The dead did not sleep in Ashwood Hold.
That night, as the frost crept in through shattered stained glass and the crows ceased their circling, Arjuna dreamed again.
But this time, it was not Nyssara.
He stood before a marble tomb, deep beneath the ruin—its surface cracked, blackened by old fire. Seven runes were etched into its base. Six glowed faintly. The seventh was dark.
A woman stood beside him in the dream.
She wore armor scorched by divine flame, one hand resting on a spear crowned with bells. Her eyes were blindfolded.
"You were the first to break," she said. "And the last to bleed."
Arjuna opened his mouth, but no sound came.
She turned her head slightly, as if listening to something far off. "This tomb remembers you."
When he woke, he was already walking.
His boots scuffed against dust-slick stones as he moved down stairwells he did not recall knowing. The halls below the Hold pulsed with that same bending sensation—as though time coiled like a serpent in the walls.
Tellen followed, half-asleep and muttering.
"You're cursed, you know," he said. "Not just forgetting. Drawn to where memory still lives. That's what ghosts are. Living memory."
Arjuna said nothing.
They reached the lowest level just past dawn. The stairway ended in a wide crypt. Seven coffins stood in a circle around a broken fountain, their lids carved with ancient sigils.
At the center stood the eighth.
The tomb from the dream.
Unlike the others, it was sealed not with stone—but with chains. Heavy black links threaded through rings of obsidian, humming with faint, unnatural warmth.
Tellen whistled low. "Never seen metal like that."
Arjuna stepped forward.
A name was carved into the lid—long scratched over, but still faintly legible.
Ser Caldrein, Oathbinder.
His fingers traced the ruined script. His pulse throbbed in his ears.
Behind him, Tellen's voice dropped to a whisper. "He was the first Knight of Flame. Keeper of Vows. Said to bind even gods to their word."
Arjuna knelt.
The sword at his back—his own—vibrated as he drew near. The glow along its fuller reignited. Threads of emberlight ran between the blade and the tomb.
He laid the sword across the coffin's lid.
The chains snapped loose.
One by one, each fell with a final, echoing clatter.
The tomb opened.
Inside lay a knight in robes of ash and gold, perfectly preserved.
His eyes were open.
"Arjuna," the corpse whispered.
Tellen backed away, drawing a dagger from beneath his coat. "That's not normal."
Arjuna didn't move.
The corpse's lips cracked. "You swore to guard the Vow. And then you forgot."
"I don't remember," Arjuna said. "Any of it."
"That is the curse," Ser Caldrein rasped. "Not forgetting. Being made to forget what you chose to remember."
Arjuna stared.
The corpse reached up and pressed something into his hand.
A ring.
Black iron. Shaped like a coiled serpent. Inside, a phrase in the old tongue:
"We remember in silence what was broken aloud."
"I forged that for you," Caldrein said. "When you took the Black Vow."
"What is it?"
"Proof. That you were once more than a knight. That you chose to love the one all others feared. And the gods punished you for it."
Arjuna stepped back.
"Nyssara…"
"She never stopped remembering," Caldrein said. "Even after death."
The body crumbled then, as if the last of its strength had bled out with the truth. Bones became dust. Armor rusted in seconds. All that remained was the ring.
Tellen stood in stunned silence.
"Well," he said after a long pause. "That wasn't horrifying at all."
Arjuna turned the ring over in his hand.
"I need to know more."
"You will," Tellen said. "But not here. Ashwood has given what it could. And the crows are watching again."
Arjuna looked toward the crypt's ceiling.
Faint footfalls echoed above.
More than one.
Something else had entered the ruins.
He sheathed his sword.
"Then we move at dusk."
Tellen nodded. "Good. Because I have a feeling the next place we're headed won't wait for us. The Festival is near."
Arjuna raised a brow. "Festival?"
Tellen gave a crooked grin.
"Of Hollow Lights. A little village down the valley. They honor the dead once a year. Burn candles to guide lost souls. Problem is, this year…"
He trailed off.
"What?"
"They say one of the dead might answer back."
Arjuna looked once more at the tomb, now dark.
No answers here.
Only memory.
But that, perhaps, was enough.
He placed the ring on his finger.
And for just a moment, the world seemed clearer.