The Names We Buried

Each memory has a cost. Whoever spent it is remembered by every name.

Ryenna's body shook.

It wasn't fear, though.

It was an acknowledgement.

Sorrowhold air grew heavier, without heat or smoke. The stones themselves seemed to recall something too big to remain buried.

Kaelen moved to the front.

Ryenna's voice was still not hers. It was old, sharp, and clean, and it cracked like wind over bone.

"Vaeran," it repeated. "We turned out to be traitors. However, we started as truth.

Kaelen stared. "Joren."

Saelira remained still. Waiting, her fire blazed down in her throat.

Liraen watched silently from behind her. A youngster who had witnessed too much fire to ever believe smoke.

Grief, guilt, and finally peace contorted Ryenna's face.

The voice replied, "Yes." "What's left of him is me. What made it through the cut?

They huddled under the obelisk.

More cracks appeared in its surface, and glyphs fell out like feathers. Before vanishing into the wind, they floated.

"What do you remember?" Kaelen asked.

Through Ryenna, Joren's voice responded:

"They lost everything they desired."

FLASHBACK— before the Circle Broke.

Joren knelt by herself in a cathedral. His relic-blade was embedded in the stone, and his armour was undone.

Kaelen walked stealthily up to him.

He asked, "You requested silence."

Joren raised her head.

"I requested clarification. And I couldn't find any.

"So what now?"

"We write the name of the fire," Joren said. We wear it or we flee.

Kaelen remained silent.

Joren got up.

He said, "You're going to pick her." "Sael. You're going to call her the seal.

Kaelen remained silent.

Joren looked away.

We've already failed, then.

"You told me it was a mistake," Kaelen muttered back in the present.

The voice replied, "Yes." "Because we should have named ourselves consequence, but instead we named her mercy."

Saelira's hands were shaking.

The speaker went on, "I recall your fire." "It wasn't kind."

Kaelen tightened her jaw. "Now, what do you want?"

The obelisk erupted.

"To complete the things we buried."

Out of nowhere, the stone shuddered.

On the distant wall, glyphs flickered. As though it were being rewritten from beginning to end, the name Joren started to burn backward.

Ryenna let out a gasp.

"He's attempting to emerge."

Kaelen moved to her.

"Don't fight it," he advised. "But don't allow it to carry you away."

She gave a sorrowful smile.

"I'm not getting it."

"It is keeping me in mind."

Her eyes then glowed brightly.

Not fire.

rage.

Now, through her, Joren's voice rumbled.

"They removed my name from every possible place." My children were unmade by them. My prayers were rewritten by them. And you—you allowed them, Vaeran.

Kaelen remained still.

"I understand."

Quiet.

Then

The voice said, "I once forgave you. "I'm not sure whether I will again."

Saelira took a step forward.

She said, "You can't punish him for being broken." "Just for deciding to remain broken."

Joren lowered her voice.

Next, to Liraen:

"You are the vessel of Myen."

The girl gave a nod.

"And I belong to Joren," Ryenna muttered.

They looked across at Kaelen.

They all said, "And you." "The decision that broke us was yours."

The obelisk throbbed.

Light folded inward and a passage opened to the east.

Smoke curled like a crown beyond it.

Kaelen turned.

"What's there?"

Still shaking, Ryenna answered:

"The third name."

"Are we aware of it?"

"No," she replied. "And that's the issue."

There was silence in the east.

Not quiet. Not dead.

Simply listening.

The tug beneath the dirt was palpable to Kaelen, as if the world had developed ears and was waiting to hear a name before swallowing it whole.

With her fire reduced to a faint pulse, Saelira moved a little forward. Liraen and Ryenna remained close, both altered by the new stirring within them. Myen and Joren weren't only awake.

They were recalling the reason for their sealing.

The fire also desired Kaelen to keep in mind.

A submerged ridge limited the path. As they proceeded, glyphs erupted all over the stone, none whole, all fractured mid-form. Sideways, as though bowed, trees sprouted.

"This place was never meant to be found," Kaelen muttered.

Saelira remained silent.

She was shaking.

Not out of fear. from acknowledgement.

Liraen's voice was quiet. "That's where it began."

Kaelen turned around. Are you referring to the Circle?

"No," Ryenna replied. "The fire." The fire had a whisper before it had a name. Here, it was muttered.

They arrived at a field devoid of monuments and ruins.

There was only one tree, its branches covered in drab material like old bandages, its roots black.

Kaelen moved to the front.

The wind died.

The tree gave a pulse.

And his hand reached out to touch the bark on its own.

A voice said something.

Not out loud. Not in his mind.

But by his recollection.

It stated:

"You named yourself to disappear, but you named us all to live."

Kaelen fell.

Saelira stopped the others from hurrying to him.

"He must be the only one to remember this."

FLASHBACK — Prior to the fire, the Circle, and the Sovereigns.

In a clearing a boy knelt. No crown. Not a blade. Just sadness.

He muttered to the earth:

"I wish to avoid being remembered. Instead, let the name burn.

And it was embraced by the earth.

Kaelen's eyes opened.

Glyphs swirled upward, dancing around him.

Ryenna let out a gasp.

"That's not Vaeran's name."

Kaelen got up slowly.

"No. I took Vaeran as my leader. I utilised Kaelen to stay alive. What the world forgot was Kaien.

So what is this one, Saelira murmured?

He moved towards the tree.

And a solitary, ancient, broken glyph was visible when the bark peeled back.

VAEL.

Liraen took a step forward. "Isn't that the first name?"

Kaelen gave a nod.

It's the one I handed out. in order to create space for power. It is not the name I was given.

"That's who I was."

Beneath the roots, a hollow was revealed by the gentle splitting of the ground.

Not a relic inside.

No blade.

A mirror.

Kaelen looked straight into it.

There was no age difference in the face within. It was whole.

And it appeared terrified.

Saelira gave him a shoulder rub.

"Your soul was buried by you."

"Because I couldn't carry what I'd done," he muttered.

Her skin flashed with the heat.

"And now?"

Kaelen looked away from her reflection.

"I believe it's time to take stock of everything."

The wind came back.

The sky did the same.

Overhead, the stars started to form their own names rather than constellations.

Three glowed:

Myen

Joren

Vael

A fourth glowed dimly.

not born yet.

but on the way.