"There are things older than names. They remember the parts of you you've already forgotten."
The scroll would not close.
Even after the grave swallowed itself. Even after the corpse with Aren's face vanished into mist and marrow. The parchment trembled in his hand like a dying bird. Every time he blinked, he thought it was bleeding again.
It wasn't.
Not with ink.
With names.
His name.
Over and over.
Aren Yu.Aren Yu.Aren…
Then a pause.
A space.
And after it, something else.
Yuaren.
He didn't recognize it. But it knew him.
They left the Hushed Valley by midday, though neither Aren nor Yin could remember the full path back out. There were pieces missing—bridges they'd crossed, shrines they'd seen. Landmarks they should've passed twice but didn't.
"Did we take a different route?" Yin asked.
"No."
"Then where's the gorge with the fox statues?"
He hesitated. "I don't think… it exists anymore."
She gave him a sideways glance, then walked on.
Neither of them looked behind them again.
The path south twisted through the ruins of an old sect town: Mulou Crossing. A place known once for its sacred ponds and memory-scrying pools. Now, every basin was filled with ink. Black, rippling, reflective like oil.
Aren stared into one as they passed.
His face stared back.
Then blinked the wrong way.
"Don't look into them too long," Yin said softly. "That's how they take the names."
He didn't ask who they were.
Not yet.
They set camp beneath a half-fallen archway. The pillars bore carvings of masked monks performing rites with chained scrolls.
Yin sharpened her blade in silence.
Aren watched the moon.
It flickered.
Once.
Then twice.
Like a dying candle.
Or… a memory collapsing.
He looked down at the scroll in his lap.
It was open again.
He hadn't touched it.
-- " Scroll Fragment: UNCLAIMED
Some deaths do not end.
Some memories do not begin.
The flesh you walk in is a coat.
And someone else is still cold. " --
Aren folded the parchment closed. Or tried to. It snapped shut like a mouth.
"I need to remember," he muttered.
Yin looked up. "You said that last time."
"I meant it then."
"You lost something this time, didn't you?"
He nodded.
"My own reflection."
They reached the shrine the next day. It was unlike the others.
No bone gates.
No corpse statues.
No teeth.
Just… blankness.
The shrine stood in a clearing of white flowers and dead roots. Its walls were smooth stone, untouched by weather. No carvings. No doors. Just an opening the shape of a thought no one should speak aloud.
They entered.
The temperature dropped instantly.
So did the weight of their names.
Yin blinked. "Where are we?"
Aren took another step.
"I think we're inside someone else's head."
It wasn't a shrine.
It was a library.
Sort of.
Each shelf held no books—only preserved brains. Floating in jars. Some pulsing faintly. Some twitching. And carved into the jars were names.
Aren Yu.Aren Yu.Aren Yu.
Hundreds of them.
All slightly different.
Aren Ju.Aryn Yu.Yu-Aren.A. Yuru.
Every time he read one, something inside him shifted. Slipped. Like a tile loosening from the roof of a house.
Yin looked sick.
"They're not real," she whispered.
"They were."
Something moved between the shelves.
A flicker. A twitch. A shadow wearing hair and teeth.
It didn't walk.
It erased.
Wherever it passed, the names on the jars smudged.
One step.Gone.
Another.Forgotten.
Aren turned to run—and came face-to-face with it.
The creature was… blurred.
Not faceless.
But featureless.
Its skin was pages stitched together. Old ones. From scrolls. From scriptures. From vows that were never meant to be read aloud.
And across its chest:
A sigil Aren recognized.
--" VII — The One Who Feeds on Memory "--
It opened its mouth.
And the world stopped.
Not paused.
Stopped.
Even breathing forgot itself.
Only Aren could move.
Only Aren could hear.
The creature whispered.
"You borrowed what belonged to another."
"Return it, or feed us something equal."
"Your name, Aren Yu. What is it worth?"
He fell back, choking.
The scroll in his hand ignited.
Not with fire.
With remembrance.
-- " VII: The One Who Feeds on Memory
This death was not a death.
It was a consumption.
A forgetting made holy.
Give what you cannot lose.
Or lose what you cannot give. " --
Aren's head spun.
He was back at Zhenli.
Not the night he died.
A different night.
One he didn't remember until now.
He was in the library, reading forbidden texts. Copying scriptures he had no right to touch. Because he was afraid.
Afraid of being forgotten.
Afraid he was too small to matter.
So he stole knowledge.
He memorized rites never meant for him.
And one of those rites…
Was a name theft.
He hadn't failed his Foundation ritual.
He had succeeded—by using someone else's destiny.
Back in the shrine, the memory-eater hovered before him.
Its face opened like a scroll.
Inside: a mirror.
He saw himself.
Then someone else.
Then both.
"I took a life," he whispered.
"Not by blade. Not by malice. By need."
"Then give back what you owe."
"Or?"
"Or give something else."
The scroll pulsed.
Yin screamed behind him.
The shrine collapsed.
The flowers outside began to bleed.
And Aren felt a pressure in his chest.
His name.
It was moving.
Being unthreaded.
"No!" he cried. "Take something else! Anything!"
"Then feed us what you love most."
Yin's name echoed beside him.
Not aloud.
But in risk.
He stepped forward.
Cut his palm.
Let the blood fall onto the scroll.
"I give my voice," he said.
"Not to be taken."
"But to be fed."
The memory-eater leaned close.
Its mouth closed.
And the name-storm stopped.
Aren collapsed.
Yin ran to him.
He was breathing. Whole.
But his voice…
Gone.
[🩸The Seventh Vow
I stole a name once. I wear it still.
Memory is not mine to eat.
I will speak again, when the weight is mine to carry.
]
Outside, the shrine folded inward.
The jars broke.
The flowers wilted.
But Aren and Yin were alive.
Changed.
And somewhere deep in the scroll, a final line etched itself in ink:
Next: Chapter 14 – "The Ghost Orchard"