A storm of ash blew through the ruined plaza, not from wind but from memory itself. Every flake carried a name—lost, erased, or deliberately buried. Rayon stepped forward, boots crunching on the brittle remnants of someone's past. Each step awoke a whisper: hushed syllables of people who'd been unmade, then reshaped, then hidden again.
He halted beneath the shattered archway of the Archive Gate. Once, this place had been a sanctuary of remembrance—a soaring hall of marble and light. Now it lay in ruins: columns snapped like broken promises, murals of saints and scholars charred into the stone. And above the lintel, the words remained, half‑erased:
"Here lie all that the world forgot."
Rayon drew his blade and tapped its edge against the arch. A chord of resonant metal rang out, and for a heartbeat, the air cleared. In that moment, the plaza snapped into being: crowds in tattered robes, clutching journals; archivists scrawling glyphs onto walls; a child weeping over an empty book. Then the vision collapsed, as if someone yanked the curtain shut.
"They wanted to hide it," Kira said, voice distant. She emerged from a column's shadow, her face drawn tight with exhaustion. "Every name this plaza ever hosted was eventually junked. Classified. Burned."
Rayon's fingers trembled on the hilt. "And yet here we stand."
She nodded. "Because you remember. And you left traces behind."
He stepped under the arch. Each breath tasted of dust and regret. Beyond lay the Archive's heart—a great basin carved into the bedrock, filled with water so dark it might have been ink. Floating on its surface were hundreds of leather-bound tomes, each sealed with wax and a fractured glyph.
Kira knelt at the water's edge. "These are the lost names—every soul unmade by the Council. When a person was deemed too dangerous, their name was struck from all records. Their book sent here, to drown."
Rayon watched as ripples spread across the basin. "Drown what, exactly? Memory? Identity?"
She dipped a finger into the water. A single ripple. "Sometimes both."
He hesitated, then plunged his hand to the wrist. The water was freezing—alive with static, as if fighting his touch. His grip closed on the nearest tome. It rose, sodden, flickering between solidity and mist.
He broke the seal. The pages inside were blank. At first. Then words bled in, line by line, as if written by an unseen quill:
"He spoke the truth. They called him Echo.He unraveled their lies, and they unwove his name."
Rayon's throat constricted. The book trembled in his hands, and the water of the basin roiled around him. Figures emerged at the basin's edge—ghostly archivists in spectral robes, eyes hollow, mouths moving soundlessly.
Kira sprang up. "They're echoes—residue of all who died for memory. They're drawn to you."
The Archivist-ghosts drifted closer, each offering out a hand. Their palms bore glyph‑scars matching the seals on the books. They reached toward Rayon's book, then paused, staring at his face.
One stepped forward. Not in vengeance, but recognition.
Rayon swallowed. "What do you want?"
The ghost raised a hand: not toward him, but toward the basin. Pages from the opened book peeled off, fluttered like moths, and fell into the water. There, they sank—only to reemerge on the surface as new tomes, each bound in a different style, each bearing a single name:
Elyra Hem,Sorod Alin,Niven's Dusk... dozens of names, each reverberating in Rayon's mind like a chorus of old debts.
"They're returning the names," Kira murmured. "Through you."
He turned the book's pages again. New lines—another memory forged in ink:
"He carries us now.In his hand, our voices endure."
A wind of erased memories swept through the plaza. Rayon's knees buckled beneath him as images flickered behind his eyes: Elyra's last breath of defiance, Sorod's final petition for mercy, Niven's vow to remember despite the erasers. Each life flashed briefly, then faded—except in him, where they burned.
Kira knelt beside him. Her hand on his shoulder felt like a tether to something real. "You can't carry all of them," she said. "Too many voices will break you."
He looked at the phantom archivists. They tilted their heads—hollow eyes pleading.
"I won't break," he said, voice thick. "They deserve their stories."
Their forms wavered, then solidified—just enough. One by one, they pressed their palms to the basin's stones, where faint glyph-lights glimmered. And then, each ghost pulled away, dissolving into motes of light that drifted into Rayon's blade, infusing it with a pale glow.
Rayon stood. The basin fell silent. The archivists were gone. The tomes lay scattered on the plaza floor, open and waiting. The ash-storm had ceased.
He looked at Kira. "They chose me."
She nodded, tears wet on her cheeks. "They chose the one who remembered."
He raised the blade skyward. The blade's glow cut through the gathering gloom.
"Then I will honor them," he said.
And with a single, decisive stroke, he cleaved the basin in two.
Water roared outward, carrying the tomes like vessels freed from their anchors. The plaza flooded, washing away the ruins, the ash, the burnt banners—leaving only the books floating on a glassy surface of truth.
Rayon sheathed his blade. "Let their names swim free."
Kira stepped beside him. "They will."
Above, the Archive Gate trembled. The broken letters reformed, glowing clearly now:
"Here lie all that the world forgot.Now they live again."
Rayon nodded once, a promise. "Then onward, to Chapter 24."