Ashes of the Forsaken

The city stretched before Kieran, wrapped in silence.

The noble districts lay behind him, their halls still untouched by the truth.

But they wouldn't remain that way for long.

Because now, he knew where to start.

The war had never been won.

It had been buried.

And now, it was beginning to stir.

Three names.

Dame Corvalis. Veyren Marrow. Duke Calderon.

Three people who had survived a war that had never existed.

Three people who held the last remaining pieces of the truth.

And Kieran was going to find them.

Kieran had learned long ago that names alone meant nothing.

Dame Corvalis had once been a knight of the old war—one of the last.

But now, she was nothing more than a ghost.

Erased from the records.

Just like him.

Which meant that finding her wasn't going to be easy.

And if she was anything like him, then she wouldn't want to be found.

But Kieran had one advantage.

He knew where to look.

There were only a few places in the kingdom where the war had left scars too deep to erase.

The ruined frontier towns.

The abandoned fortresses.

And the battlefields where no one dared to walk.

Kieran knew of one such place.

A small outpost in the western wilds—a place that had once been the last line of defense before everything collapsed.

A place that should have been long abandoned.

But Kieran had heard whispers.

A lone warrior, living in the ruins.

A woman whose name no one remembered.

And that was where he would begin.

The journey took two days.

Kieran traveled under the cover of darkness, moving swiftly through the lesser-known paths, avoiding the main roads.

He was no longer safe within the kingdom.

The moment he had resurfaced, the game had changed.

His enemies were watching.

Waiting.

And if they realized he was searching for the truth, they would come for him.

But he wasn't afraid.

Because this time, he would not be caught unprepared.

By the third night, Kieran reached what was left of Black Hollow Keep.

The fortress was a corpse of stone, its towers half-collapsed, its walls overtaken by creeping ivy and blackened moss.

The wind howled through the ruins, carrying the scent of old ashes and forgotten battles.

It was a graveyard.

But not an empty one.

Because Kieran could feel it.

He was being watched.

The attack came without warning.

A blur of motion—sharp steel flashing through the air.

Kieran barely had time to react, twisting aside as a sword carved through the space he had just been standing in.

The ground beneath him cracked.

Whoever they were—they were fast.

Not just fast.

Trained.

Kieran landed smoothly, his hand already moving for his dagger—

Then froze.

The figure before him stepped into the light.

A woman.

Tall. Cloaked in scarred armor, her silver hair pulled back in a loose braid.

Her face was lined with age, but her stance was that of a warrior who had never stopped fighting.

Her sword was already raised, ready for another strike.

And her eyes—

Her cold, steely eyes—

They recognized him.

Kieran stayed perfectly still.

Not out of fear.

But because for the first time, he saw the weight of history in another's gaze.

This woman—Dame Corvalis.

She had seen the war.

She had fought in it.

And when the world had erased it, she had refused to be erased with it.

Her sword did not lower.

"You should not be here."

Her voice was sharp, cold.

Not a threat.

A warning.

Kieran exhaled slowly.

"I could say the same to you."

Dame Corvalis studied him.

Her expression did not change.

But her grip on the sword tightened.

"You are not the first to come looking for me."

Kieran tilted his head.

"Who else has come?"

Her jaw clenched.

"The same ones who erased you."

Kieran's chest tightened.

The nobles.

The ones who had buried the war.

The ones who had killed him to hide the truth.

They had come looking for her.

Which meant…

They already knew.

Dame Corvalis took a step forward, her eyes never leaving him.

"I swore an oath to protect this kingdom."

Her voice was low, filled with something that could have once been loyalty.

"And I watched it betray itself."

She lowered the sword—just slightly.

"I thought they had erased everyone who remembered."

Her gaze darkened.

"But here you stand."

Kieran nodded.

"I came back."

A pause.

Then—

"I know."

She sheathed her sword.

And for the first time in years, she looked… tired.

Kieran exhaled.

"You know why I'm here."

Dame Corvalis looked away.

She did.

She had known from the moment she saw him.

"You want to know about the war."

Kieran nodded.

Her hands curled into fists.

"Then you need to understand something, Kieran."

Her gaze locked onto his.

"The war never ended."

Kieran's breath stilled.

She stepped closer, her voice quiet, but sharp as a dagger.

"You think you're here because you came back?"

Kieran stiffened.

Dame Corvalis shook her head.

"You're here because they let you come back."

His pulse hammered.

The wind howled through the ruins.

And for the first time, Kieran realized—

His return had never been his own.

Kieran's breath felt slow. Heavy.

The ruins of Black Hollow Keep stretched around him, the weight of forgotten history pressing against his chest.

Dame Corvalis stood before him, her scarred armor dull in the moonlight.

Her words still echoed in his mind.

"You think you're here because you came back?"

"You're here because they let you come back."

His fingers twitched.

Not in anger.

Not in disbelief.

But in realization.

She wasn't wrong.

And that terrified him.

Dame Corvalis exhaled, the sound harsh in the silence.

"You still don't understand, do you?"

Kieran met her gaze. "Then explain it to me."

Her expression darkened.

"The war never ended."

Kieran knew that.

He had seen the erased records. He had heard the warnings. He had read the words written in secrecy, buried beneath layers of forgotten ink.

But something in her voice—the way she said it—

It meant something more.

Not just that the war had been buried.

Not just that the nobles had tried to erase it.

But that the war itself had never stopped.

Kieran stilled.

"Then who are we still fighting?"

Dame Corvalis studied him for a long moment.

Then she turned, walking toward one of the broken pillars of the ruined keep.

She knelt, brushing aside the thick ivy, revealing something etched into the stone.

A symbol.

Three slashes.

The same mark Kieran had seen before.

The same mark that had haunted him since the moment he had returned.

A symbol that should not have existed.

Kieran's heart slammed against his ribs.

"This was theirs."

Dame Corvalis nodded.

"They never left, Kieran."

The realization hit like a blade to the chest.

The war hadn't been erased to protect the kingdom from remembering.

It had been erased to hide the fact that the enemy was still here.

"We did not defeat them."

Corvalis's voice was steady, bitter.

"We buried them. We sealed them away. And then we pretended they were gone."

Kieran clenched his fists.

"But they're not."

She turned to him, her gaze sharp. Unyielding.

"No. And they've been waiting."

Kieran tried to process it.

Tried to fit this new piece into the puzzle that had once been his past.

The kingdom had never truly been at peace.

The nobles had erased the war—not because they had won, but because they had made a deal.

A deal that kept their enemy trapped. Hidden. Silent.

But not destroyed.

And now, something had changed.

Something had broken.

And Kieran had been brought back because of it.

He wasn't an anomaly.

He wasn't a mistake.

He was part of a cycle.

A cycle that was beginning again.

Dame Corvalis exhaled, rubbing a hand over her face.

"You were not the first, Kieran."

His pulse slowed.

"Others have come before you. Others who tried to remember, who tried to warn the world before it was too late."

She glanced at the symbol on the stone.

"And all of them ended up dead."

Kieran stared at the etching, his thoughts swirling.

If others had tried before him—if they had all failed—

Then what made him different?

What made this time different?

Dame Corvalis looked at him carefully.

"The difference is…" she hesitated.

Then—

"This time, they want you to remember."

Kieran's throat felt dry.

"They let me return."

Dame Corvalis nodded.

"But not just them. Someone—on our side—**brought you back.""

Kieran stiffened.

"That's not possible."

"Isn't it?" she challenged.

"You woke up in a city that had forgotten you. You wandered ruins that whispered your name. You saw remnants of a war no one speaks of."

She took a step forward.

"You did not just return. You were guided here."

Kieran exhaled sharply.

"By who?"

Dame Corvalis shook her head.

"That, I do not know. But someone ensured that you would be the one to find the truth."

"Someone is trying to finish what was started."

Kieran ran a hand through his hair.

Everything—his death, his return, the remnants of the past that refused to die—

It all pointed to one thing.

Something far bigger than revenge.

Something far older than him.

If this war was still being fought in the shadows—

Then who, exactly, had brought him back?

And more importantly—

Did he truly want to know?

Dame Corvalis folded her arms.

"You have a choice, Kieran."

"You can pretend none of this is real. Walk away. Let history repeat itself, just as it has before."

Her gaze hardened.

"Or you can stand and fight."

The words settled into his chest like a blade.

She wasn't giving him an order.

She was giving him a truth.

If he walked away now, it would all happen again.

The cycle would continue.

The kingdom would remain blind.

And when the enemy returned—no one would be ready.

Kieran exhaled slowly.

His entire life—even his death—had led to this moment.

And there was only one answer.

He met her gaze.

"Tell me everything."

Dame Corvalis nodded.

And with that—the past finally began to unravel.