Chapter 18 – The Song Without a Name
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They made camp in a hollow where trees still remembered what it meant to grow.
After the mirror, after the sky, after Elaria fell back into herself, they needed a place where the stars could no longer see them.
Here, beneath the thick canopy of green untouched by memory storms, the wind whispered in a language not yet rewritten. It was the closest to peace either of them had known in weeks.
But the silence was wrong.
Anterz noticed it first—how the birdsong didn't return with morning.
How the insects had grown silent.
How even the leaves didn't rustle unless watched.
Something had followed them.
Something didn't need to be seen to enter.
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Elaria slept restlessly.
Each time she stirred, she muttered fragments of names—some Anterz recognized, most he didn't. Words that tasted like prayers. Like eulogies.
He sat beside her, watching the fire dim.
Watching his hands.
Trying to remember what they'd once looked like before they'd held only a sword.
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Then, as the fire sputtered its last—
They came.
Not through trees.
Through thought.
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The first note hit like a breath behind his ear.
Not sound.
Concept.
The suggestion of music.
A pressure behind the teeth that made his tongue ache to speak, his lungs ache to hum.
He shook his head, stood, drew Valteris.
The blade flickered—as if confused.
Then, from the shadows beyond the light, they stepped forward.
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Three figures.
Ragged robes.
Eyes veiled in black gauze.
No weapons.
Just mouths.
Open.
Silent.
But the song already filled the air.
It didn't need to be sung aloud.
It was a song of forgetting.
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Anterz stepped between the figures and the sleeping Elaria.
Valteris pulsed once, uncertain.
He whispered to it.
"Not this time."
And swung.
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His blade passed through the first figure—and where he expected blood or scream or resistance, there was only memory.
Valteris struck a childhood kiss he didn't remember giving.
It cut through a promise he'd never spoken.
The singer shattered, not into flesh—but into unwritten pages.
They burned mid-air and vanished.
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The second raised its arms.
The hum deepened.
And the forest shuddered.
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Anterz staggered.
He forgot his father's face.
He forgot the smell of old paper.
He forgot Elaria's first words to him.
He screamed—and cut again.
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The second singer laughed silently as it died.
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The third stepped forward, mouth wide.
It didn't hum.
It breathed.
And with each breath, Anterz forgot a little more:
His name.
His victories.
His pain.
Valteris drooped in his hand, uncertain, unfamiliar.
His own name drifted from his mind like steam—
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And then—
Elaria's voice.
Clear.
Sharp.
"Anterz!"
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He turned.
She stood barefoot in the firelight, one hand outstretched.
Her face pale.
Her mouth bleeding.
But her eyes clear.
And in that moment—
Everything returned.
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The name.
The pain.
The will.
He drove Valteris straight into the final singer's chest.
It hissed.
Not in pain.
But in frustration.
It had nearly succeeded.
It wanted him to forget.
That was the Choir King's plan now.
Not to kill.
To erase.
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The singer exploded in a shower of song-ash.
Silence returned.
Real silence.
The fire hissed.
The trees rustled.
And Anterz fell to his knees.
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Elaria knelt beside him.
"Did it take anything?" she asked.
He searched his mind.
"I don't think so."
"You hesitated."
"I remembered."
She nodded.
Then whispered:
"They weren't sent to kill us. That was a test."
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He looked at her.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
She touched her head.
"They were looking for gaps. For fractures in our selves. Places they could enter."
"And?"
"I gave them nothing."
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He smiled—wry, tired.
"Not even a chorus?"
She smirked through tears.
"They wouldn't have liked my song."
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They didn't sleep the rest of that night.
They sat together until the sun returned.
And even then, they moved silently.
Because the next battle wouldn't be won with swords.
It would be fought in the spaces between memories.
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The Choir King had learned.
If he couldn't stop them—
He would unwrite them.
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