The rain in Veltharion no longer sounded like water. It struck the rooftops with the hiss of paper curling over fire, each droplet a whisper of some memory that had been erased from history. Charles stood at the edge of the Skybridge Tower, staring at the letter that had arrived without a name, without a courier, folded into a shape that should have been impossible.
Zara stood beside him, wind pulling at her coat, her pink eyes narrowed. Rahul, unusually quiet, examined the folds of the letter with a frown, occasionally scratching behind his ear like he was listening for something only he could hear.
"The ink's alive," he muttered. "It... it blinks."
Charles didn't reply. He had already seen it. The folded paper, shaped like a fourteen-pointed crown, was etched not with words but with places that didn't exist—not on any map they'd ever seen. And yet, he knew them. He had known them. Names surfaced uninvited, like scars rising through skin:
Viremont, the Kingdom of Veils
Olestria, where memory could be taxed
The Howling Throne of Erix, ruled by a monarch who hadn't spoken in two centuries
The Sea-Cracked Palace of Lor'Thaem, half-sunken, ruled by a Queen who breathed in ink
He looked up slowly. The fog beyond the Skybridge moved differently now—parting for invisible walls, mimicking the boundaries of kingdoms not seen by the ordinary eye.
"They were real," Charles said. "All of them."
"You mean they are," Zara corrected.
Charles stared at her.
"There's no record of them. Not in the Arcanum Archives. Not in the Cartographer's Codex. Not even in the Silent Library."
"Exactly," she said. "Which means they were erased."
Rahul tapped the letter. "So we're dealing with kings and queens who command memory like breath."
Charles turned to the city, where the rain now hissed louder. In the distance, something shimmered behind the clouds—a colossal sigil burning in ink and violet flame, rotating slowly like a compass. The Machine was watching.
He closed his hand around the letter, and the world tilted.
He was falling into the past.
Not his past.
---
He woke on a throne of bone, beneath a bleeding sun. Ten silhouettes stared down at him—each wearing a different crown. One of them, a woman whose skin flickered between gold and void, stepped forward.
"You have remembered us," she said.
Charles opened his mouth.
But no voice came.
The crown-shaped paper glowed in his hand. And in the dreamworld, or wherever he had landed, it burst into violet ash.
The voice came from all ten monarchs at once:
"Then you may attend the Court of the Forgotten."
And Charles screamed.
The carriage slowed as they approached the Outer Bridge of Cael'Borne, the ancient kingdom nestled between the sky-bleached cliffs of the Sorrelian Vale and the murky scarlands of forgotten wars. Here, the air shimmered with residual spellcraft—old enchantments that hadn't faded, only grown... resentful.
Charles stepped down, cloak brushing against the patterned dust of the trade avenue. Stone murals carved into the street showed forgotten dynasties, their eyes scratched out by time or treachery. In one corner of the plaza, a group of children played with chalk, drawing a sun that wept black tears.
"Why does the sun cry?" Charles asked one of them, his voice distant.
A girl looked up. Her eyes were milky with fading magic. "Because the kings died and didn't stay dead, mister."
Charles blinked.
From the gates ahead, horns moaned like dying animals. Not the elegant fanfare of court but the raw, bone-hollow notes of Cael'Borne's Royal Cadence Guard—a magical elite known not only for their spellwork, but for embedding symphonies into battle. Each note they played could fracture bone, invert gravity, or steal a name from memory.
Their leader stood at the gate: Commander Vaelus Denin, cloaked in red velvet stitched with celestial runes. His eyes glowed like dusk stars. No blade hung from his side—only a tuning fork shaped like a scythe.
Behind him, the Four Deadly Commanders assembled like statues around a brazier of black fire.
General Myrrh: Skin covered in mirror shards, reflecting futures not yet written. She spoke only in riddles, and they say her left arm is cursed to move thirty seconds before she does.
Draxin of the Veins: A hulking mage-warrior whose blood had long since been replaced by liquid pyres. He burns constantly, but only in the presence of liars.
Marla the Threadwraith: A necroweaver who controls the memories of clothing; a seamstress of madness.
Captain Thorne: Youngest among them. Wields no spell, but commands the Silent Court—a dozen faceless guards rumored to be dead gods wearing armor.
The people of Cael'Borne bustled in carefully demarcated circles, wary of stepping out of their magic-approved zones. Vendors hawked whisperfruit and ink-salted bread; a man painted tattoos onto willing patrons, the ink shimmering with shifting truth.
Zara pulled her hood lower.
"This is too loud," she muttered. "Too many people who know too little, and too many kings who know far too much."
Charles didn't respond. His eyes were fixed on the Palace of Crowned Dust, half-buried in rubble, half-reconstructed from bones of an ancient leviathan. Above its crooked spires, a new banner flapped: a crown pierced by an eye that wept ink.
"The Hollow Eye has infiltrated the monarchy," he whispered.
Rahul, chewing on a strange pastry, blinked. "Wait, what does that mean? They're not supposed to even exist."
"They don't," Charles replied. "Which makes this all the worse."
From somewhere in the palace, a whisper rose on the wind, too low to be understood, but too ancient to ignore.
It was calling his name.
Inside the Palace of Crowned Dust, the ceilings murmured.
Not metaphorically.
Every vaulted arch whispered old proclamations—laws once spoken into the stone by monarchs now buried without names. Some said the palace listened. Others, that it remembered. Charles felt neither comfort nor warning in that—just the weight of a building that had outlived truth.
A herald in deep violet stepped forward. His robes stitched with gold thread hummed with enchantment—specifically compulsion wards, designed to force those in the hall to speak only what they believed to be true.
"State your intent, commoner," the herald croaked, sneering at Charles's simple attire.
Before Charles could respond, Zara stepped forward, her eyes blazing. "He's not a commoner. He is the bearer of the Black Seal. We were summoned."
The herald's composure cracked. For just a breath.
The Black Seal—a symbol forged during the Age of Cracked Thrones—was once carried only by those trusted to execute monarchs who had been "unmade" by dark magic. That Charles carried it now was... politically catastrophic.
Rahul leaned toward him and whispered, "Was that always in your pocket, or... did you manifest that for drama?"
Charles didn't answer. Mostly because he didn't know.
They were led through halls where oil paintings blinked and chandeliers rearranged themselves depending on who passed beneath them. The portraits of former kings and queens were rotted at the edges—but the newest one caught Charles's attention.
It was a queen in gold armor, her eyes painted too wide, as if startled mid-rebellion. Blood leaked from the frame.
Charles paused.
"That's... QueenAvaryss," Zara whispered. "The last true monarch. She vanished five years ago."
"But someone's still ruling," Rahul said.
"Someone," Charles replied, watching as a thin crack ran down the portrait's glass face.
They entered the Throneless Chamber—an open rotunda where a throne used to be. In its place now stood an obsidian mirror, tall as a tower bell, with no reflection. Beside it, seated on nothing, floated a woman dressed in robes made of bladed ink-paper, folded like feathers.
She had no crown.
She had no name.
Her voice echoed in all directions.
"What is a king, but a lie agreed upon?"
Zara stiffened. Rahul coughed on his pastry.
The woman's eyes didn't open, but Charles felt them inside his mind.
"You seek answers," she whispered. "But do you remember the question?"
Charles remained still.
"Do you remember why you came?"
Behind her, the mirror shimmered, and for a split second, Charles saw himself—but with no eyes. Only two sigils glowing where his pupils should be.
The sigil of the Hollow Eye, inverted.
The woman spoke again.
"The kingdoms do not rule the people. They are merely the stage on which memory pretends to be history."
The woman with the blade-folded robes vanished without rising. One blink and she was there, the next—and Charles saw only a feather of ink drifting where she'd sat.
In her absence, silence returned like a sickness.
"Who was that?" Rahul asked, voice unusually flat.
"A royal… advisor," Zara said slowly. "Or maybe a curse that learned to speak. I've only ever heard of her in whispers. The Nameless Vicar. They say she advises the king—but no one's seen the king in years."
"They still have kings?" Rahul muttered. "Could've fooled me."
They were escorted out by a new figure—Commander Lysava Ferrow, head of the Dreadguard, the kingdom's elite magical enforcers. Her armor was made of soul-forged silver, humming with spectral runes. Her eyes were clouded white, not blind—but seeing differently.
"You'll follow," she said, tone like broken glass scraping itself into words.
She walked like someone whose authority was older than laws.
Behind her, fourRoyal Magelocks followed—soldiers trained in Chrono-Slicing, the art of freezing memory and reordering the flow of conversations. Zara tensed at the sight of them.
"They're not human anymore," she whispered. "They've cut too many hours out of themselves."
Lysava led them through a side hall, past weeping statues and a giant stained-glass window depicting the Founding of the Kingdom of Elaris—one of the Four Great Realms.
Charles paused before it. The image showed a child king surrounded by advisors with blank faces. In the corner, hidden in shadow, a familiar glyph.
The Hollow Eye.
Again.
"How long have they been here?" he murmured.
Lysava didn't turn. "The Hollow Eye? As long as memory has been corrupted."
They arrived at a vast archive chamber, where a civilian scholar hunched over a living scroll, its parchment fluttering like wings, ink rearranging itself with each breath.
The man looked up, startled. "Visitors? They never send visitors unless it's bad news."
He stood, brushing soot from his robes. "My name is Erin Kell, scholar of corrupted histories. And part-time... prisoner."
Zara raised an eyebrow. "Prisoner?"
"Well, they pay me to study books they then tell me to forget. You tell me what that makes me."
Charles stepped forward. "We need to know about the royal timeline gaps. About what's been removed."
Erin laughed, bitter and bright. "Removed? My friend, entire wars have been removed. Whole kings erased, names swallowed. That's how they keep control. By breaking the past."
He leaned forward.
"But something's gone wrong. They missed a thread. I think a king is waking up. One they didn't fully erase."
At that exact moment, the ground trembled.
Not like an earthquake.
More like something beneath the palace was breathing.
Lysava's face twitched.
"I warned them," Erin said. "If you kill memory, it learns to dream. And now, it's dreaming back."
Rahul glanced down at the shifting floor beneath them. "That… was the ground breathing?"
"No," Erin said, eyes wild. "That was a name trying to wake up."
Before Charles could respond, Lysava snapped her fingers. The Royal Magelocks took formation, carving glowing sigils midair. The floor split open—not with violence, but with reverence. A staircase of obsidian unfolded from nothing, yawning into darkness.
"You're not authorized—" one of the Magelocks began.
"I outrank you in arcane history," Erin muttered, already stepping down. "And I've earned the right to look beneath the lie."
Charles, Zara, and Rahul followed. Lysava lingered a moment before descending, muttering a charm in a dead dialect. The staircase sealed above them, leaving only the pulse of forgotten breath.
They entered the Hall of Forgotten Crowns—a vault of stone thrones, each occupied by a figure of dust and silence. Dozens of past monarchs, stripped of identity, erased from history but not from flesh.
"They were never executed," Erin whispered. "Too dangerous to kill. So they were… paused."
Charles scanned the room. Every throne bore a symbol—burned, branded, or carved. Many he didn't recognize.
One throne was empty.
Lysava noticed. "That's the problem," she said. "The 28th King of Elaris. No record of his reign. No body. No tomb. He simply—stopped existing."
"But someone's starting to remember," Charles said.
Zara crossed her arms. "And you think it's tied to the Hollow Eye?"
Lysava nodded once. "The erased king was last seen chasing something called the—"
She froze. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes widened. She tried again. Still nothing.
"She's caught in a mnemonic snare," Erin said grimly. "A memory-curse that triggers when someone tries to say the name."
Rahul looked around. "So… who set the snare?"
Something shifted in the shadows.
A low voice rasped: "I did."
A man stepped forward from the darkness behind the empty throne. Cloaked in white mourning robes, his left arm was missing, and his skin bore runes that glowed faintly with reverse light—not shining, but swallowing illumination around them.
His eyes were sealed shut. Yet Charles felt them looking directly at him.
"Who are you?" Charles asked.
"I was born royalty. I was raised in shadow. I was erased in silence. But I remain," the man said. "I am Prince Voren Arcthel, the Forgotten Bloodline. And I know what the Hollow Eye fears."
Behind him, on the wall, was an ancient mural—almost invisible beneath grime and faded pigment.
It showed a boy with a mirror for a face, standing between two versions of the same kingdom, both burning.
And beneath it, a phrase carved in the old tongue:
"When the Eye closes, the world will remember its own lie."
Charles stepped forward, the dust whispering under his boots like old regrets. "You were supposed to be dead."
Prince Voren's head tilted slightly. "Supposed to be," he said, his voice calm—too calm, like the eye of a storm centuries old. "But the truth is not a blade. It is a breath. I held mine when they tried to erase me."
Zara instinctively stepped between Charles and Voren. The Royal Magelocks raised their hands—sigils ready to flare—but Erin gave a subtle shake of her head.
"He's telling the truth," she whispered. "I recognize the mark on his arm. The Seal of Muralis. That kingdom was—"
"—erased during the Chrono-Wars," Voren finished for her. "Yes. The last time kings tried to rewrite time to suit their legacy."
Charles's eyes narrowed. "The Chrono-Wars aren't real. They're myth."
Voren turned toward the mural on the wall—the one that depicted the boy with the mirrored face. "No, Charles. Myth is what they give to the powerless. Memory is what the victors bury."
Behind them, the chamber trembled faintly. Not from danger, but from reverberation—as though the truth had weight, and speaking it loosened foundations.
Voren gestured at the mural. "You're standing on one of the Six Original Thrones. Each Kingdom once ruled a power over something abstract: Time, Memory, Names, Silence, Flame, and Shadow. But power breeds fear. And so they erased each other—one by one—until only fragments remained."
Rahul, wide-eyed, asked, "Then what's Veltharion now?"
"A hybrid," Voren said. "A corpse of kingdoms stitched together by the Arcanum Crown. Veltharion is not a city. It is a lie wearing a crown."
Suddenly, a heavy steel door creaked open behind the throne chamber.
A woman entered, clad in golden armor etched with runes of refraction—her very form shimmered slightly, as though constantly folding into different versions of herself.
Zara whispered, "A Royal Guard…"
Voren's jaw tightened. "One of the Seven Deadly Commanders."
The woman smiled with mirrored teeth. "Commander Orien of the Glassbone Guard. Apologies for the eavesdropping. But when a forgotten prince starts leaking secrets into the present, we must intervene."
Behind her, three more guards emerged—each one representing a different kingdom now long lost. One bore a whip of black flame. Another walked with no shadow. The last carried a scroll that bled ink from its parchment.
"These are relics," Zara muttered. "Weapons that shouldn't exist."
"They were taken from the Memory Wars," Voren said, stepping backward. "Stolen truths. Used now as execution tools."
Charles reached into his coat. "And what happens now?"
Orien raised her hand, and time staggered—just slightly. A flicker, a hiccup in the rhythm of breathing.
"We erase this conversation."