice.

"Kaien. You can't save what you refuse to mourn."

He turned.

No one there.

Just the recollection.

Just the echo of someone he used to be.

Outside, Eira sat on the ridge, writing names in the dirt with her knife.

"You know," she remarked as he approached, "there's a kind of grief that gets louder the longer you ignore it."

Kaien sat next her.

"I didn't ignore it," he whispered. "I gave it away."

Eira looked up. Her eyes were tired, yet piercing.

"And what did you get in return?"

He looked down at his palm.

SINGE still burned there.

"Silence."

That night, he didn't sleep.

He peered into the coals till daybreak, waiting for the dream to return.

It didn't.

And somehow, that was worse.