The boy led her deeper than she had ever gone.
Past trees so tall they touched the fog-shrouded sky, past roots shaped like claws, past streams that ran uphill. No birds sang here. No animal dared roam. The forest in this part did not breathe — it watched.
Elowen followed in silence.
The boy moved like a whisper, barefoot and careful, never looking back. She studied him as they walked: hair like ash, skin pale as frost, and eyes... eyes that did not blink. They shimmered silver, like moonlight on still water.
"Who are you, really?" she asked.
"My name was stolen," he said simply. "Like yours. Like many."
"Then what should I call you?"
He paused. His lips moved slowly, like the word hurt.
"Call me Ashen."
After a while, they came upon a clearing ringed with stone faces. Dozens of them. Weathered by time, cracked and buried in moss. Some had eyes wide with terror. Others wore crowns. One looked almost like… her.
Elowen stopped walking.
"What is this place?"
Ashen looked at the stone faces with sadness.
"This is where the forgotten names sleep."
She felt the wind turn colder.
Each statue radiated something familiar. Pain. Power. Regret.
"These were the others," Ashen said quietly. "Children of the god-born flame. Before you."
Her breath caught. "There were more?"
He nodded. "Each of them carried the mark. Each of them woke. But they didn't survive the remembering."
"Why?"
Ashen turned and met her eyes.
"Because they didn't accept the pain."
The words sat with her like a stone on her chest.
She stared at the face that looked like hers. Not exactly, but close — the same high cheekbones, the same strong eyes. And yet this one was broken. Cracked down the center, vines curling through the mouth.
"What happened to her?"
"She refused the final name," Ashen said. "She tried to become something else. Something safer. The Mask found her before the forest could complete her."
Elowen touched her own mark. The pain had dulled, but it hadn't left.
It never would.
"Why did the Mask want her dead?"
Ashen's eyes glinted. "He doesn't want us dead, Elowen. He wants us changed. Bent. Rewritten. Until we become something that serves him."
She felt something twist in her gut.
Like a string pulling her back toward that golden throne in her dreams.
Ashen crouched by one of the statues — a child's face, eyes shut in peace.
"She sang herself to sleep before the fire came," he whispered. "She chose silence over surrender."
Elowen's throat tightened. "How old was she?"
"Seven."
She knelt beside him. "Did you know her?"
"Yes," he said. "She was my sister."
A long silence passed.
Then, Ashen stood.
"Come. There is something else I must show you."
They walked until the trees began to thin.
Ahead lay a structure half-buried in earth and roots — an altar, carved from blackstone, with glowing red runes pulsing along its edges. The ground around it was marked with old blood.
"A sacrifice site," Elowen whispered.
Ashen nodded.
"This is where the Mask began. Where the godhood was stolen."
Her breath caught. "Stolen?"
Ashen touched the altar gently. "He was human once. A prince. Like you—a child of the blood. But he desired more than memory. He killed the old gods, took their names, and made himself eternal."
Elowen stepped back.
"So he wasn't born a god?"
"No," Ashen said. "He built it from bones."
And then he looked at her.
"You are the last who can undo what he made."
Elowen stared at the altar.
Flames danced behind her eyes. She could hear a thousand whispers in the stone.
She was not ready. Not yet.
But she was no longer afraid of pain.
Only of forgetting.
From far behind them, a noise rose — not a voice, but a song.
One that chilled the marrow.
Elowen turned.
Figures were moving through the trees.
Hunters.
Draped in shadow and gold thread. Faces hidden beneath bone masks.
The Mask had found her.
Ashen's eyes widened. "Run!"