The village of Hallowmere had begun to whisper again.
Not because the festival was over—but because something had changed. The lanterns still hung from trees and rooftops, yet none of them were lit. The wind refused to carry flame. Ash fell from the sky like soft snow.
And in the inn's cellar, Arjuna heard the song.
It came in the early hours, when most had collapsed into sleep or grief. Tellen was snoring in a chair, his ink-smudged notes clutched to his chest. The fire in the hearth was cold.
But the voice rose like smoke.
Soft. Childlike. Haunting.
"Where the lost walk, tread not slow,For memory is a blade, and sorrow knows.Sing not the song that names the dead,Or ghosts will wear your skin instead."
Arjuna rose slowly.
The voice was coming from below.
From beneath the cellar.
There should have been no door there. No stair.
But the stone had cracked open, revealing a spiral passage lit by candlelight that burned blue.
He descended without hesitation.
The air grew thick with dust and centuries. Old bones lined the walls. At the bottom, a stone chamber opened, shaped like a hollowed heart. There, five figures knelt in a circle.
Children.
Or things wearing the shape of children.
Each wore a mask—one of wood, one of bone, one of wax, one of rusted metal… and one made of woven names.
They sang in broken harmony.
"One for sorrow,Two for flame,Three for those who forget their name..."
Arjuna stepped forward.
The candlelight flared.
The child with the woven name-mask turned to him. Her voice was as clear as winter glass.
"You are the knight who forgets."
"I am," Arjuna said.
"You were bound once," she whispered. "Do you wish to be bound again?"
"I don't know."
The bone-masked child chimed in. "You wear a blade made to kill gods. But it remembers more than you do."
The wax-masked child leaned forward. "Let us show you a song. A memory. One you buried."
Before he could reply, the circle of children clapped their hands in unison.
The chamber fell away.
And Arjuna stood in a memory not his own.
A battlefield, lit by moonfire. A city burning behind him. A woman at his side—tall, armored in obsidian, her white hair streaked with blood.
Nyssara.
But not the demon queen. This was a younger Nyssara. Mortal. Beautiful. Afraid.
"You have to make the vow," she said. "If you don't… they'll forget us."
Arjuna—his past self—held her hand tightly. "I will. I swear it."
"You won't remember."
"Then write it in my bones."
The scene shattered like glass.
Back in the candle chamber, Arjuna gasped, falling to his knees.
The children had stopped singing.
The rusted-mask child stood and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You broke your vow."
Tellen's voice echoed from above. "Arjuna? Where in the seven hells did you go?!"
The passage behind him closed with a soft sigh.
When Arjuna emerged, he said nothing.
But he carried a folded scrap of waxed parchment in his hand.
Tellen stared. "What's that?"
"A song," Arjuna said.
He opened it.
It was the same rhyme he'd heard in the cellar.
But beneath it, one line had been added—written in handwriting he almost remembered:
"When love is forgotten, the dead begin to sing."