The Ones Who Remembered
The forest was too quiet.
Not the calm kind.
The wrong kind.
Like everything was holding its breath.
Cuco stood near the edge of the wards, where the Circle's light didn't quite reach.
Where shadows watched without blinking.
Where his own reflection in the pool didn't always move when he did.
The blade was quiet tonight.
But that didn't mean safe.
Just waiting.
---
Tariq found him there.
Hands in his coat. Face drawn.
"You okay?"
Cuco didn't look up. "Does it matter?"
Tariq stepped closer. "It does to me."
---
They didn't speak for a while. Just stood there.
Somewhere in the trees, an owl cried. Or something that used to be one.
Finally, Cuco said, "The Hollow... it knew me."
Tariq nodded slowly. "I heard."
"It said I was never one of you."
"That's not true."
Cuco turned, eyes tired. "Then why do I feel more like them every day?"
---
Back inside the Circle, things were changing.
Some Dreamers left in the night. Packed quietly. Vanished before dawn.
Others stayed, but not with open hearts. Not anymore.
Even Nox stopped looking Cuco in the eyes.
Even Echo sharpened his words like knives.
Even Lira lit her spells slower now, as if afraid of who might see the fire.
Isabela still stood by him.
But even she looked like a woman standing at the edge of a cliff.
---
That night, Cuco had another vision.
The Tome didn't open.
The blade didn't whisper.
But the air around him… shifted.
He stood in a dream made of roots and sky.
Time didn't pass. The wind didn't move.
And there—
across a clearing—
stood others.
People. Or once-people. Wrapped in bark and light.
Each with a blade.
Each with a mark.
They didn't speak.
They just watched.
But Cuco felt it.
They remembered him.
Not him now—him before.
A piece of something older. A fragment passed down through blood and dream.
---
One stepped forward.
A woman with no eyes, but the wind bowed around her.
She lifted her blade—not to fight, but to show it.
It looked like his. But older. Cracked with time.
> "You carry our grief," she said softly. "But also our choice."
Cuco swallowed. "What am I becoming?"
> "Not the gate," she said. "The key."
---
He woke up gasping. Bark crawling up his neck now.
The blade pulsed once.
And outside—
The gate began to glow.
Not open.
But waking.
Just like him.