The estate stood quiet as Riven approached. Not still—silent, like it too had been holding its breath since he left. The sun dipped low behind the western ridges, casting long shadows that reached for him like brittle fingers.
Broken gates. Scorched banners. Empty towers.
The outer wall bore scars of old siege fire, cracks spiderwebbing down its surface. Riven had walked through these gates a hundred times. As a boy, as a squire, as a son. But now? Now he walked through them as something else. Something other.
The caravan limped in behind him, fewer wagons, fewer horses. Fewer people.
No cheers. No cries of celebration. Just boots on stone and silence. The kind that swallows everything.
Riven didn't speak.
And no one dared speak to him.
That night, a funeral pyre was lit.
They gathered in the courtyard under a sky thick with ash and cloud. The flames rose high, crackling with mana-choked smoke. Names were read aloud. Some had names. Others did not. Just descriptions. "Red hair. Missing two fingers. Sang in his sleep."
Geller's daughter wept as her father was lowered into the fire. He'd lasted long enough to return. Just long enough to die at home.
Riven stood apart. Arms crossed, hood raised. The Spiritthread Cloak fluttered faintly, pulsing with threads of translucent mist.
He said no words. He had none.
But when the flames reached their peak, his hand rose—unbidden—and touched the center of his chest.
Right where the Throne Mark pulsed beneath his skin.
A faint light.
Silver.
Burning.
His chambers had not changed.
The bed was still stiff. The window still jammed. His blade still rested in its usual place against the wall.
But something else had changed.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at his reflection in the washbasin. His face looked the same. His eyes did not.
There was something in them now. Something jagged. Something heavy.
"You look the same," he muttered.
But he didn't feel the same.
The sword was cracked—from the last blow he'd struck against Krogmar. He remembered the sound it made: iron meeting bone, refusing to give. A sound that had lived in his dreams ever since.
He closed his eyes.
But the darkness didn't bring peace.
It brought the System.
The air shifted.
The candle beside him flickered—then died.
The temperature dropped. Not from wind, not from magic.
From something else.
A pulse hit the room. Like a bell tolling from inside his bones.
Silver light burst into the air, coalescing into glyphs that shimmered before him.
[CROWN PATHWAY: CRITICAL THRESHOLD REACHED]
[User Integrity: 78% Recovered]
[Initiating Awakening Protocol…]
WARNING: Crownbearers must face Origin Trials before power progression continues.
The Ash-Bound Sovereign stirs. The First Throne calls.
[LOCATION LOCKED: THE FORGOTTEN MEMORY]
[NEXT PHASE: "WALK THE WOUND."]
Riven shot up.
"What do you mean… forgotten?"
The System responded. Not in glyphs. Not in light.
But in blood-red text that burned across his vision.
[AWAKENING SEALED UNTIL THE WOUND IS WALKED.]
[YOU WILL REMEMBER, OR YOU WILL BREAK.]
His breath caught.
The Throne Mark on his chest pulsed.
Three times.
And then it stopped.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
He moved to the window. The sky had begun to cry. Faint droplets pattered against the stone. But it was not the rain that held his gaze.
It was the Emerald Veil.
Or rather, the smoke rising from it. Faint. Distant. Lingering.
Beyond that—the southern border.
His birthplace.
He had not set foot there since the outlands burned. Since the flames devoured everything he called home. Since the screams.
He clenched his fist.
Not in fear.
In memory.
The Spiritthread Cloak shimmered, responding to the surge of mana. As if it, too, remembered.
"So that's where it begins," he whispered.
"Not in battle. Not in glory. But in the place I left behind."
He turned away.
But the view clung to him. Like ash.
Final Scene: Absolute Cinema
He walked the halls of the estate.
They echoed around him. Empty. Hollow. Like ribs without a heart.
The Old Wing stood at the far end. Sealed since the fire. Since his mother's death. Since the night the sky cracked open and screamed.
He reached the rotted door.
Paused.
Placed his palm against the wood.
It opened under his touch.
The System flared again.
[Optional: Begin the Trial of Remembrance Now?]
[Warning: Entering will sever current world-link until completion.]
[Proceed: Y/N]
He didn't answer.
Not with words.
He simply stepped forward.
Darkness swallowed him.
Then a whisper.
Not from the System.
Not from memory.
From the Ash-Bound Throne itself.
"The past does not sleep, Riven. It waits."
"And it remembers what you chose to forget."Riven opened the door.
And the world behind it screamed.