"Some names aren't lost. They're locked away… because remembering them would destroy us."
.....
Across the Kingdom of Names, sleep became dangerous.
People dreamed of voices they'd never heard whispering ancient syllables like venom:
"Raethen... Sulmar... Vok-Tirn…"
And when they woke, they were not the same.
A father forgot his daughter's name and called her "the thing."
A soldier remembered a massacre he never committed until he did.
An entire village hanged themselves after writing a word on every door:
"He remembers us."
Aelios called an emergency assembly.
"It's not erasing memories anymore," he said grimly.
"It's injecting new ones."
...
Virelya, still bearing the silver glow in her eyes, had seen it in the Chronicle.
A name never meant to be spoken.
Not because it was powerful.
Because it was contagious.
"The Name That Should Not Be… isn't a person," she said. "It's a memory that infects all others. A parasite. A virus made of regret and guilt."
"And the First Crown just unleashed it."
.....
Long ago before kings, before empires there was a man.
He betrayed his brother to save his city.
The people called him a hero.
But the truth?
He wanted power, and drowned his guilt in lies.
So the gods gave him what he asked for:
Power.
Immortality.
And the curse that no one would remember the truth.
Until now.
His name has returned.
"Tavern," Aelios whispered, feeling a tremor ripple through the air.
"That was the first name I ever forgot."
.....
The infected increased.
Aelios devised a ritual the Trial of Fire where each citizen had to burn a symbol of guilt and speak their true name aloud before the public.
It worked at a cost.
Some couldn't say their names.
They screamed.
They bled from the eyes.
They vanished.
Because the parasite had consumed too much.
And in the heart of the chaos, the Name That Should Not Be came walking.
A child.
Eyes blind.
Mouth stitched shut.
Carrying a scroll of names it had stolen from the world.
...
It arrived at the city of Rhyess.
Aelios raced to confront it but it had already unmade the city's identity.
No buildings remained.
Only outlines in ash.
Only echoes.
The scroll opened.
Aelios saw his own name there.
But not "Aelios the Guardian."
Not "Aelios the Fire-Mind."
No…
"Aelios the Betrayer."
He dropped to his knees.
"I never"
"You did," whispered the child. "You remember now."
And Aelios did.
...
Centuries ago before he became what he is now Aelios was human.
A prince.
Who gave up his kingdom in exchange for forbidden knowledge.
He watched his family burn.
He did nothing.
Because he believed knowledge could rebuild them.
It didn't.
"I buried my name because it hurt too much," he said.
"But burying it… made me a liar."
And so he stood.
In front of the child.
And spoke the name.
"I am Tavern.
I am the Betrayer.
And I will never forget again."
....
The world trembled.
The Name That Should Not Be shattered like glass.
Not because it was destroyed but because it had been accepted.
The child dropped the scroll.
The names returned to the people.
And Aelios… bled from the mouth, glowing with gold fire.
.....
In the far North, the First Crown screamed.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
"So… the Name has merged with the Fire.
Then I will bring the only weapon that can erase even that."
A hand of bone reached into the sky.
A storm of silence formed.
And the First Crown summoned…
The Pale Bell.
A sound that erases everything it touches including the past itself.