Somewhere, a crow calls.

  And I remember.

  It begins — always — with the wind.

  Not the kind that howls, but the kind that listens. It carries the scent of old parchment and moss, the kind that lingers in crypts not yet claimed by ruin. That’s how I know I’ve returned.

  The barrowstones have shifted since last I wandered here. The ground is softer. Hungrier. My boots leave deeper prints than they used to. Or perhaps I’ve grown lighter. That happens when you leave too many names behind.

  This place… this was once called Morrinar’s Hollow. A sacred resting ground. Now it is nothing. No birds sing here, save the crows. No songs are sung here, save the ones I whisper when the silence forgets itself.

  I crouch beside a weathered featherstone — one of ours. The script has faded, but I remember what was carved: Aelaine of the Vale, who sang to the dying until her own voice failed. I hum a note in her memory.

  Not because it helps.

  But because forgetting is worse.

  I reach into my satchel and pull out a single black feather. It’s not from a real bird — not anymore. It’s bound with old thread and a sliver of soulroot bark. A recording vessel. Memory, compressed. A name, folded in silence.

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  There was a time I could fill a hundred feathers a month. Now I fill one. If I’m lucky. The world doesn’t speak its dead anymore. It swallows them.

  I press the feather to my chest, close my eyes… and listen.

  A child’s laughter.

  A scream.

  A lullaby.

  Steel against bone.

  Then, nothing.

  I pull away. The feather is warm. The memory still sleeps.

  Good.

  Serre-du-Vide, my scythe, hums softly against my back. It remembers things I do not. Sometimes I think it dreams in my place, when I grow too tired to carry the names alone.

  And then I hear it.

  The voice.

  Not loud. Not cruel.

  Just... there.

  "You’re circling, petit corbeau," it says. “You still haven’t found the end."

  I don't respond.

  The Reaper only speaks when I need reminding — not of who I am, but of what I haven’t done. The prophecy. The last line. The reason I haven’t died, even when the world tried its best.

  I pull my cloak tighter. Dust catches in the folds. The wind shifts again. A feather drifts from above — real, this time. A crow watches from a crooked tree, tilting its head as if asking:

  And what will you do when you remember?

  I look down at the barrow.

  I whisper: “Bury it.”

  The crow caws once and flies.

  And I walk on.