Death, I learned, was not darkness.
It was weight.
An unbearable, suffocating pressure pressed down on every thought I tried to form, as though the universe itself had placed a palm over my consciousness and decided—quietly, impersonally—that I should remain still. Not asleep. Not unconscious.
Still.
I did not remember pain at first. Only compression. Like being folded inward, layer by layer, until even memory felt too large to exist.
Then came the cold.
It seeped into me gradually, crawling through whatever remained of my senses, slow and invasive. It was not the biting cold of winter, nor the numbing chill of deep water. It was the cold of absence—the temperature of a place where nothing was meant to move.
A grave, then.
The realization did not come with panic. Panic required breath, and breath required a body that remembered how to live.
I lay suspended between thoughts, aware of my own stillness. Time passed—or perhaps it didn't. Time, after all, is something the living are very proud of inventing.
When sensation returned, it did so cruelly.
The pressure around me solidified into shape. Rough edges pressed into my back, my shoulders, the side of my face. My limbs were folded too close, drawn inward in a way that suggested intent rather than accident.
Someone had arranged me like this.
My fingers twitched.
The movement was microscopic, barely a rebellion at all, but it sent a shock through my awareness so sharp it fractured whatever numbness remained. Sensation rushed in behind it—pain, stiffness, the ache of joints that had not been joints for far too long.
I tried to inhale.
Earth filled my mouth.
The instinct was immediate and violent. My body convulsed, attempting to draw air that did not exist, my chest spasming against an unyielding weight above me. Dirt crumbled inward, gritty and dry, coating my tongue, pressing into my throat.
Buried.
The word rang through me with a clarity that cut through the haze.
I was buried.
My thoughts scattered, colliding with one another in a chaotic rush that bordered on animal terror. My arms jerked upward, elbows slamming into wood—no, not wood. Stone. Solid, unbroken stone, carved too cleanly to be natural.
A coffin.
No.
A tomb.
Someone had gone to considerable effort.
I clawed at the surface above me, fingernails scraping uselessly against cold rock. The sound was muted, swallowed by layers of earth and stone, but the vibration traveled back into my bones, grounding me in the undeniable reality of my situation.
I was underground.
I was sealed in.
And I was awake.
Air burned as it entered my lungs in shallow, panicked gasps. There wasn't much of it, but there was enough—for now. Enough to suffer.
I forced myself to stop moving.
It was not bravery. It was experience.
Panic wasted oxygen. Panic shortened timelines.
And I had not come this far—wherever this was—only to suffocate in the dark like a frightened animal.
I pressed my palms flat against the stone above me and exhaled slowly, counting in my head. The count steadied my thoughts, gave them shape.
One.
Two.
Three.
As my breathing calmed, awareness returned in fragments. My body felt… wrong. Heavy in some places, distant in others. My limbs responded sluggishly, as though they belonged to someone else and were only loosely obeying my commands.
I swallowed, throat scraping painfully.
I was alive.
That, in itself, was impossible.
The last thing I remembered was dying.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically.
Actually dying.
The memory came back in pieces, sharp and intrusive. A sky split by burning sigils. The smell of ozone and blood. Screaming—not from civilians, but from the world itself, as reality strained against something it was never meant to contain.
And then the blade.
Clean. Precise.
Merciful, if one could call it that.
They had looked at me when they did it. All of them. My companions. My friends.
My executioners.
I had accepted it. Even then, I had known it was necessary.
So why—
My thoughts stalled as another sensation registered.
Sound.
Muffled, distant, but unmistakably present.
Voices.
I froze, every muscle locking into place as I focused on the faint vibrations traveling through stone and soil. The words were indistinct at first, blurred together by distance and obstruction.
But as I strained to listen, they sharpened.
"…don't understand why they still maintain this place."
A man's voice. Young, perhaps. Casual. Unburdened.
Another voice responded, older, tinged with irritation. "Because history matters. Even the ugly parts."
A pause.
Then laughter.
Ugly parts?
Cold seeped deeper into me, coiling around something fragile in my chest.
"They say he screamed when they executed him," the younger voice said. "Begged, even."
The laughter returned, louder this time.
I closed my eyes.
No.
That was wrong.
I had not screamed.
I had not begged.
I had smiled.
Because it was over.
"Serves him right," the younger one continued. "After everything he did."
Everything I did.
The words echoed, hollow and distorted, as if spoken underwater. My fingers curled slowly into fists, nails biting into my palms.
What did they remember?
The older man grunted. "Careful. Don't let the clergy hear you talk like that. Even monsters get their rites."
Monster.
The word slid into me like a blade between ribs, sharp and intimate.
Footsteps approached, vibrations growing stronger as the voices drew nearer—directly above me.
A shadow passed over the faint seams of light that leaked through microscopic cracks in the stone. Something heavy shifted.
They were standing on my grave.
"Hard to believe," the younger one muttered, "that someone like that was ever called a hero."
The world tilted.
Hero.
Monster.
Execution.
My thoughts spiraled, fragments of memory colliding violently with this new, grotesque reality. I strained against the stone again, not to escape, but to feel something solid—something real enough to anchor me.
This was wrong.
Something had gone catastrophically wrong.
"He saved the world, they say," the younger man continued, voice dripping with skepticism. "But look at the cost."
Saved the world.
The phrase struck deeper than any insult.
Because that part was true.
I had saved it.
The stone above me shifted again, and suddenly light—real light—cut through the darkness as a section of the tomb was lifted away. Dust cascaded downward in a thin waterfall, stinging my eyes and coating my face.
I squinted, vision struggling to adjust after an eternity of darkness.
A face appeared above me.
Young. Human. Unremarkable.
He peered down with idle curiosity, as one might look into an empty pit or an abandoned well.
Our eyes met.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
Then his expression twisted—not into fear, but confusion.
"…did you hear something?" he asked.
The older man leaned closer, frowning. "Hear what?"
I stared up at them, mouth opening as I tried to speak.
My voice scraped out, raw and broken, a sound dragged from disuse.
"Help."
The word felt foreign on my tongue.
The younger man recoiled, stumbling backward so quickly he nearly dropped the stone slab. His face drained of color, eyes wide.
"By the Saints—!"
The older man froze, then leaned forward, peering into the tomb with narrowed eyes.
What he saw made his expression harden.
Not fear.
Not shock.
Disgust.
"…Impossible," he said quietly.
I lifted one trembling hand toward the light, fingers skeletal, skin pale and stretched thin as parchment. "I'm alive," I rasped. "Please."
The younger man shook his head violently. "No. No, that's—he's dead. He has to be dead."
The older man's jaw clenched. "This is a trick."
"A trick?" the younger one whispered. "From who?"
The older man stepped back, making a quick, warding gesture over his chest. "From him."
From me.
Before I could speak again, he slammed the stone back into place.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
The final thing I heard before the world went silent again was the older man's voice, trembling despite his attempt at authority.
"Run. Get the clergy. If this is what I think it is…"
Their footsteps retreated, frantic now, fading rapidly.
I lay there in the dark, my outstretched hand slowly falling back to my chest.
A bitter, hollow sound escaped me—something between a laugh and a sob.
So this is how it is.
Buried.
Rejected.
Feared.
And above all—
Remembered wrong.
I closed my eyes as the weight of it settled over me, heavier than stone, heavier than earth.
If this world insisted I was a monster…
Then it had forgotten what monsters truly were.
Silence returned after they fled.
Not the peaceful kind. Not the gentle quiet that follows snowfall or prayer.
This silence was tense—coiled tight, expectant, like the held breath before an executioner's signal.
I lay there, staring into the dark, my mind racing far faster than my body could move. The stone above me pressed down once more, sealing away the sliver of light and the proof that the world still existed beyond this grave.
They had seen me.
They had recognized me.
And yet, they had not.
That contradiction gnawed at me more viciously than hunger or suffocation ever could.
I pressed my palm against my chest and felt a heartbeat—slow, heavy, deliberate. Each thud echoed strangely through my ribs, as though my body itself was uncertain whether it should continue the motion.
Alive.
Undeniably alive.
But alive in a way the world clearly did not approve of.
My throat burned. My mouth was dry, tongue coated in dust and bitterness. I swallowed and tasted earth again, grounding me in a physicality that felt almost obscene after death.
Six years.
The number surfaced without warning, unbidden yet certain. I didn't know how I knew, only that the knowledge settled into place as though it had always been there.
Six years since my execution.
Six years since the world ended—and continued anyway.
I flexed my fingers, slowly this time, careful not to waste strength. Sensation crept back in fits and starts, nerves waking like reluctant witnesses. Pain followed, sharp and insistent, blooming in joints that protested movement.
Good.
Pain meant function.
Function meant escape.
The tomb was narrow, just wide enough to contain a single body laid in ceremonial stillness. The stone was engraved—runes etched along the inner walls, their faint impressions catching beneath my fingertips as I traced them.
Funerary wards.
Old ones.
I recognized the style immediately, and that recognition brought with it another spike of unease. These weren't meant to keep grave robbers out.
They were meant to keep something in.
I laughed again, quietly this time, the sound brittle and hoarse.
Of course.
Of course they would.
I shifted my weight, bracing my feet against the base of the tomb. Muscles screamed in protest as I pushed upward, palms pressing hard against the slab above me.
It didn't move.
I exhaled slowly, recalibrating. Strength came next—not brute force, but precision.
I reached inward, instinctively searching for the familiar pull of mana, the subtle resonance that had once responded to my will as easily as breath.
There.
A flicker.
Dim. Weak. Like an ember buried beneath ash.
Relief surged through me so sharply it nearly hurt more than the stiffness.
Magic remained.
But it was… wrong.
It didn't flow the way it used to. The connection felt distorted, warped, as though something fundamental had shifted in the way the world responded to me. I tried to draw more, carefully this time.
Resistance.
Not from within myself—but from outside.
The air rejected me.
The stone resisted not only physically, but conceptually, as though the act of me existing here violated some unspoken rule.
Interesting.
And alarming.
Still, resistance could be overcome.
I focused, drawing the ember brighter, feeding it with intention rather than force. A simple reinforcement spell, nothing flashy. Something I'd taught apprentices in their first year.
My palm warmed faintly as sigils flared beneath my skin, invisible but present. I pressed again.
The stone cracked.
Not loudly. No dramatic explosion.
Just a sharp, clean fracture running through the slab above me, spiderwebbing outward from the point of contact.
I froze.
Then I pushed once more.
The slab shifted, grinding against its frame with a sound like teeth gnashing together. Dust rained down, stinging my eyes. I turned my face away, coughing softly as ancient air rushed in.
Light followed.
This time, I didn't wait for permission.
With a final, desperate shove, I forced the slab aside and dragged myself upward, limbs trembling as I hauled my body out of the tomb and into the open air.
I collapsed onto cold stone, chest heaving, lungs burning as they greedily filled with oxygen. For a long moment, I did nothing but breathe.
Above me, the sky stretched wide and indifferent.
Grey clouds hung low, heavy with the promise of rain, their undersides tinged faintly gold by the dying light of afternoon. I blinked up at them, stunned by their vastness.
I had forgotten how big the sky was.
I rolled onto my side and pushed myself upright, ignoring the way my muscles protested. My hands shook, but they obeyed.
I was in a cemetery.
Rows upon rows of graves extended outward, their markers arranged with meticulous care. Marble headstones gleamed dully beneath the overcast sky, each etched with names, dates, and epitaphs that spoke of honor, sacrifice, and remembrance.
I scanned them absently at first.
Then my gaze caught on a familiar crest carved into a nearby monument.
My breath hitched.
That symbol—an eight-pointed star encircled by laurel leaves—was unmistakable.
The Heroic Accord.
I rose unsteadily to my feet and approached the monument, each step heavy with dread.
Names were carved into its surface. Dozens of them.
I recognized nearly all.
Warriors. Mages. Saints.
Heroes.
At the top of the list, engraved deeper and more prominently than the rest, were four names.
My companions.
I traced the letters with trembling fingers, memories surfacing with brutal clarity.
The Saint, whose prayers could heal armies.
The Sword Emperor, whose blade had never known defeat.
The Oracle, who saw paths no one else could.
And beneath them, separated by a long, deliberate line—
My name.
Carved smaller.
Lower.
Marked with a different symbol entirely.
Not the star.
But a broken circle.
The mark of calamity.
I staggered back, nausea rolling through me.
"No," I whispered. "That's… that's not right."
The monument didn't respond.
History rarely did.
I looked around, heart pounding, and finally took in the full scope of the cemetery. This wasn't a resting place for the common dead.
This was a memorial.
A sanctified ground reserved for those whose lives had shaped the world.
And I—
I had been buried here.
Not as a hero.
But as a warning.
I stumbled toward a nearby headstone, desperate for context, for anything that made sense. My eyes skimmed the inscription, then froze.
HERE LIES
THE BLACK REMNANT
BETRAYER OF DAWN
EXECUTED IN THE FINAL HOUR
MAY HIS MEMORY SERVE AS LESSON
My vision blurred.
Black Remnant.
The title settled over me like a shroud, heavy with implications. I had never heard it before—and yet, somehow, it fit into the gaps left behind by the world's distorted recollection of me.
They had named me.
Defined me.
Condensed my existence into something simple enough to hate.
I laughed again, louder this time, the sound echoing across the empty grounds.
"Betrayer of Dawn," I murmured. "That's new."
My reflection caught my eye in the polished surface of the stone.
I barely recognized myself.
My hair, once dark and neatly kept, now hung loose and uneven around my shoulders, streaked with grey that hadn't been there before. My face was gaunt, cheekbones sharp beneath pale skin that looked almost translucent in the muted light.
My eyes—
I leaned closer, staring.
They were the same color they'd always been, but something else lingered beneath the surface now. A faint distortion, as though reality itself hesitated when it reached them.
Like a scar that didn't belong to flesh.
I straightened slowly.
Footsteps echoed in the distance.
I turned sharply, instinct flaring, and caught sight of movement at the edge of the cemetery. Figures in dark robes approached along the gravel path, their pace measured and deliberate.
Clergy.
The wards on the graves hummed faintly as they drew near, responding to their presence.
So the old man hadn't been lying.
They had come quickly.
I retreated instinctively, positioning myself between the rows of graves, using the monuments as cover. My body still felt weak, my magic unreliable. A direct confrontation would be… unwise.
As they passed, I caught snippets of their conversation.
"—felt the disturbance?"
"Yes. Near the execution site."
"Impossible. The seal has held for years."
"Then explain the resonance."
I held my breath as they paused near the open tomb I'd escaped from.
One of them—a tall man with iron-grey hair and eyes like polished stone—knelt beside the cracked slab. He touched the fracture, fingers glowing faintly with diagnostic magic.
His expression darkened.
"This was opened from within," he said quietly.
A murmur rippled through the group.
"That's heresy."
"That's blasphemy."
"That's—"
The man silenced them with a raised hand.
"…Prepare the Ward of Remembrance," he said. "If it has returned, we cannot allow it to walk freely."
It.
Not him.
The word burned.
I slipped away while their attention was focused elsewhere, moving deeper into the cemetery until the walls loomed ahead. Stone gates stood open, beyond them the city stretched outward—tall spires, layered rooftops, banners fluttering faintly in the wind.
I stared.
The city was larger than I remembered.
No.
It wasn't that.
It was… different.
Architecture I recognized blended awkwardly with styles I didn't. Buildings leaned at unfamiliar angles, streets wound in patterns that didn't align with my memories. Even the banners bore symbols I couldn't fully place—variations on old crests, altered just enough to feel wrong.
Like a painting restored by someone who had never seen the original.
I stepped through the gates.
No alarms rang.
No invisible barrier rejected me.
For a moment, I almost dared to hope.
Then a child ran past me, laughing, chased by another. As they passed, one of them sang softly, tuneless and carefree.
"Black Remnant, broken crown,
Killed the sun, burned it down—"
I stopped dead.
The rhyme echoed in my head, each word a hammer blow.
The children disappeared down the street, laughter fading, leaving me standing alone beneath a sky that felt suddenly far too low.
I pressed a hand to my chest, steadying myself.
They had turned my life into a story.
A warning tale.
A song.
Whatever I had saved…
Whatever I had sacrificed…
It had been swallowed by something far more enduring than truth.
Memory.
And memory, I was beginning to understand, was the cruelest god of all.
The city swallowed me whole.
Not all at once—no dramatic gates slamming shut or sudden shift in atmosphere—but gradually, the way a tide creeps up the shore until your feet are underwater and you only realize it when it's too late to step back.
The street beyond the cemetery gates was wide and paved with pale stone, polished smooth by countless footsteps. Shops lined both sides, their wooden signs swaying gently in the breeze. The air smelled of bread, metal, incense, and rain-soaked dust.
Life.
Ordinary, stubborn life.
I stood there for a moment too long, drawing stares.
It wasn't difficult to understand why. I looked like something the grave had spat back out in protest—clothes torn and dirt-stained, skin pallid, posture stiff with unfamiliarity. People's gazes slid over me, lingered, then hardened into suspicion or discomfort.
A woman pulled her child closer as she passed.
A merchant frowned, fingers tightening around the edge of his stall.
No one spoke to me.
But everyone noticed.
I lowered my head and began to walk.
Each step felt like trespass.
The city's name surfaced in my mind as I moved deeper into its streets.
Aurelion.
The Dawn-Crowned City.
Once, it had been the heart of resistance against the encroaching calamity. A place of banners and rallying cries, of hope clung to with bloodied hands.
Now it was… peaceful.
Too peaceful.
The buildings rose taller than before, layered with new expansions stacked atop old foundations. Bridges arched between towers at improbable heights, their undersides etched with glowing runes that hummed softly as people passed beneath them.
Magic infrastructure.
Advanced. Refined.
Built in a world that had survived.
I felt a strange tightness in my chest as I watched people go about their lives—arguing over prices, laughing, complaining about the weather. None of them looked like survivors.
None of them looked like they remembered the screams.
Good, a distant part of me thought.
That was the point.
I stopped short.
The thought hadn't felt like mine.
I frowned, pausing at the edge of a small plaza. In its center stood a fountain, water cascading down a statue carved from white stone.
A man holding a sword pointed downward.
A woman beside him, hands raised in benediction.
Behind them, a third figure knelt, head bowed.
I recognized the scene instantly.
The Final Hour.
My execution.
Except the one kneeling wasn't me.
The statue's features were vague, intentionally so—face obscured, body twisted into something almost inhuman. Spines or shadows jutted from its back, merging into the base like roots.
A monster made to look repentant.
At the statue's base, an inscription read:
HERE THE WORLD WAS SAVED
WHEN EVIL WAS STRUCK DOWN
I stared at it for a long time.
Long enough that the world around me seemed to dim at the edges, sounds growing distant and warped. The water from the fountain splashed endlessly, each droplet a tiny echo of something I could no longer quite remember.
That wasn't how it happened.
I hadn't knelt.
I had stood.
I had asked them to do it.
And they—
A ripple passed through the air.
Subtle. Almost imperceptible.
The water in the fountain hesitated mid-fall, droplets hanging suspended for a fraction of a second before crashing down all at once.
No one else seemed to notice.
I took a slow step back.
The distortion followed.
Not visually, not exactly—but conceptually. The space around me felt strained, like fabric pulled too tight. The statue's shadow stretched in the wrong direction, edges blurring and sharpening in turns.
I swallowed.
So it had begun.
I turned away from the plaza and moved on, heart pounding.
The further I went, the more signs I noticed—small things at first. A street that curved where I remembered it running straight. A bakery occupying the space where a barracks once stood.
History had been remodeled.
Not erased.
Rewritten.
I passed a notice board crowded with parchment postings. My eyes snagged on one near the center, its edges crisp and new.
PUBLIC NOTICE
REMEMBRANCE DAY APPROACHES
Citizens are reminded to attend the Annual Rite of Dawnfall, honoring the heroes of the Final Hour and reaffirming our shared history. Unauthorized deviations from the Canonical Account will be subject to correction.
Correction.
The word chilled me more than any threat of punishment ever had.
I reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the parchment.
For a brief, terrifying moment, the words changed.
The letters twisted, rearranging themselves into phrases I remembered—truths that had once been undeniable.
Then they snapped back.
My hand recoiled as if burned.
"So it's true."
The voice came from behind me.
I turned sharply, instincts flaring, to find a man standing a few paces away. He was old—older than he looked at first glance, his face lined not with age but with fatigue. His robes were simple, scholar's garb rather than clergy, their once-rich fabric faded with time.
His eyes, however, were sharp.
Dangerously so.
"You shouldn't touch those," he said quietly. "They don't like it when you do."
"Who?" I asked.
He hesitated, then smiled thinly. "That's… complicated."
We studied each other in silence. I sensed no immediate hostility from him, but something else lingered beneath the surface—fear, yes, but also curiosity. Hunger, perhaps.
The look of someone who had waited a long time for something he never expected to actually see.
"You're either very brave," he continued, "or very foolish, walking around like this."
"Like what?"
"Like you exist."
My jaw tightened.
"I didn't realize that required permission."
A flicker of something like approval crossed his face. He glanced around quickly, then gestured toward a narrow side street branching off the main road.
"Come," he said. "If you want answers, standing here isn't wise."
Every instinct I had screamed caution.
And yet—
I followed him.
The alley was dim and narrow, the noise of the city muffled almost immediately. He led me through a series of turns that seemed intentionally confusing, doubling back on themselves in ways that made my head ache.
Finally, he stopped before an unassuming door set into the side of a building that looked like it might collapse if breathed on too hard.
He knocked once.
Twice.
Then paused.
The door opened a crack, revealing darkness beyond.
"Professor?" a voice whispered from inside.
"It's me," the old man replied. "Let us in. Quickly."
We slipped inside, the door closing behind us with a soft click. The interior was cluttered—books stacked on every available surface, papers pinned to walls in chaotic patterns, diagrams and symbols overlapping in a mess that made my eyes ache.
The air smelled of ink and dust.
And something else.
Something old.
The old man turned to face me fully now, studying me with undisguised intensity.
"I didn't believe it at first," he said. "Six years of rumors, whispers buried under official denials. But the resonance today—it was unmistakable."
He inhaled slowly.
"The Black Remnant," he said.
I flinched.
Then corrected him.
"No," I said quietly. "That's not my name."
His gaze sharpened. "Then tell me what is."
I opened my mouth.
And nothing came out.
The name was there—I could feel it, sitting just behind my thoughts, familiar as my own heartbeat. But when I tried to grasp it, it slipped away, blurred into static.
I frowned, panic blooming.
"That's… strange," the old man murmured, watching my struggle. "You can't say it, can you?"
"What did you do?" I demanded.
"Nothing," he replied quickly. "I swear it. That's not me—that's the Doctrine."
"The what?"
"The Mnemosyne Doctrine," he said, voice dropping. "The law that governs this world now."
I stared at him.
He met my gaze steadily.
"In this age," he continued, "truth does not determine reality. Memory does."
The room seemed to tilt.
"Collective remembrance shapes history, enforces causality, even sustains the gods themselves," he said. "Anything remembered by enough people becomes true. Anything forgotten… decays."
My hands clenched.
"And people remember me as—"
"A calamity," he finished softly. "A necessary evil. The final threat humanity overcame together."
I laughed weakly. "That's absurd."
"Yes," he agreed. "It is."
Silence stretched between us.
Finally, he spoke again.
"My name is Elias Verne," he said. "Once, I was Royal Historian of Aurelion."
Once.
"And now?"
"Now?" His smile was tired. "Now I am a dangerous man who remembers the wrong things."
He gestured to the walls.
"These are fragments. Contradictions. Events that don't align with the Canonical Account. I collect them before they vanish."
"Why?"
"Because forgetting," he said quietly, "is a kind of death."
The words settled deep.
I exhaled slowly, trying to steady the storm inside my chest.
"If memory shapes reality," I said, "then why am I here?"
Elias's expression darkened.
"That," he replied, "is the question that terrifies everyone."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"Because your existence is a paradox. You are remembered as something that cannot exist… yet here you are."
A faint tremor ran through the room. Books rustled, loose pages fluttering as though caught in a sudden breeze.
I felt it again—that strain, that pressure in the air.
The world noticing me.
"Which means," Elias continued, eyes shining with equal parts fear and awe, "that the lie is no longer stable."
Somewhere in the distance, a bell began to ring.
Deep.
Resonant.
A warning.
Elias turned pale.
"They've begun the Rite early," he whispered. "The Wardens felt the shift."
My heart sank.
"What happens during the Rite?"
He looked at me.
Then, very carefully, he said, "They reinforce the memory of your execution."
The bell rang again.
Louder.
And for the first time since I clawed my way out of the grave, I felt something worse than fear.
I felt time running out.
The bell did not stop.
It rolled across the city in measured intervals, each toll deeper than the last, resonating through stone, bone, and something less tangible. I felt it not only in my ears, but behind my eyes, in the hollow space where thoughts formed.
Memory magic.
Crude in concept. Terrifying in execution.
Elias moved quickly, sweeping loose papers from a central table and rolling out a heavy cloth etched with sigils so old their lines had softened with time.
"Sit," he ordered.
I didn't argue.
The moment I lowered myself onto the stool, the room seemed to contract, the cluttered walls inching closer. Elias placed his palms flat against the table and whispered a sequence of words that made my teeth ache.
The bell rang again.
"Explain," I said tightly. "Now."
Elias exhaled through his nose. "The Rite of Dawnfall is a city-wide reinforcement ritual. It doesn't change history—changing it outright would cause fractures. Instead, it strengthens the version people already believe."
"So they remind everyone I was executed," I said.
"Yes."
"That I was evil."
"Yes."
"And that I deserved it."
He didn't answer immediately.
The silence was enough.
My chest felt tight. Not panic—something colder. Something resigned.
"And what happens to me when they do?" I asked.
Elias met my gaze, his eyes grave. "If the memory solidifies further… your existence becomes increasingly incompatible with reality."
"Incompatible," I repeated.
He nodded. "People will stop noticing you. Then they'll start forgetting you while you're standing in front of them. Eventually—"
I felt it then.
A tug.
Subtle but unmistakable, like a hook sinking into the back of my thoughts and pulling, gently at first. My name—what little remained of it—flickered.
Elias swore under his breath. "It's already starting."
The bell rang again.
Louder.
Through the narrow window, I saw light bloom in the sky—golden, radiant, painfully beautiful. Lines of illumination spread outward from the city's central spire, threading through streets, climbing walls, passing through flesh without resistance.
People outside stopped what they were doing.
They turned toward the light.
Toward the spire.
Toward remembrance.
I stood abruptly, dizziness washing over me. The room warped at the edges, colors bleeding slightly as though the world were struggling to focus.
"We need to leave," I said.
Elias shook his head. "Too late. The streets will be saturated."
"Then where do I go?"
He hesitated.
Then, reluctantly, he said, "There is one place the Rite doesn't reach."
"Where?"
"The execution plaza."
I stared at him.
"That's the epicenter," I said. "Why wouldn't it reach there?"
"Because," Elias replied softly, "that place is already over-saturated. Too many conflicting memories. Too much emotional residue. It's… unstable."
Unstable.
The room shook—not physically, but historically. A stack of books toppled, pages fluttering as though caught in a wind that didn't exist.
Outside, a woman screamed.
Then another.
Not in pain.
In confusion.
"I don't—why am I here?" a voice cried faintly. "Wasn't I—wasn't this—?"
Elias grabbed my arm. His grip was surprisingly strong.
"They're feeling the strain," he said urgently. "Your presence is pulling against the Rite."
"That wasn't my intention," I said.
"I know," he snapped. "Intent doesn't matter anymore."
The light outside intensified, seeping through cracks in the walls, outlining everything in gold. My shadow on the floor elongated, distorted—splitting briefly into multiple overlapping silhouettes before snapping back into one.
I felt… thin.
Like a story stretched too far.
"Go," Elias said suddenly, pushing a small object into my hand.
A coin.
Old. Worn smooth. One side bore the symbol of the old Accord. The other—
My heart skipped.
The broken circle.
"What is this?" I asked.
"A mnemonic anchor," he said. "It holds one true memory. Just one. Enough to remind you who you are if the Rite starts stripping you away."
"And you?"
Elias smiled faintly. "I'll be forgotten anyway. That's the price of remembering."
The bell rang again.
This time, it fractured.
The sound split into overlapping tones, some deep, some shrill, clashing in a way that made my vision blur. Outside, the golden light faltered, flickering like a dying flame.
I staggered.
Elias shoved me toward the door. "Go! Now!"
I burst back into the alley.
The city had changed.
People stood frozen mid-step, faces slack with confusion or awe. Some were crying. Others laughed, hysterical and uncomprehending.
Above it all, the spire blazed, runes spinning around its apex in frantic patterns as the Rite struggled to assert dominance.
I ran.
Every step felt heavier than the last, as though the ground itself were resisting me. Whispers brushed against my mind—fragments of prayers, half-remembered stories, accusations spoken by no single voice.
Monster.
Betrayer.
Calamity.
I clenched the coin in my fist, its edges biting into my palm.
"No," I muttered. "That's not all I am."
The execution plaza loomed ahead.
The statue.
The fountain.
The lie carved in stone.
As I crossed into the plaza, the light from the spire faltered violently. The air warped, rippling like heat haze. The fountain's water froze mid-splash, droplets hanging suspended once more—but this time, they did not fall.
The statue cracked.
A fissure ran from its base up through the kneeling figure, splitting it cleanly in two.
A sound tore through the plaza—not a bell, not a scream, but something deeper.
A memory breaking.
I dropped to one knee as images flooded my mind, unbidden and overwhelming.
The real Final Hour.
The sky tearing open.
The truth of the spell.
The choice.
And the reason.
The world had not blamed me by accident.
It had been engineered.
Because the truth—that the calamity had required a willing sacrifice, someone to bear eternal infamy—was too much for humanity to accept.
So they had chosen the easier story.
One villain.
One execution.
One clean ending.
I looked up at the shattered statue, breath shaking.
"So this is the lie," I whispered.
The air trembled.
Somewhere, far beyond the city, something vast stirred.
Something that remembered me.
And was afraid.
The golden light from the spire collapsed inward, imploding into a blinding point before vanishing entirely. Across the city, people cried out as memories snapped back into place—not the truth, but the reinforced lie, now hastily patched.
The Rite ended.
Silence fell.
I remained kneeling in the plaza, alone amid frozen water and broken stone, my existence barely tolerated by the world once more.
In my hand, the coin burned faintly warm.
One memory, anchored.
One truth, preserved.
I rose slowly to my feet.
"If this world insists on remembering me as a monster," I said quietly, voice steady despite everything, "then I will survive as one."
The statue crumbled behind me, collapsing into dust.
And somewhere deep within reality itself, something wrote my name down again—
Not as a hero.
Not as a man.
But as a problem.