The hearthfire crackled softly in the hall of the reclaimed Keep of Echoes.
The wind outside howled through broken stone and rusted arrow slits, but inside, the warmth held—barely. Cloaks hung heavy with dew, and the once-abandoned hall was now dotted with makeshift beds, sacks of supplies, and flickering lanterns.
Althar stood alone before the great map table. Its surface, dusted off by the grey-eyed woman, was an old relic of forgotten warlords. The lands etched into its stone were not exactly accurate, but close enough to track movements—especially the ones that mattered.
Pins marked new arrivals. Refugees, wanderers, outcasts—all drawn to the Keep after rumors spread that a nameless king had silenced the wails of the dead.
It had only been three days since the defeat of the Keeper, yet over two dozen had arrived.
They didn't come for protection. They came for identity.
Many couldn't remember their full names.
Some only remembered feelings—a sibling's laughter, a lover's touch, a mother's scolding voice.
And yet, in this keep, something stirred those memories to life again.
Even if just faintly.
Althar looked down at his own hands—steady, calloused, yet warmer now than ever before.
He felt it again. That unfamiliar tightness in his chest. It was neither pain nor magic.
Just… weight. The emotional kind.
"Your Majesty," a soft voice said behind him.
He turned. It was the silver-haired boy, Ael. He stood straighter now, shoulders no longer hunched with confusion. He looked older. Stronger.
"I'm no king here," Althar replied, returning his gaze to the table. "Just the first to remember."
Ael stepped forward. "Still… you gave us something no kingdom has offered in years."
"Hope?" Althar asked bitterly.
"No," Ael said with a quiet smile. "A name."
Althar said nothing.
Then the grey-eyed woman entered, brushing snow from her cloak. "They've come. Five more. One's a former battle-priest. Claims she was once loyal to the Empress."
That caught Althar's attention.
"She defected?" he asked.
"She doesn't remember the moment she did," the woman said. "But she remembers why. The Empress burns the past. She rewrites history. Anyone who remembers who they once were becomes a threat."
"Even children," Ael muttered.
Althar walked to the open window. The wind carried the scent of pine and ash. Somewhere far beyond, the Empress ruled over her hollow empire—one where names were forbidden, where the soul was state-owned.
It wouldn't take her long to hear of this place.
She would come.
Not with soldiers.
But with him.
The Executioner.
Althar had never seen his face. Only the aftermath—villages wiped clean of memory. People who spoke in riddles, unable to recall their own names or those of their children. The Executioner didn't kill with a blade.
He killed with forgetting.
The sound of footsteps behind him didn't draw his gaze. He knew them.
The knight, Garven, stepped in with his armor half-fastened, blade over his shoulder.
"They're gathering in the chapel," he said. "Ael's been showing the younger ones sword basics. They're starting to look at you like a real king."
Althar turned.
"I am not here to rule," he said flatly. "I am here to remember."
"And to help others do the same," Garven replied. "That's all the crown ever meant. Before it got twisted."
Althar was quiet for a long moment. Then he picked up the old, cracked crown resting near the map—still scorched from the fire that killed him in his last life. He didn't place it on his head.
Instead, he set it on the center of the table.
A symbol.
Not of authority.
But of defiance.
"We will prepare," Althar said. "Not to fight an empire—but to outlast it."
The grey-eyed woman smiled. "That sounds like a plan, Your Majesty."
He didn't correct her this time.
Far away, in a palace of glass and white flame, the Empress stood before a basin of still water.
She watched the Keep of Echoes flicker in the vision pool. She saw the boy with silver hair. The woman with grey eyes. The knight with the lion crest.
And him.
The man who refused to forget.
"Send the Executioner," she whispered, turning away.
Her advisor paled. "Shall we give the order for the culling?"
"No," she said coldly. "No more fire. No more blood. Only silence."
As the room darkened, the shadows grew thicker.
And somewhere in the black, a figure stirred.