The City That Forgot Me

Names stay. Names keep their shape even as memory fades and stone turns to dust. But what happens when a place is born without one?

Kaien was about to find out.

The wind has stopped. Not quiet but still. Like the planet itself refused to exhale.

Eira walked next to him, her fingers sliding near her blade. Her posture wasn't fear. It was readiness.

They were close now.

The City Without a Name wasn't on any map. It couldn't be. It didn't recall itself long enough to be painted. All Kaien had was a pull in his chest, a compass buried in blood and shame, urging him onward.

They reached the top of a ridge with cracked white stone. Below them, ruins sprawled like petrified bones. buildings half-formed, roadways that coiled into themselves, courtyards with no doors. A city formed by aspirations that forgot how to finish themselves.

Kaien didn't speak. He recognized it. He shouldn't.

And yet… something inside him whispered: You helped name this town.

They drifted downward softly. The air was odd. Words didn't carry far. When Kaien said Eira's name, it felt swallowed, like the city consumed sound.

They crossed a gate without marks, simply the outline of symbols seared into black stone. glyphs that flickered softly when Kaien passed.

"Do you feel that?" Eira asked.

He nodded. "It knows us. Or me."

Maybe both, he thought.

The streets had no names. But the shadows remembered them.

As they travelled, Kaien began seeing double-images—Glimmers blending with reality.

A plaza… superimposed with a memory of it full with shouting citizens. A tower… ringing with laughter and fire. A youngster dashed past… but when Kaien turned, no one was there.

Not illusions. Not dreams. Faded memories lingered.

Eira stopped and said "This city is haunted."

Kaien touched the hilt of Mourncaller. "No. It's not haunted. It's grieving."

They found the centre of the city by chance.

A rotunda fashioned from black veinstone, its dome broken open to the grey sky above. Runes littered the interior—scratched out, overwritten, covered in ash.

Kaien stepped inside.

The instant he reached the doorway, the world vanished. Only blackenss remained.

He was somewhere else. Not in body. In memory.

A cathedral. Same rotunda. Not ruined. Filled with individuals in silver robes, chanting.

He stood at the center. Not Kaien. Not exactly. A version of him with sharper eyes. Straighter spine. Less weight in the shoulders.

Beside him stood the shrine-woman.

Her face was clear now. Soft. Sharp. Familiar.

She was the one speaking.

"Today we name it," she remarked. "Not to command. Not to conquer. But to connect it to peace."

Kaien—other Kaien—nodded.

They both came forward and placed hands on the altar.

A word formed.

But Kaien couldn't read it. The memories clouded.

He was hauled back.

The rotunda was empty again. Just ash and echoes.

Eira grabbed his shoulder. "You disappeared. For minutes."

He didn't speak at the moment. Then:

"I helped name this city. With her."

"Then why doesn't it remember?"

Kaien looked around.

"Because we broke the name. We transformed calm into silence."

They probed further.

In a courtyard, Kaien found a pedestal. On there lay a shattered tablet—its glyphs familiar.

It was a Name-Stone.

But the name was struck out.

He touched it.

A sharp pain pierced through his palm. Blood soaked the stone.

And the city stirred.

Buildings altered somewhat. Shadows lengthened. A hum—like a heartbeat—rose from the foundation.

Eira looked about. "What did you just do?"

Kaien pulled back his hand.

A new glyph had burned into the tablet. One he hadn't written.

VAEL.

Eira stepped back. "You've renamed it."

Kaien shook his head. "No. I reminded it."

And from the center of the courtyard, a figure began to materialise.

Flesh born from ash. Eyes formed of reflected fire.

It looked like her.

Not the shrine-woman.

But someone older. Colder.

Another Sovereign.

Or the echo of a divinity.

It talked.

"You bound us in silence once. Now we remember. What do you offer in return?"

Kaien stepped forward.

And Mourncaller hummed.

The guy before them wasn't breathing.

It wasn't living in any human sense. Its body composed of ash and fireglass, its eyes twin reflections of the Iron Sky. The longer Kaien watched, the more its silhouette flickered—like a candle unsure of its burning.

Still, it spoke.

"You came to finish what you unmade," it whispered, voice reverberating not audibly, but inside Kaien's ribs.

Kaien stepped forward. Mourncaller trembled in its sheath.

"I came to remember," he remarked. "Even if it breaks me."

The person tilted its head. "Then come."

It turned and walked into the wall.

No door. No shimmer. Just… disappeared.

Kaien moved after it.

So did the stone.

Eira gazed in silence as the wall unfold into stairs—descending not down, but inside. The city itself made place for him. Like a memory opening under pressure.

Kaien halted at the threshold.

"Stay here," he ordered her.

"No."

He didn't argue.

They descended together.

The stairwell was tiny and incorrect.

The deeper they walked, the more the stone looked like bone. Etched with names, half-erased. Some in Sovereign script. Others in Citadel runes. A few scratched out so ferociously, the wall itself bled rust.

Kaien brushed his fingers across one.

A name he almost recognized.

Yren.

The first glyph he ever shaped.

Eira caught him pausing. "You've been here before."

He nodded. "This was the vault."

"For what?"

Kaien's voice came empty. "The names we weren't allowed to kill."

At the bottom lay a chamber the size of a cathedral nave. Pillars of smoke-glass lined the area, each bearing a hovering fragment of memory.

But at the center was a sealed pedestal.

A single symbol blazed on it—twisting, refusing shape.

It wasn't VAEL.

It wasn't SINGE.

It was something older. Woven of blood and quiet.

The ash-figure stood alongside it.

"You buried her here," it said. "Not her body. Her name."

Kaien froze.

"I thought I gave it up to survive."

"You did. But not all of it. You kept the part that hurt."

Mourncaller sang. Not a hum. Not a whisper. A single, ascending note.

Kaien stepped forward.

Eira reached for his arm. "You don't have to—"

"I do."

He touched the glyph.

Pain surged—not through flesh, but through memory. A recoil. A scream without lungs.

He saw her again.

The shrine-woman.

Smiling.

Saying his name not as a Sovereign, nor as a killer—but as someone she loved.

Kaien dropped to his knees.

Eira dropped beside him. "What did you see?"

Kaien opened his eyes.

And for the first time in chapters, he wept.

"I remember what she called me."

The glyph on the pedestal resolved.

A name.

Not hers.

His.

Not VAEL. Not SINGE. Not the Sovereign name.

KAELEN.

Eira gasped. "That's your birth name."

Kaien—Kaelen—nodded.

"That's the name I gave up. To become what they needed."

The ash-figure transformed to smoke.

The memory vault trembled.

The ceiling burst open, and from above, a shaft of Iron Sky light plummeted.

Not warm.

But acknowledging.

"You were never meant to carry all their names," Eira replied quietly.

Kaelen stared at the Mourncaller.

It glowed.

Not with blood.

With relief.

As they rose to leave, Kaelen touched the pedestal once more.

The glyph shifted.

Now it read:

Remembered.