The wind carried the dry scent of soot as Kael stood alone before the ruined gates of the village They had passed dozens like it but this one had a name carved above in old tongue Yelvurn The name meant nothing to him but it once meant everything to someone
Ysera approached with slow steps her eyes following the trail of broken homes and shattered carts Once this place had echoed with children now it only moaned when the wind passed through empty homes
He has not spoken since the last raid she whispered not to Kael but to herself
Kael gave no reply He tightened the wrappings around his left wrist where fresh blood had dried beneath cloth The demons had been stronger this time Too strong for the level of corruption reported
Ysera knelt beside the burnt threshold of a house lifting a charred object from the dust A doll Its eye gone its hair melted to fabric
She did not cry but she held it close
She had a daughter once Kael remembered her name Aneli
He turned away but a memory dragged him back like chains wrapped around the soul
He had walked past a child's corpse in Elareth once Her little hand had gripped a doll that no longer held shape but he had not stopped Survival first grief later and later never came
He had killed the demon that did it but not before watching the child fall The guilt had not screamed back then but now it whispered every time he saw a doll in ashes
Kael clenched his fists harder until his palm bled
You knew her better Ysera said softly still looking at the doll
He did not answer at first but then said
She braided flowers into your hair once when we camped near Myrellyn you remember
Ysera nodded slowly
That was the last time I saw her laugh
The words fell heavy between them
Kael finally knelt beside her He did not touch the doll but he did not look away either
I will burn every spawn that breathes near her memory he said
No vow needed Ysera replied We already began
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Side Story The Weight of a Forgotten Name
Far away from Kael and Ysera in the crumbled city of Drelineth a boy barely ten years old searched through rubble not for food but for a book His sister lay wounded nearby her leg crushed beneath stone but she smiled through it
The boy's name was Relun and he believed in stories still In one story the Ashen Knight would return to save the broken and punish the shadow kings who ruled in blood
He did not know the knight's real name He only knew the old song his mother sang
Ashes fell and ashes rose the demon king shall weep when flame remembers love
Relun would find that book He would keep his sister alive Then maybe the Ashen Knight would come
And unknown to him Kael had already passed through Drelineth three days earlier in silence leaving behind a buried demon heart and a half burnt flag
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Ysera rose her expression harder than before The wind picked up again dry and heavy with forgotten prayers
They began walking again through the ruins not because there was anywhere left to go but because there was nothing worth staying for
Kael did not speak for a long while
But inside he made another vow one not of blood or fire but of memory
They will all remember her name