Chapter 13 – What the Gods Forgot to Burn

The trees were bleeding ash again.

Riven rode alone now, through the rotwood path that led to Mirehold Monastery, where myths went to rot and liars became prophets. Ash stuck to his skin, his teeth, the corners of his damn eyes. It wasn't natural — not like burnt villages or scorched fields. This ash floated from the sky when there was no fire. It drifted like it knew something. Like it wanted to settle in his lungs and kill him slow.

His horse wouldn't go further than the threshold. Even it had more sense than him.

The place reeked of memory and mold — the kind that lingers not in stone but inside your skull. Mirehold was ruins now. Charred pillars, fallen domes, statues melted halfway into slag. This monastery was meant to worship silence, back in the age when gods still walked around pretending they gave a shit.

Now it was quiet, sure. But not holy. Just dead.

Riven stepped over a shattered altar and immediately stopped. Something shimmered on the wall.

A carving.

It was his mother.

Not really — but the face was so close it made his throat tighten. Same jawline. Same eyes. Except… her eyes were carved out. Hollow pits. And the word "FRAUD" was burned under her chin. The statue next to her? His father — or someone like him. Except instead of a face, it had a coiled snake, jaws open wide, dripping what looked like oil.

"What the fuck is this…" Riven muttered, touching the stone. It was warm. Not sun-warm. Burning from within.

He stepped back, suddenly dizzy. The air turned thicker, hotter. His pendant — the one he never took off — lit up, pulsing against his chest like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.

And then the fucking voices started.

"Kerron's dead because of you."

Riven spun. Nobody.

"You ran from the fire like a child."

No footsteps. No shadows. Just sound.

"You watched us burn, Riven. You didn't scream. You didn't cry. You just walked away."

He stumbled back, shoulder slamming into the statue. His head was spinning. Eyes blurring.

He blinked.

And suddenly she was there.

Nyra.

Standing at the entrance, soaked in ash, one eye bruised, mouth bleeding. "You fucking left me."

He ran to her. Reached.

And fell straight through her.

Gone. Air. Nothing.

Riven collapsed to his knees, choking. Not from grief — from the dust. It coated his throat. It was in the fucking air. He looked down and his hands were shaking.

"Poison," he muttered. "Illusion magic. Hallucinogen. Someone left this shit here."

Of course. Of course they did. This place wasn't forgotten. It was planted. A shrine. A trap. A message.

He crawled to the base of the largest statue — a faceless god, hands clasped, mouth sealed shut. A traitor god. The forgotten kind.

He punched through its chest with a scream, digging through rock and mud and bone-dust until he hit something hard. Hot.

A shard of ash-metal, black and red and thrumming like a heartbeat. Not magic. Not relic. Memory-etched illusion tech. Someone had embedded a fucking hallucination anchor right into the stone.

"The Chanter's been here," Riven whispered. "Bastard's writing me into myth."

He laughed then. Not because it was funny, but because it was so fucking perfect. They weren't just hunting him. They were rewriting him. Spreading fake visions. Placing illusions like breadcrumbs. Making him into the villain before he even arrived.

And the worst part?

It was working.

---

Meanwhile.

Far to the west, Virel sat in a silk tent with a smile sharper than the daggers strapped to her thigh. Her spies had brought her a new gift — a voice record, sealed in an old Alden-tech cube.

She clicked it.

Riven's voice played. A perfect match. Tone, rasp, pain.

"I burned them. I burned all of them. I am what the world made me."

False, of course. Entirely fabricated. Crafted by the Chanter using old Alden neural echoes and sound fragments. But gods, it sounded real.

Virel clapped her hands once.

"Send it to the east. To the rebels, to the villagers, to the wandering priests. Make sure every child sings it in their sleep."

"But my lady," the scout hesitated, "what if the real Riven finds out?"

She laughed. "Then maybe he'll start living up to his legend."

---

Nyra, meanwhile, had found her own horror.

She sat by a campfire in a ruined village, a child drawing shapes in the dirt. Spirals. Fire. A sword.

"Who told you that name?" Nyra asked, her voice hard.

"Riven?" the boy said. "The fire told me."

She froze. "What fire?"

"The one that burns places before he gets there."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

The boy just smiled and pointed at the map he drew in dirt.

Nyra's stomach dropped. Every place marked in ash... Riven hadn't even been to them.

Someone was torching villages and whispering his name into the ruins.

---

Back at Mirehold, Riven stood under black rain.

The illusions had faded, but not the doubt.

A blind monk stepped out of the shadows. Hooded. Thin. He moved like smoke.

"You've met the Chanter," the monk rasped. "He writes in bone and memory. He writes lies that become truth."

"I'm not interested in stories," Riven growled. "I'm here for blood."

"And yet," the monk said, smiling, "you're not sure anymore, are you? You remember what you did. But do you know what they made you forget?"

Riven didn't respond.

The monk stepped closer.

"Memory is easy to fake. But blood—blood never lies. Find what still bleeds, and you'll know who's really dying."

Riven said nothing. Just stared through the rain.

He looked down at his hands. Ash-covered. Scarred. Callused.

Maybe he had burned something without knowing.

Maybe they had taken not just his home — but his fucking truth.

But one thing was clear.

He wasn't going to let them write his fucking story.

He gripped his blade. Face blank. 

"If they're rewriting me," he muttered, "then I'll carve my truth into their skulls."