The air in the valley crackled—not with magic, but with belief.
Ael had remained after his confrontation with Vel, not as an opponent, not as a savior, but as an observer. No longer a king, no longer a figure of legend—just a man trying to understand how a friend had become something that felt so dangerously right, yet fundamentally wrong.
He watched the people she had gathered. There were no banners, no marching drills or oaths of blood. No tyrant's speeches, no calls for genocide or chaos.
Only silence.
And that silence was louder than any battlefield he had ever stood on.
—
Ael spent three days in the encampment. No one stopped him. Vel hadn't told them who he was—not exactly. To them, he was just a traveler, a quiet swordsman with tired eyes and a calm voice.
He spoke to many.
There was Kerren, a blacksmith with a twisted leg. Once a village chief. He had sent messenger after messenger begging for aid when their well was poisoned—only to be ignored. His daughter died coughing up blackened water while soldiers marched past his village toward a "more strategic location."
"We weren't worth saving," Kerren said with a shrug as he hammered broken armor into farming tools. "Now I follow someone who says we're worth remembering. That's all."
There was Dala, a healer, once part of a prestigious magical guild. She had tried to raise alarm about the spread of a cursed disease through the southern marshes—sent letters, samples, warnings.
They branded her a fearmonger.
When Ael asked why she'd follow Vel, she didn't raise her voice.
"She listened," Dala said. "That's more than the rest of them did."
Even Fenn, a child barely ten, carried a dagger strapped to his waist. He had no memory of the Hollow King. He had no talent for magic. But he remembered his mother, who was executed as a suspected traitor without trial. Her only crime? Living in the wrong town at the wrong time.
"She was quiet like you," Fenn said to Ael, staring at the flames. "She believed people could change. So I will too. But only if Vel says they deserve it."
Those words stuck.
Only if Vel says they deserve it.
—
That night, Ael sat alone at the edge of the campfire ring. The stars were bright, the sky unusually clear.
Vel approached in silence, as always. She moved like wind—felt but unseen until she was already upon you.
"You see it now," she said.
He didn't argue.
He did.
He saw it all.
These weren't zealots. Not a cult. Not a rebellion for the sake of power.
They were the forgotten.
The overlooked.
The ones peace had passed by without even apologizing.
Vel sat beside him, close but not touching. The fire crackled between them.
"This is your legacy too, you know," she said, watching the flames. "You opened the gate. You made them believe things could change. But you walked away. You chose healing. You forgot there were people who didn't get to heal."
Ael looked down at his hands. They were rough now. Scarred from labor, not just battle.
"I didn't forget," he said. "I just… didn't know how to reach them."
"You're reaching them now."
"Not the way I hoped."
Vel took out a flask and passed it to him. The drink inside was bitter—something made from wildroot and ghostmint, likely brewed by one of the herbalists he'd seen earlier.
He took a sip. Gritty. Real.
"I'm not your enemy, Vel."
"No," she said. "But you might have to become one if you want to stop me."
She rose then. Her silhouette against the moonlight looked regal—not like a warlord, but like a woman bearing the weight of millions of silent voices.
"I won't be the Hollow King. I won't demand perfection. But I will burn what can't be salvaged."
"And if what can't be salvaged is… people?" Ael asked.
Vel didn't blink.
"I hope they have the sense to run."
Then she walked away.
—
Ael didn't sleep that night. He sat and watched the campfires flicker across the valley, dozens of them, like stars fallen to the ground.
This was no army. But it could become one.
No swords were being sharpened. But beliefs were.
And sometimes, belief cut deeper than steel.
—
At dawn, he left.
No confrontation. No farewell.
He traveled north—toward cities, guild halls, mage towers, and noble courts. Toward those who had declared victory and peace without ever checking who paid the price.
And he asked them one question:
"Who did we leave behind?"
Some scoffed.
Some laughed.
One noble offered him coin to go away.
Only a handful listened.
And of those who listened, fewer still understood.
But Ael did not return empty-handed.
He returned with names.
Names of those who had been forgotten.
And names of those who had done the forgetting.
It was not enough to fight Vel.
It was not enough to silence the Second Silence.
He would have to answer it.
Not with a sword.
But with a truth stronger than pain.