The forest around Ashwood Hold grew stranger the deeper they wandered.
What had once been proud battlements had given way to gnarled roots. Stone paths split into winding trails. The trees leaned unnaturally inward, as if watching, as if waiting.
Tellen muttered to himself, sketching as they went, but Arjuna ignored him. His thoughts were on the statue—the moment when it had glowed. As though memory, once spoken, could awaken stone.
What else waits to remember me?
Ahead, the trail opened into a grove.
At its center stood a tree unlike the others. Taller. Pale-barked. Dead, but not decayed. Its branches bore no leaves, only shards of silvered glass, hanging like fruit.
Each shard reflected not the world around it—but something else.
Visions.
A city burning under a golden sky.A girl with a crown of thorns, weeping blood.A knight kneeling before a dark throne.A battlefield of stars.A kiss in the rain.
Tellen gasped.
"It's real," he whispered. "The Mirror Tree. I thought it was only a myth."
"What is it?" Arjuna asked.
"Memory made root," Tellen replied, breathless. "The legend says the gods planted it in the final days of the war, to hold the truths no one could bear."
Arjuna stepped forward.
The closest shard trembled as he neared. Within it, he saw… himself.
Kneeling before a throne of bones.
Nyssara stood before him, crowned and burning.
"I swore," he said in the vision. "Even if the world ended, I would not forget you."
She smiled. "Then you will suffer more than any god ever dared."
The shard cracked.
Arjuna stumbled back, hand to his head. A spike of pain pierced his thoughts—but then it was gone. And in its place… something settled.
A memory.
Not full. Not clear. But real.
He had knelt before her. Once. In blood, in love.
Not as enemies.
Not yet.
Tellen crouched beside another shard. "This one shows the day Ashwood fell. Look—Thorne stands at the gates. He's sealing them from the inside."
Arjuna joined him.
Within the shard, the Hollow Knight raised his blade and spoke one last command.
"May none disturb his sleep until the wound of the world is healed."
And the doors closed.
Arjuna exhaled. "He locked himself in to guard my tomb."
Tellen nodded. "And when you rose, so did the oath he bound himself to."
Suddenly, a crack split the air.
A third shard shattered.
Not from Arjuna's touch.
But from a hand reaching through.
A hand not of this world—long-fingered, clawed, slick with voidlight.
Tellen screamed.
The hand withdrew.
And in its place, the reflection warped—becoming a face.
White-masked. Crimson-eyed. Whispering words without sound.
Arjuna stepped between it and Tellen.
The mask stilled.
Then it smiled.
And vanished.
"What was that?" Tellen gasped.
"I don't know," Arjuna said. But his pulse thundered. "But it knew me."
Tellen stood, shakily. "That wasn't memory. That was watching."
They backed away from the tree.
Behind them, more shards cracked.
One by one.
The grove began to groan, as though mourning.
And high above, on a distant ridge, a bell began to toll.
They ran.
Past broken roots. Past fallen names. Past another statue of the blindfolded woman—this one shattered.
The forest screamed with unseen voices.
But they didn't look back.
When they reached the road again, breathless and bruised, the bell had stopped.
Night was falling.
Arjuna leaned on his sword.
"We need to move faster. Something's coming."
Tellen agreed. "We need to reach the Hollow Chapel before moonrise."
Arjuna looked at him sharply. "What's there?"
"The last name." Tellen swallowed. "The first knight who followed you. The one they called the Flame's Hand."
"And who was that?"
Tellen hesitated.
Then whispered, "Your brother."