The name still echoed in his mind.
Ashenrael.
It pulsed with each heartbeat, not like a drum, but like a blade sliding gently back into its sheath — not yet sharp, but unmistakable. A name with weight. With blood. With judgment.
The ravine around him remained still.
But not silent.
The echoes of the power he had buried stirred beneath the surface — clawing upward like old roots seeking air, breaking through the soil of the self he had built over centuries.
He stood between two fates.
In his left hand: the silver vial from the Chroneseer, glowing faintly with forgetfulness.
In his right: the cane — heavier now, as if it, too, remembered.
And behind him, a shadow that had never truly left.
Hollowlight.
Watching.
Waiting.
⸻
"Well?" the fragment asked, voice low and edged with cruel amusement. "Will you swallow the lie again? Keep playing the role — the noble Warden, selfless and shackled?"
Ashenrael — no longer just the Warden — said nothing.
His jaw clenched.
The memories hadn't stopped. They came in waves. Each one a hammer blow against the dam he'd built in his mind.
The day he silenced an entire fortress with a single word.
The moment he sealed Nocturon beneath the Sea of Grief, knowing the screams would echo forever.
The ritual — the great cutting — where his soul was tore into five Echoes, scattered across the veils,
"You were a god once," Hollowlight said gently, circling him like a patient predator. "You just refused to wear the crown."
"I refused to become what I swore to destroy."
"And in doing so, let it grow. The Court thrives. The gates crack. The seals tremble. All because you feared your own name more than their hunger."
Ashenrael stared down at the vial.
"What happens if I drink it?" he asked quietly.
"You forget," Hollowlight replied. "Ashenrael fades. The Crimson Warden returns. Limited. Focused. Contained. A symbol again."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you remember it all. The truth. The horror. The good, the monstrous. Everything you cast away."
The cane pulsed — once.
Then again.
And then, for the first time… it spoke.
Not in words.
Not in sound.
But in memory.
A boy, barely thirteen, kneeling in the ruins of a monastery that bled smoke. His hands were shaking. Blood soaked his palms — not his own. A dying god crawled toward him, dragging its broken frame across shattered stone.
It held out a mask — crimson, etched with a sigil of protection.
"Guard the threshold," the god had whispered, breath rattling. "Or die knowing you let the storm pass through."
That boy had taken the mask.
He had become the Crimson Warden.
But before that…
He had been Ashenrael.
His grip loosened on the vial.
And then, without hesitation—
He smashed it against the obsidian rock.
The vial shattered, spilling liquid silver across the stones.
It did not burn.
It clarified.
Light erupted outward in a wave — not heat, but memory.
Truth.
The wave hit him like a flood.
He screamed without sound.
The mask on his face cracked, the sigils etched into it unraveling like threads. It fell, crumbling to dust at his feet.
And for the first time since the beginning…
He looked himself in the face.
Overhead, the razorbill spirits shrieked — not in fear, but in transformation. Their wings shimmered with molten light. Some changed color. Others split in two, becoming mirrored pairs that flew in opposite arcs across the sky.
The cane in his right hand surged with power.
Silver and crimson light intertwined down its shaft.
And then it branded itself with a fifth sigil — one never seen before.
Not Echo.
Not Seal.
But Origin.
The first name.
The forgotten truth.
The source.
Hollowlight stepped closer.
It did not smirk. It did not sneer.
It bowed.
Just slightly.
And smiled.
"Welcome back," it whispered. "Ashenrael."
"I didn't come back for power," Ashenrael said, voice quieter than the wind.
"But you'll need it," Hollowlight replied. "Because now… the Court knows."
Ashenrael raised a brow. "Knows what?"
"That you're whole again."
A pause.
Then he nodded.
"Let them come."
The sky above the ravine darkened.
Not with clouds.
With eyes.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
Vast, lidless, watching from the seams of reality — the gaze of the Court, drawn to a beacon that could no longer hide.
Not a threat.
Not an obstacle.
But a rival.
Ashenrael turned and stepped from the ravine.
His old coat — black and crimson — burned away in a flare of memory.
A new one grew in its place. Long, flowing, tattered at the ends. Crimson, yes — but streaked through with silver veins, each one echoing a path he had once walked.
His cane spun once in his hand.
And when it landed, it hummed not with sorrow, nor silence, but with something sharper.
Destiny.
He looked back only once.
At the pedestal.
At the name still burning.
And whispered:
"I'm not running anymore."
Then he vanished — not into shadow, nor into light — but through the veil between fates.
End of Chapter Thirteen
Next: Chapter Fourteen – The Court Opens Its Eyes