The Garden wasn't marked on any map.
Even within the Concordium's sealed indexes, it was only referenced in redacted whispers. A classified ruin. A "non-existent" domain. No initiates spoke of it aloud. Most believed it had been collapsed centuries ago during the Purge of Threads.
But Keiran knew better.
Because the parchment hadn't said to find it.
It said to return.
He followed the old passage from the spiral archives—past the mirrored descent, down through corridors slick with condensation and spell-silence. The stone changed, subtly. Became older. Cruder.
Then the markings started.
Charcoal handprints. Scratches like claw-marks in the wall. Spiral glyphs drawn backward.
And ash.
It began as dust.
Then deepened into a fine soot that coated everything—the floor, the ceiling, his boots, his breath.
It clung to him like memory.
Not dirt.
Not decay.
But remains.
At the end of the path, an archway opened into a circular chamber.
The Garden of Ashes.
There was no vegetation. No light.
Just standing stones—hundreds of them—each carved with a single name.
Most were faded.
Some had been violently scratched out.
One stone, near the far edge, still glowed faintly.
Keiran stepped toward it.
Not by choice.
By pull.
The candle on his wrist burned low and cold, the flame curled tightly inward.
Not afraid.
Grieving.
The glowing stone bore no name.
But as he approached, the glow flared into letters—not engraved, but revealed.
VAYNE ORRELL
The same script as the chalked name on his door.
Except this time, it didn't feel like a warning.
It felt like a summons.
He reached out.
But before his fingers touched the stone—
It spoke.
No sound.
Just thought, dragged across his mind like rusted metal:
"You are not me."
Keiran froze.
The voice was his own.
But older.
Worn. Splintered.
And angry.
"You left me here."
"You took the name, the memory, the mark—and you ran."
Keiran swallowed hard. "I didn't choose to forget."
"You let them seal me."
"Let them scrape me into silence and bury me under new names."
"But I remember."
The ashes around the stone began to shift.
Shapes formed.
Figures. Fragments.
Not full people.
Just moments.
One of them showed a boy—thin, bloodied, standing alone beneath a tower's collapsed dome.
Another showed him running through a ruin as silver-eyed hunters gave chase.
A third—
Him kneeling beside a girl whose face was smudged with soot.
Lys.
But not as he remembered.
Younger.
Afraid.
Reaching for him with a burned hand.
"You were supposed to protect her."
"Instead, you lived."
Keiran stepped back.
But the stone flared again, and the candle on his wrist pulsed hard.
Three times.
Like a heartbeat trying to resurface.
"What do you want?" Keiran whispered.
"I want you to remember."
"Not who you are."
"Who you could have been—if you hadn't left me behind."
Suddenly, the ashes rose around him.
The chamber filled with cinders—not embers, but fragments of names once burned out.
They whispered as they spun:
"Don't forget us."
"We were real."
"He made us forget."
And at the center of it all…
Another you.
Keiran stared as the figure stepped forward.
It looked just like him.
But older.
Tired.
Wearing a coat stained with blood and memory-glyphs.
The figure held a lantern.
Inside it: no flame.
Just a hollow echo of one.
"I'm what you abandoned," it said.
"Not the name. Not the past."
"The cost."
Keiran didn't move.
The wind of the ashes blew around him, the Garden groaning as if remembering pain long buried.
"You can't run from me anymore," the echo said.
"You took her light. You wore it like absolution."
"But I paid for it. I watched her die every time you forgot."
Keiran's voice cracked.
"I remember now."
"Do you?" the echo spat. "Then say it. Say the first name she ever gave you."
Silence.
Then—
Very softly—
"Auren."
The name came like a wound reopening.
Not Keiran. Not Vayne.
But Auren—a name lost before the spirals, before the mark, before the Concordium.
Lys's name for him, before all the rest.
The echo closed its eyes.
The ashes slowed.
And the stone dimmed.
"Then maybe," the echo whispered, "we can begin again."
Keiran stepped forward.
Reached into the lantern.
And for the first time, the candle on his wrist touched the hollow inside.
It flared.
Not golden. Not violet. Not gray.
But silver.
Like moonlight.
Like memory finding its twin.
The echo vanished.
The cinders fell.
And the Garden was still.
But now, the stone bore more than a name.
It bore an inscription—
Scratched by an unknown hand.
Not a warning.
A vow.
"If you forget her again, I will become you."
Keiran turned away.
The candle no longer flickered.
It burned steady.
And deep inside that flame—
A single word repeated like breath:
"Auren."