The wind howled like a wounded beast across the shattered ridges of the Ashen Expanse.
Althar stood at the edge of the cliff, his cloak whipping around him, eyes fixed on the ruined valley below. Beneath the twilight sky, the remnants of old cities—crumbled towers, drowned temples, broken statues—lay silent. They had no names, no stories. No memory of what had once been.
That was why he had come.
Behind him stood six others.
They were not kings, nor warriors of legend. They were shadows. Fragments. People whose very names had been stolen by the Hollow Veil.
A scarred woman with grey eyes who could not remember her child's face.
A boy with silver hair who spoke to no one, but wept in his sleep.
A former knight who had once been beloved by a kingdom he could no longer recall.
And three others, nameless and drifting, held together only by the thread of Althar's defiance.
He turned to face them.
"You were not chosen by fate," he said, voice rising above the wind. "You were erased. Stripped of your stories, buried in silence. But I remember you. Even if the world forgets, I will not."
The boy looked up, a flicker of hope in his red-rimmed eyes.
"I called you here," Althar continued, "because the Empress fears something more than blades or spells. She fears memory. She fears people who refuse to vanish."
He drew his sword, laying it flat upon a slab of stone. Then he cut his palm and let the blood stain the steel.
"Today, we forge the Pact of the Unnamed. A vow not of vengeance—but of remembrance. We will reclaim what was stolen. Names. Faces. Futures."
One by one, the others stepped forward.
The knight knelt first. "I don't remember my kingdom, or the vows I once took. But I remember the feeling of duty. Of standing for something larger than myself. I want that again."
He cut his hand and let the blood fall.
The grey-eyed woman followed. "I wake up knowing I lost something precious. I want to know what it was—and I want to protect others from that loss."
Then the silent boy.
He didn't speak. He only pressed his bleeding palm to the stone.
The others followed, until all seven hands had marked the blade.
Althar looked at them—not as soldiers, but as broken souls standing tall despite it.
"We have no nation. No titles. No past."
He lifted the sword, now glowing faintly red.
"But we have each other."
And the wind listened.
Later that night, around a flickering campfire deep within the ruins, they sat in a rough circle. None of them spoke for a while. They were still strangers—bound by silence and pain.
Althar stared into the flames, remembering Kaelis's touch, Seris's laughter, the way Ariya had looked at him before the last battle. Their faces were his anchor now. Proof that emotions didn't weaken him. They made him real.
"We need a place," the grey-eyed woman said at last. "A sanctuary. Somewhere to gather more like us. There are others out there, I know it."
"There's an ancient keep west of here," Althar replied. "No maps record it. But I've seen it in visions. The Veil tried to erase it—but it resisted."
The knight nodded. "Then we take it. Stone by stone, we'll build something stronger than forgetting."
They looked at each other.
Still broken.
Still bleeding.
But no longer alone.
Far away, the Hollow Veil stirred.
The Empress sat on her throne, watching the ripple of magic through her realm.
Seven sparks had ignited in the void.
She raised her hand—and for the first time in centuries—summoned her generals.
"Let the Watchers wake. Let the Forgotten rise. The Heartless King has remembered far too much."
And so, the war of memory began.