The moment Kael stepped through the Ash Gate,he felt it not wind… but memory brushing his skin.
Each step inside was like walking through someone's breath, someone who no longer existed but still... waited to be remembered. The hallway was long and dim,its walls alive with whispers. Not loud. Not threatening.
Just... broken.
"He was my brother..."
"They never came back for me..."
"I screamed, but only the walls heard me..."
Kael slowed his pace. Each voice he passed left a weight on his chest. And the worst part? They weren't talking to him. They were talking to someone who never listened.
At the end of the corridor stood a door made of glass and ink. It was cracked, leaking slow tears of dark fluid,like even the door remembered sorrow. The girl appeared beside him though Kael didn't see her arrive.
"Beyond this door lies your first 'Named Memory.'"
Kael glanced sideways.
"Wasn't Rilan one?"
"He was a fragment. A voice."
"What waits behind this… is a soul with shape. A story too heavy for pages."
Kael reached out. The glass shimmered at his touch,not like light but like something inside was trembling.
"Will I survive this?"
The girl didn't answer. Instead, she whispered:
"If the story accepts you… you might."
Kael pushed the door open. And everything fell away. He landed on dirt. Not ash actual dirt. Dark, soaked in blood. The sky above was cracked porcelain a fake world barely holding itself together. He looked around.
A battlefield.
Dead bodies. Weapons made of bone and glass. And in the distance a boy. Standing alone,with red thread wrapped around his fingers like chains. He was staring at something. No… someone. A girl.
Limp.
Bleeding.
Still breathing.
The boy didn't move. Didn't cry. Didn't scream. He simply whispered:
"I failed again."
Kael took a step forward. The world pulsed. The red thread snapped. The boy turned slowly toward Kael, eyes hollow,voice dry as dust.
"You're not from here."
Kael's throat tightened. This wasn't like Rilan. This wasn't a memory. This was... something still alive inside a dead world.
"What is this place?" Kael asked softly.
The boy tilted his head.
"This is the moment I died. But my story didn't. It just got stuck."
Kael stared at the boy. He looked no older than ten…but his eyes held centuries of regret. Behind him, the girl still breathing gasped. The boy flinched,as if the sound itself was punishment.
"I was supposed to protect her…" he whispered.
"But I didn't move."
The battlefield remained silent. Even the wind seemed too ashamed to blow. Kael stepped closer.
"What stopped you?"
The boy didn't answer at first. He just looked at his hands red threads wound so tight they had cut into his skin.
"I thought if I stayed still… maybe this wouldn't be real."
"But she kept calling my name…"
"Even when the blade entered her back…"
Kael's chest tightened. This wasn't just guilt. It was a loop a moment frozen in unspoken pain.
"What's your name?" Kael asked.
The boy looked up, for the first time, his eyes met Kael's.
"Noen."
Suddenly, the world around them cracked as if saying his name had unlocked a locked door somewhere. A flood of echoes poured in:
"Noen, run!"
"Noen, don't watch!"
"Noen, help her!"
Kael gritted his teeth. He could feel it now the moment Noen had broken. Not his body. His courage.
Noen pointed at the girl lying nearby.
"She was my sister…"
"She always smiled, even when we starved."
"I told her I'd protect her I even swore on my name."
His voice cracked.
"But when the demons came…
she stood in front of me.
And I… just stood there."
Tears slipped from Kael's eyes.
"Why didn't you run?"
Noen's face hardened. But not with anger. With truth.
"Because deep down…I wanted her to protect me."
Kael took a step forward. He knelt beside Noen. Not as a hero. Not as a savior. Just as someone who had also failed.
"Then let me protect her now," Kael said softly.
"Through you."
Noen stared, trembling. The threads around his hands began to dissolve,
turning into words not ink, but story fragments.
"You'd carry her memory?" Noen asked.
Kael nodded.
"I'll carry both of yours."
"So no one ever forgets what silence cost."
Noen stood up. He looked at the sky now glowing faint gold.
"Then remember this…"
He reached toward Kael's chest his hand glowing.
"I didn't die from a blade."
"I died from a goodbye I never said."
And with that, Noen faded into light.
Kael opened his eyes. Back in the Archive. Another page hovered. This one heavier. It didn't bleed it wept.
"Noen – Echo Preserved."
Kael stood still. Noen's light had vanished, but its warmth remained in his chest a thread now stitched into his soul. Suddenly, the Archive trembled. Not like an earthquake. More like a pulse…as if the world itself recognized something had changed. The girl silent until now stepped beside him. Her voice softer than ever:
"You've preserved two echoes now."
"Your body will begin to change."
Kael looked at his hands. The veins beneath his skin shimmered faintly,like ink flooding through blood. His breath caught.
"What's happening to me?"
She didn't smile. Didn't flinch.
"Your soul is becoming a host."
"To those who were never meant to speak again."
Suddenly, Kael's back arched. A shockwave pulsed through him. Visions flashed behind his eyes: Rilan crying in silence Noen watching his sister die Screams trapped in mirrors Names… thousands of names… lost in dust. He gasped
And then he heard it. A voice inside his own mind. But not a memory. A new one.
"We are not your weight… Kael…"
"We are your weapon."
His legs gave out. He fell to one knee. But his shadow didn't follow him. It stood. Then it moved. Kael's shadow stepped forward. Glowing white threads trailed behind it. Two voices spoke through it at once.
"You preserved us."
"Now we fight for you."
Kael stared, heart pounding. His shadow lifted its hand and the space before them split open. An ancient ink-blade formed part quill, part sword. The girl's eyes widened for the first time.
"That's not possible…"
"Thread Forging requires at least ten echoes…"
Kael stood slowly. His hand moved on its own, grabbing the blade like it had always been his. The blade pulsed not with power, but with stories.
A whisper echoed from within the blade:
"Let our silence be your strike."
Kael looked at the girl.
"Name it," he said.
"This blade… what's it called?"
She hesitated. Then spoke a name not heard in centuries:
"Inkveil."
"The blade that speaks for those who were erased."
Kael turned to the darkness behind him. There would be more memories. More pain. More trials.
But now…He wouldn't walk in alone.