Echoes Beneath the Garden

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The path to the past was overgrown with silence.

They traveled for three days through the Ashen Reaches—once lush farmland, now scorched by war and time. No roads. No signs. Just cracked earth, twisted trees, and the distant howls of dusk-hunting beasts. It wasn't marked on any current map. Most didn't even remember the name.

But Lyra did.

> "Fellhollow," she said softly. "That was the estate. Where you were born."

Riven hadn't spoken since morning. He walked a few paces ahead, cloak trailing behind him like the shadow of an old memory.

They reached the ridge by noon.

And there it was.

Or what remained.

Stone walls, blackened by fire. Half-buried towers collapsed into ivy. The front gate reduced to splinters and rusted hinges. And beyond that—at the heart of it all—a field of gnarled olive trees swaying in the dry wind.

The garden.

---

Riven didn't speak as he entered.

He knelt beside a fallen archway, running his fingers along the marble base.

It was cracked. The sigil that once sat there—three swords, one broken—was now a smear of scorch and moss.

But it was real.

He remembered this stone.

Not just as a vision.

As a place.

"I used to train here," he whispered. "Right here."

Lyra knelt beside him. "You used to climb that tree when the tutors came. Said history was better learned through action."

Riven cracked the faintest smile. "Still believe that."

---

They moved deeper into the ruins.

The central courtyard still bore the shape of the old training circle. Dust covered the lines, but they were there. Riven stepped inside and turned slowly, trying to recall the positions, the weight of the wooden sword in his hands, the echo of his father's voice.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lyra asked quietly.

"No."

She didn't push.

But he spoke anyway.

"I wasn't just trained to fight," he said. "He taught me to observe. To wait. To strike last, not first."

He paused.

"Funny. I forgot the man, but not the methods."

Lyra sat on the broken fountain's edge. "That's because they weren't his. They were yours. You just… inherited the shape."

---

The sun dipped behind the crumbling tower, casting long shadows across the marble. The wind picked up. Somewhere, a bird called out—a lone shrike.

Riven walked to the tree.

The one she'd spoken of.

The one from the memory.

He placed a hand on the bark.

It felt familiar. Rough, but solid. Ancient.

And there, half-hidden beneath centuries of lichen, he found it.

Carved into the bark:

> R.V.

And below it:

> Stay still. Strike clean.

---

His hand trembled.

Lyra stood behind him, quiet.

"She was already here, wasn't she?" he said.

Lyra knew who he meant. "Yes."

Riven turned to face her. "Did you see it in the vision too? How she smiled? Like she belonged here?"

"She did," Lyra said. "For a time. The Eclipse wasn't born overnight. It grew from whispers. From people like her, buried in places like this."

He nodded slowly.

And then his voice cracked, barely audible.

"I think she loved us. Or… she thought she did."

Lyra didn't respond for a long time.

Then, softly: "Twisted love still leaves scars."

---

That night, they made camp in the garden, under the shelter of the half-standing tower.

Kael and Elen kept watch.

Liora sketched wards into the earth, her lips moving in quiet prayer.

Riven sat alone near the fountain, staring at the pendant in his palm.

"Did he know?" he asked aloud. "Did my father see it coming?"

Veyron's voice was unusually quiet.

> He knew she was dangerous. But not what she would become.

"You sound like you pity him."

> I do. He made a pact with something older than gods to protect you. And in doing so, he lost the right to stay.

Riven looked up. "What do you mean?"

> Your father's greatest sin was not falling. It was hiding what he gave up to keep you alive.

Riven's throat tightened. "What did he give up?"

> Ask her.

---

At dawn, Riven returned to the olive tree and drew his blade.

He carved a new mark below the old one. Not initials. Not a memory.

A sigil.

Three swords—this time, none of them broken.

He stood back and stared at it.

A new seal.

Not of the past.

But of the future.

---

Far in the catacombs of the Eclipse sanctum, Seris watched the garden's image flicker in her mirror.

A rare look of sorrow passed across her face.

"You shouldn't have gone back," she whispered. "Some truths… were meant to stay buried."

The mirror darkened.

> "Or you'll remember why you had to forget."

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