The name tore through her mind like a lightning strike—Liraeth.

  Not Aeris. Never just Aeris.

  The syllables resonated in her bones, ancient and undeniable. The battlefield seemed to hold its breath. Even the entity recoiled, its form rippling like disturbed water. Sorin staggered back, eyes wide. The Exiled One went very still.

  Liraeth exhaled, and the world exhaled with her.

  Her hands no longer felt like her own. They were hers, yes—but also theirs. The hands of a woman who had walked battlefields long turned to dust, who had held a staff like this one, who had watched the sky split open and burned rather than let the darkness through.

  The staff hummed in her grip, its weight both foreign and intimately familiar. Blackened silver, etched with sigils that glowed gold where her fingers touched.

  Sorin’s voice was hoarse. "Okay. What the hell just happened?"

  The entity answered for her.

  "You remember."

  Its voice was no longer a chorus of whispers. It was singular. Raw. Human.

  Liraeth met its hollow gaze. "I remember you, Virellia."

  The name struck like a hammer.

  The entity flinched.

  For a heartbeat, the writhing darkness stilled. The red wound at its core flickered, dimming.

  Then it screamed.

  Not in rage—in pain.

  The ground beneath them ruptured. Shadows lashed like whips, carving trenches into the earth. Sorin barely dodged a tendril aimed for his throat. The Exiled One moved like a ghost, his blade intercepting another before it could reach Liraeth.

  She didn’t flinch.

  The staff burned brighter in her hands.

  Memories surged—fragments of a life she hadn’t known was hers.

  A citadel of white stone. A gate of molten gold. A woman in silver armor, standing atop the walls as the sky cracked open behind her. Singing.

  Virellia had been the first. The strongest. The last to fall.

  And now she was here.

  "You left us," the entity hissed. "You let them break the gate."

  Liraeth’s chest ached. "I died holding it shut."

  The entity’s form twisted, smoke peeling back to reveal a glimpse of something beneath—a woman’s face, gaunt and grief-stricken, eyes hollow with centuries of torment.

  Then it was gone.

  The Exiled One lunged, his sword carving a streak of pale light through the darkness. The entity recoiled, but not fast enough. The blade grazed its core—and the red wound screamed, unleashing a shockwave that sent them all sprawling.

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  Liraeth hit the ground hard, the staff clattering beside her. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, but she forced herself up.

  Virellia was writhing, her form unraveling at the edges.

  "Liar," she snarled. "You ran. You let them take me. You let them twist me."

  Liraeth’s hands shook. "I didn’t run. I burned."

  The staff flared to life at her feet. Golden fire raced up its length, threads of light weaving through the air like living things.

  Virellia froze.

  For the first time, the hatred in her hollow eyes wavered.

  "...Liraeth?"

  Her voice was small. Broken.

  The voice of a woman, not a monster.

  Liraeth stepped forward, the staff’s light casting long shadows across the ruined earth. "You held the gate. You fought until there was nothing left. And then they took what remained."

  The entity shuddered. The darkness shrouding her peeled away in strips, revealing glimpses of silver armor beneath, of a face streaked with golden tears.

  "I couldn’t stop them," Virellia whispered.

  Liraeth reached out. "You don’t have to anymore."

  The Exiled One moved to stop her—then hesitated. Sorin held his breath.

  Liraeth’s fingers brushed the entity’s core.

  The red wound pulsed once—

  And shattered.

  Light erupted. Not the harsh glare of battle, but something softer. Warmer.

  Virellia’s form dissolved, not into smoke, but into motes of gold, drifting upward like embers from a dying fire.

  "I’m sorry," she breathed.

  Then she was gone.

  Silence.

  The wind carried the last of the light away, leaving only the three of them standing in the ruins.

  Sorin let out a shaky laugh. "Well. That happened."

  The Exiled One said nothing. His gaze lingered on the empty air where Virellia had vanished, his expression unreadable.

  Liraeth’s knees buckled.

  Sorin caught her before she hit the ground. "Hey—easy. You good?"

  She wasn’t. Every muscle trembled. The staff’s light had dimmed, but the sigils still glowed faintly against her palm.

  "I remember," she whispered.

  Sorin’s grip tightened. "Yeah. Got that part. You wanna elaborate?"

  The Exiled One finally turned. "Later."

  His tone left no room for argument.

  Liraeth nodded. There would be time.

  But not here.

  Not yet.

  The silence after Virellia's disappearance stretched like a held breath.

  Liraeth's fingers tightened around the staff as its glow faded to a dull pulse, the sigils cooling beneath her touch. The weight of it—both physical and remembered—made her arms tremble.

  Sorin was the first to break the quiet. "So." He cleared his throat. "We're just going to ignore that you basically remembered being someone else?" His voice cracked on the last words, the forced casualness doing little to mask the unease beneath.

  The Exiled One turned away, scanning the horizon where the entity had dissolved. "She didn't remember being someone else," he said quietly. "She remembered who she is."

  Liraeth exhaled, her breath stirring the dust at her feet. The memories were still settling, shifting like puzzle pieces clicking into place. A citadel. A war. A fall. But the edges were blurred, whole years lost to whatever had buried her—buried Liraeth—in the first place.

  She flexed her hand, watching the way the fading light caught on her skin. It looked the same. But it didn't feel the same.

  "Hey." Sorin's callused fingers brushed her wrist, pulling her back. His golden eyes—so like the Hollow King's, yet nothing like them at all—flickered with something she couldn't name. "You're still here. That's what matters."

  She almost believed him.

  The campfire that night was a pitiful thing.

  Sorin had stacked the stones too close together, and the flames licked weakly at the damp kindling. The Exiled One hadn't helped, vanishing into the tree line the moment they'd stopped moving, only to return with an armful of roots and a silence that discouraged questions.

  Liraeth sat cross-legged beside the fire, the staff laid across her knees. Every so often, the sigils would flicker, reacting to some unseen current in the air.

  "You're staring at it like it's going to bite you," Sorin muttered. He tossed another branch into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks.

  "It might." She traced a finger along one of the etched symbols. The metal was warm, almost alive. "I don't know what it is."

  The Exiled One looked up from sharpening his blade. "It's yours."

  "That's not an answer."

  "It's the only one I have."

  Sorin groaned, flopping onto his back. "Gods, I hate cryptic bastards."

  A twig snapped in the darkness beyond the firelight. All three of them went still.

  The Exiled One's hand went to his sword.

  Liraeth tightened her grip on the staff.

  The shadows at the edge of the clearing shivered.