The winds of the Shattered Veil whispered in tongues Aren did not understand.
Snow blew sideways, streaked with flecks of ash and paint—yes, paint, drifting like powdered pigment in the air. It clung to Kaeliah's cloak, to Aren's skin, staining the cold world in brief, haunting color.
They were days from the Hollow Throne, moving east toward the abandoned Vale of Stillwater, a place once known for spiritweavers and mystics before it fell silent.
What they found instead… was art.
Hundreds of canvases nailed to dead trees. Faces. Cities. Wars. Spirits. Men and monsters. Each one alive with motion, whispering memory in strokes of ink and madness.
Kaeliah's hand reached instinctively for her dagger. "These… aren't just paintings."
Aren stepped closer to a canvas showing a massive wolf of living smoke, its jaws wide open around a burning temple.
He blinked.
And in that moment—
He was there.
—
He stood amid chaos. Fire lit the sky. Screams echoed. Soldiers in white and gold were falling, and the wolf, massive and spectral, tore through ranks of the Spiritbound like paper.
A girl knelt in the ashes, brush in hand, painting it all.
Aren tried to move. Tried to speak.
[System Alert: Memory Trap – Level III]External influence detected.Initiating Mind Anchor…
A jerk—and the vision shattered.
—
Back in the snow, Kaeliah gripped his shoulder. "You vanished for a moment."
"They're memory traps," Aren said. "Not illusions. Preserved moments. Someone with a gift for anchoring spiritlight into ink."
He turned to the forest ahead, where the snow grew darker.
Then a voice called out:
"You're not bound."
—
The speaker emerged slowly from behind a moss-wrapped tree.
A tall man draped in silk robes, face and hands covered in paint smears. His eyes were glowing pools of amethyst. Around him floated brushes—not held, but guided by spirit threads. He didn't move them with his body. They moved with his thoughts.
"I know a Spiritbound when I smell one," the man said. "You? You've got the stench of old silence."
"Who are you?" Kaeliah asked sharply.
The man bowed low, performing a flourish with his brushes.
"I am Leiran of the Painted Ones. And you've stepped into a gallery of memory, Sovereign."
—
Aren's eyes narrowed. "You know who I am?"
Leiran smiled. "The throne's whisper has already reached the ink. The spirits tremble at your name, and those who were forgotten… have begun to remember."
He waved his hand, and the trees shifted—just slightly. New canvases rose like bones from the snow. And there, on one of them—
Aren's face.
Not recent. Not post-rebirth.
Young. Human. Alive.
—
Kaeliah's breath caught. "That's… that's you before—"
"Before the spirit trials," Aren said, voice low.
The painting showed a boy, no older than sixteen, standing on a cliff beside a man cloaked in deep red. The boy's eyes burned with defiance. His shadow stretched unnaturally long behind him.
Leiran's voice turned hushed. "You failed the trials. But your shadow remembered… and it clung to you."
Aren turned to him, eyes narrowing. "You know who I was."
"I remember who you were painted to become," Leiran replied, not unkindly. "And what they tried to erase."
—
[System Alert: Origin Trigger Approaching]
Interaction with Anchored Oracle has accelerated Sovereign Awakening.
Choose:➤ Demand Answers➤ Observe the Gallery➤ Attempt to Recover Lost Memory
Aren hesitated.
Then: "Show me the canvas. The real one. My first memory."
Leiran's eyes darkened. "You do not ask for simple things, Sovereign. But you came this far."
He turned and gestured.
Brushes flew through the trees like birds, pulling aside vines, revealing a massive wooden wall nearly 30 feet tall. It wasn't a single painting—but a mural, carved into bark, etched with paint that shimmered between silver and blood.
At its center: a boy kneeling beside a grave, hands covered in soot. Around him stood Spiritbound elders, masks of bone hiding their faces.
In his chest—an empty hole where a spirit should be.
But behind him… a shadowed throne, just beginning to rise.
—
Kaeliah whispered, "They always said spiritless children died in the trials."
Leiran replied, "Not always. Sometimes… the throne chooses another path."
Aren stepped closer. His hands touched the bark. The system pulsed hard in his veins.
[Origin Chain Fragment Located]Unlock: YES | NO
He didn't hesitate.
YES
—
[Memory Seal Broken – Origin Unlocked]
You remember:➤ You were Aren Vahl, son of a Spiritbound traitor.➤ You were meant to be purged, but something answered your pain.➤ The Code did not descend from above.➤ It rose from below.
You did not receive a spirit.
You became one.
—
He staggered back, gasping.
Kaeliah caught him.
"Aren—what did you see?"
He looked at her, eyes wide.
"I'm not just spiritless, Kaeliah. I was… hollow. A shell. They tried to erase me—but something in the void filled me instead."
Leiran nodded solemnly.
"Welcome back, Forgotten King."
—
[Path Update: Code of the Hollow Throne]
Class: Sovereign-Type SystemRank: Unknown
Origin Affinity: Hollowborn
New Skill Tree Unlocked:➤ Throneless Path – The King That Was ErasedGrants abilities tied to memory absorption, spirit denial, and sovereign defiance.
Perk: Memory Graft➤ You may now alter minor elements of others' past through anchored memory constructs.Cost: Sanity / Domain Power
—
Snow fell again.
But this time, Aren felt warmer—burning, even—as if the truth he'd reclaimed had given him not peace, but purpose.
The Spiritbound hadn't just feared him for what he lacked.
They feared what he could become.
And now, with memory in hand, he was ready to make the world remember why thrones tremble in the dark.