The Name That Shouldn't Exist

A few names are called. Others return the call.

The stars stopped blinking. They gazed.

With Mourncaller weighing heavily beside him, Kaelen stood at the top of a fractured ridge. Saelira was glowing beside him, but not with fire, but with a softer brightness. Pressure. As if the fire within her had started to breathe.

Myen, Joren, and Vael were the three names that continued to float above them in the dark.

Now, however, a fourth glistened on the outskirts of vision. Unsteady. Not even readable. Like a word the world kept attempting to forget before it could be spoken, it flickered in and out of shape.

Saelira's eyes narrowed.

"It is attempting to form," she muttered. "But it's not interested in being recognised."

Kaelen scowled. "Numbers are guaranteed to be remembered."

"This one does."

They left at first light.

There was no guidance from the fire, but Saelira sensed it. A tug on the soul, on the spine. A pull towards the Hollow Under Sky, a location none of them could identify.

With her fingers twitching with glyph-light, Liraen strolled in silence. Deep inside her, Myen slept most days now, but when she spoke, Kaelen could hear the hum beneath her voice. words that were previously nonexistent.

Ryenna remained close to the back, half fighting, partly listening to keep Joren hidden in her mind. The obelisk had made him quieter, but not completely.

Saelira stopped ahead.

"Traces are present."

She was joined by Kaelen. faint ash footprints. Not elderly.

"Another individual is on their way to the Hollow," she stated.

"Hunters?" Kaelen asked.

"Or worse."

Shortly before sunset, the Hollow emerged.

Not a city. Not even the ruins.

Just not there. Nothing remained written in the scoop in the ground. Glyphs were not held. There were no marks on the stone. Sound itself appeared thinner.

At the edge, Liraen stopped.

"It is silent," she said.

Saelira gave a nod. "Because here, names dissolve."

Slowly they came down.

A round, burnt-flat field stood in the middle. A stone column—a pedestal that held nothing—sat in the centre of it.

However, a single word was etched into its base:

NOT WRITTEN

Kaelen dropped to her knees.

"What is this?"

Without a movement, Saelira responded.

"This is the location of the fourth Sovereign."

Ryenna blinked. "I believed the fourth had been removed."

It was. Not after, though. Prior to

VISION FLASH — Centuries Ago

Among the Sovereigns, Kaelen stood.

Five of them. Each with a memory blade. Each is on the verge of naming something into being.

The fifth, however, took a step back.

"It becomes true if you give it a name. It becomes fate if I carry it. I don't pick either.

Kaelen made contact.

"You have to come along."

They remarked, "I already have." "Before the first was written, I gave the fire my name."

Then there was quiet.

The fire broke out.

The fifth was also overlooked.

Kaelen opened his eyes back in the Hollow.

He was being watched by Saelira. Her flame, however, was weaker.

Nearly still.

"Saelira?"

She took a while to respond.

Then: "Now I hear it. No name. A hum. As if it were awaiting birth.

Ryenna took a step ahead.

"You're unstable," she said.

"I should not be."

Between them, Kaelen shifted.

"We didn't come to awaken the fourth name; we came to find it."

Saelira's eyes were fixed on him.

"And what if they are identical?"

At the edge of the Hollow, they set up camp.

Kaelen didn't sleep that night.

From the field, he once more saw the mirror.

His own face.

Now, however, something moved behind it.

An eyeless figure. mouthless. Just a shape of searing breath and flickering symbols.

It muttered:

"You remembered me. Before I could give myself a name, you buried me.

Gasping, Kaelen awakened up.

There was no longer any fire.

Saelira had also vanished.

She was standing in front of the pedestal in the middle of the Hollow.

By themselves.

"She's attempting to communicate," Saelira whispered. However, she was never documented. only in the mind. She wasn't born in the first fire. It was afraid of her.

Kaelen took a hesitant step forward.

"Who is she?"

Saelira raised her eyes. Kaelen also noticed it.

Her eyes glowed a fourth time.

Not crimson. Not gold. Not the flames.

Endless, white, and empty.

In a voice different from her own, Saelira said:

That name that was never given is me. The one written solely in the hunger of fire.

In a whisper, Kaelen asked, "What is your name?"

The earth trembled.

The pedestal broke.

The stars in the sky moved.

A fourth glyph appeared, then broke apart.

Saelira fell to the ground.

Liraen let out a scream.

Kaelen hurried ahead

but discovered his arms were filled with ash.

Her voice then erupted from all directions:

"To give me a name is to become myself."

With her breath short and her hands quivering, Kaelen stood in the charred Hollow. Although Saelira was no longer there, her echo could still be heard in the air. No ash. Not a flame. Just the burden of an incomplete task.

"She didn't burn," Ryenna gasped.

"No," Kaelen answered. "She changed into something else."

Saelira had stood atop a shattered stone pedestal. A faint symbol, a half-formed glyph that looped and twitched as if it were attempting to spell a word the world refused to comprehend, shimmered from its fractured crown.

Liraen moved to stand next to it.

"Myen is scared," she muttered. She refuses to talk. Not even within myself.

Kaelen kept a close eye on her. "What is causing her fear?"

Liraen raised her gaze.

She claims that it isn't a name. It is a query that believes it has an answer.

Saelira drifted in the space between breath and flame.

She wasn't by herself.

There were no sky or walls in the room. Only memory-light, coiled history and streams of half-born mind. A human-like being without a face stood in front of her. Its feet hovered above the untaught ground as its body flickered with glyphs.

"I recognise you," Saelira remarked.

In response, the figure said, "I know everyone." "Because what they attempted to forget was what made me."

"The fourth name is you."

"No. They created me by not giving it to me.

She blinked. "So, how are you?"

It moved in closer.

"I am not a name. When names don't work, I'm the result.

It then made a move towards her.

The pedestal cracked once again while Kaelen was still kneeling.

It didn't break apart this time.

Inward, it folded, into a portal.

The wind drew in its direction. Voices erupted.

Liraen's ears were covered. Ryenna stumbled backward.

However, Kaelen took the initiative.

and went inside.

There was no time inside.

Just flame, no heat. Soundless echoes.

And Saelira is in the middle.

Her limbs were slack, her eyes flashing with white fire, and she hovered inches off the ground.

With hands on her shoulders, the person stood behind her.

That stated, "You made me."

Mourncaller was drawn by Kaelen.

"No. I laid you to rest.

"You gave up your name to give me space."

"You weren't supposed to be."

"Yet I still talk."

Kaelen lunged forward.

The light was struck by the sword.

However, it made it through.

The voice said, "You can't kill a name that never lived." "You can only give it an incorrect name."

Then Saelira was thrust forward.

She gasped and fell to her knees.

The figure disappeared.

Kaelen hurried over to join her.

"Saelira!"

There were two layers to her voice: hers and another.

"I caught sight of her," she muttered. "She is not a fireball. She is pursuing... The quiet after burning.

Is she a part of you?

Saelira gave a nod. She wouldn't be held by anyone else. So I did.

Kaelen's eyes were closed.

"I'll get her out."

Saelira gave a headshake.

She isn't attempting to ruin me. She is attempting to emulate me.

As morning broke, they made their way back from the Hollow.

Above, the stars had changed.

Four names were now glowing:

Myen

Joren

Vael

(Unreadable)

The final one pulsed erratically.

unstable. Not finished.

Saelira's eyes was fixed on the sky.

She's not interested in being remembered. She desires a rewrite.

Kaelen understood.

Not only names were being recovered.

Something that had never really existed was being awakened.

It now desired a voice.