The river ran without a sound.
Not even the wind dared speak here. The trees leaned back from the water's edge like they were afraid to touch it. No fish swam in its current. No birds flew above it. It was not dead. It was simply… forgotten.
Coker stood at the edge of the bank, staring at his reflection. But it wasn't his face looking back.
It was the other him—the one with the crown of thorns, with eyes like eclipses and a mouth that didn't move, only smiled.
He blinked, and the reflection vanished.
"Why did we come here?" Mina asked softly behind him.
Coker didn't answer at first. The wind tugged at his clothes like a warning.
He finally spoke, voice quiet. "This is where they erased me."
---
Lilin stood to the side, arms crossed, watching the water like it might leap up and attack. "They called this the River of Silence," she said. "But that was before it was cursed."
"Cursed?" Mina echoed.
Lilin nodded. "Anyone who drinks from it forgets the person they love most."
Coker looked down at the stream again. "Then how did they use it on me?"
"They didn't make you drink it. They drowned you in it."
---
The soldiers behind them kept a tight circle, eyes wary. Even after all they'd seen—the Fate Warden, the stone army, the sky rewriting itself—this place made them uneasy.
The tall scarred soldier, Halric, stepped forward. "This place was a battlefield," he said. "In the last days of the Fall. I remember now."
Coker turned. "You were here?"
Halric nodded slowly. "All of us were. We fought beside you. We bled beside you. We died… and then the river forgot us."
He looked to the other soldiers. Many of them bowed their heads.
Mina stepped closer to Coker. "What are we supposed to find here?"
He didn't answer her.
Instead, he walked into the river.
---
The moment his boots touched the surface, the water hissed.
Dark steam rose.
Coker walked forward anyway, deeper, until the water reached his knees. It clung to him like it didn't want him to leave.
Mina moved to follow, but Lilin stopped her with a hand. "Don't," she whispered. "Only he can walk it. If you go in now, you'll forget why you ever loved him."
Mina's breath caught. She stepped back.
---
Coker stood in the middle of the river.
The world twisted.
Suddenly, the sky was not sky—it was pages.
The trees became ink. The ground shifted into parchment.
He blinked—and found himself alone.
The river had become a mirror again, and it stretched forever.
There, in the center of the reflection, stood a throne. Black stone. Wrapped in vines. Cracked from old wars.
And sitting on it was the boy from the dreams.
The other Coker.
---
"You came back," the other Coker said, voice echoing like distant thunder.
"I never meant to."
"But you did."
Coker walked closer. "What is this place really?"
The boy on the throne leaned back. "This is where they caged your story. Every memory they couldn't burn, they drowned. Every name you once carried… forgotten."
Coker clenched his fists. "Why?"
"Because you were too powerful to kill. But weak enough to rewrite."
The boy stood. "But now the river remembers."
---
Suddenly, the water surged upward.
From beneath it rose shapes—people—faces Coker didn't know, but something inside him did. A girl with silver eyes. A man with blue flame for hair. A child who wore armor too big for his body.
All of them stared at him.
"You were ours," they said in unison.
"Who are you?" Coker whispered.
"We are your truths."
And then they began to dissolve.
---
"No!" Coker shouted.
He ran toward them, but the river dragged at his legs.
"You are not ready to remember," the other Coker said. "Not fully. Not yet."
"Then why show me this?"
"Because it's starting. The Fall isn't coming. It never left."
Coker stopped. "What does that mean?"
"It means the war you lost is still happening. Just somewhere deeper."
---
In a flash, the river vanished.
Coker stumbled, soaked to the bone, standing again in the real world.
The soldiers watched him closely.
Mina ran to him, gripping his hand tightly. "What did you see?"
Coker didn't speak.
But in his palm, there was now a coin. Old. Blackened. Marked with a sword through a sun.
Lilin stepped forward and gasped. "That's a Sealed Sun token."
"What's that?" Mina asked.
"It means someone—something—is still locked beneath this world."
Coker stared at it. "Then I'm not the only one they tried to erase."
---
That night, they camped beside the river.
No one dared speak loudly.
The trees whispered. The sky blinked with too many stars, each one moving slightly, like they weren't really stars at all.
Coker sat alone by the fire.
Mina came and sat beside him.
"I don't want to forget you," she said.
He smiled faintly. "You won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'd tear this world apart before I let it take you from me."
---
At the edge of the forest, Lilin stood watching something in the dark.
A figure—tall, thin, wearing a crown of roots and antlers—watched from beyond the trees.
It didn't move.
It didn't breathe.
But it waited.
Lilin narrowed her eyes. "You're early."
The figure's mouth opened. A voice like broken glass replied, "He is remembering too quickly."
"And you're afraid."
"I do not feel fear."
"Then why hide in the trees?"
The figure vanished like smoke.
Lilin turned back to the fire.
The sky above them cracked again—just slightly.
But enough for the river to whisper one more word:
"Soon.