Kael staggered back from the barrier, his breath shallow, his hands trembling. He'd tried—gods, he'd tried. He had pushed, slammed, clawed, begged—but the invisible wall hadn't even rippled. It stood there, quiet and indifferent, as if mocking his desperation.
There was no denying it now.
He was trapped.
A bitter breath escaped his lips, and for a moment, all he could do was stare at the place where he had once passed through freely. Like a fool. Like someone who believed he had a choice.
A cold weight settled in his chest.
Was this always the plan?
Had everything—from the beast's ambush to Ethan's convenient absence—been part of something larger?
A dark thought bloomed like rot in his mind.
Was I baited?
Or is this punishment… for thinking I could shape my own fate?
He wanted to believe it was all just a string of coincidences: a wild beast happening upon their hideout, Ethan missing the signs, Kael just being the one unfortunate enough to draw the short straw.
But deep down, something screamed at him.
No. This isn't chance.
The barrier.
The appearance of the Griffin.
The glowing particles that seemed to recognize him.
And now—this silence. This isolation.
If this was the result of someone's will—some god, some entity—then his fate had been sealed the moment he set foot into this place.
His fists clenched.
Yet even then, a voice whispered: Zarek is with Ethan. He's not alone.
"I have to believe that," he muttered under his breath, turning his gaze toward the distant ruins buried deeper within the barrier. "He's still okay."
He took one step forward—
—and pain exploded through his body.
A jolt like lightning shot through his nerves, buckling his knees. He gasped and dropped, hitting the ground hard, his palms scraping against the dirt. His body trembled, muscles locking and unlocking violently as if rejecting his will entirely.
His breath caught in his throat, and then—
Agony.
Raw and unrelenting. It wasn't the sharpness of a wound or the throbbing of bruises—it was everything. A culmination of physical torment and mental exhaustion that came crashing down all at once.
It swallowed him whole.
He gritted his teeth, biting down on a cry that tried to tear its way from his throat. Sweat poured down his face, his jaw clenched so tightly he thought it might snap.
His vision blurred. His ears rang. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.
It was like being crushed under the weight of every second he'd pushed his body past its limit.
And he had pushed—far beyond what was human.
But now, the price came due.
'No… not now…' he thought, as his arms buckled and he collapsed fully, the dirt cold against his cheek.
Even passing out would've been a mercy.
But consciousness held him in place—trapped him in this living hell. Time slowed to a crawl. Each heartbeat a drumbeat of pain. Each breath a knife dragging through his lungs.
And then, in the quiet of that pain—the thoughts came.
Why was he even doing this?
What was he clinging to?
Back when he was a slave, he'd survived out of sheer spite—spite for the ones who ruined his town, who chained him, who made him less than human. He had held on to fragments of memory: the smell of warm bread, the feel of sunlight on his face, the dream of being someone again.
Someone free.
He hadn't wanted to be a hero.
He had just wanted to live.
To be ordinary. To eat without fear. To sleep without chains.
Was that really too much to ask?
Now, that dream felt distant. Faded.
Because this—this cursed forest, this endless struggle, this invisible prison—this wasn't freedom.
This was just another kind of cage.
And worst of all?
He wasn't even sure who had locked the door.
That's when something clicked in Kael's mind.
Not a memory—no.
Something missing.
Why was he always forgetting things?
It didn't feel like normal forgetfulness, the kind that came from exhaustion or trauma. It was something else. A presence, not an absence. A blockade. A fog clinging to the edges of his thoughts, quiet and deliberate.
'It's not that I've forgotten a few things,' he thought bitterly, curling tighter against the forest floor. 'It's like something is scraping things out of me.'
The pain still tore through him like molten wires threaded into his veins. Time had become a meaningless blur. Minutes, hours—he didn't know. All he knew was that his body refused to surrender, and his mind refused to shut down.
So he held on.
To the pain.
To himself.
He dug through his thoughts, trying to find purchase—anything that made sense. And in that agony, in that mental haze, patterns began to emerge.
Too much has happened.
Too quickly.
Even under pressure, even in life-or-death moments, he knew himself well. Kael had never been someone to trust easily. So why had he gone along with Ethan's offer with barely a second thought?
It didn't add up.
Zarek too—stubborn, fiery Zarek—had always resisted authority with every fiber of his being. He wasn't someone you convinced with mere logic or vague promises.
And yet... they both had moved forward. As if following a path already laid before them.
'This isn't normal,' Kael thought, clutching at his head as another wave of pain splintered through his skull. His teeth ground together as the lump in his head throbbed with a heartbeat of its own, growing heavier, angrier, louder.
Then—like a whisper through static—something surfaced.
A memory.
Faint. Fragile. But it was real.
Zarek, no older than twelve, puffing out his chest and waving a stick like a sword.
"You'll be King one day, Kael! And I'll be the strongest knight in your kingdom!"
He had laughed then—really laughed. The kind that ached in your ribs and made you forget the world.
'A king...' he thought, his lips twitching despite the agony. 'What a stupid dream.'
But it was theirs. A fragment of who they once were, untouched by blood and chains and beasts. A shard of innocence in a world that had long since shattered.
The memory sharpened the pain, but it also anchored him.
The sun had dipped beneath the horizon now, leaving only dying embers of light to paint the sky. Shadows stretched long over the broken terrain. Still, Kael didn't move. Couldn't. His body trembled with every breath, soaked in sweat, dirt clinging to every inch of skin. His limbs twitched on their own, reacting to nothing.
His eyes barely remained open. The world was a blur of darkness and flickering stars.
He wanted to give up. Gods, he wanted to just stop.
Let the pain have him.
Let the night take him.
Let it end.
But he didn't. Couldn't.
Because even as his body curled tighter and his voice went silent, his mind whispered one final defiance.
Something inside him still held on. Something raw and angry and alive.
He didn't know if it was willpower or madness. Maybe both.
And maybe it didn't matter.
Because it wouldn't let him die.
Kael didn't feel grateful. He didn't feel victorious. There was no triumphant surge, no inspirational thought to lift him above the pain.
There was just existence.
And in that existence, a memory.
His father—tall, grizzled, eyes like steel.
A man who always looked too old for his age, with callused hands and burn scars up to his elbows. A man who barely spoke, but whose presence filled a room.
Kael wasn't his blood. He didn't even know his real family. He had been taken in at seven years old, blank-eyed and silent, a ghost of a child. And yet that man—that man had called him "son" without ever needing to say it.
His father forged swords. It was more than a job. It was... ritual.
Kael remembered watching him shape glowing red metal, each strike of the hammer echoing like a heartbeat. The smell of hot iron. The hiss of water. The sweat pouring from his brow. And always—always—that faint smile.
Tired. Quiet.
But content.
A man who endured pain with purpose.
That memory clung to Kael now like armor, thin and cracked, but enough to dull the agony just a little more.
Faint memories fluttered through Kael's mind, soft and slow like falling ash. He and Zarek, no older than kids, racing through narrow alleys, wooden swords in hand. Laughter echoing off stone walls. Getting scolded for returning home after dusk, their clothes stained with dirt and scraped knees.
Back then, their world was small—but whole. Warmth lived in those moments. Safety. Innocence.
A sting built behind his eyes, and before he realized, tears spilled sideways across his face, tracing lines down the grime on his cheeks. He wasn't facing the sky—only the tangled thickets of forest above—but the weight of everything bore down like gravity.
Then the memories shifted.
The fire. The screams. The meteor.
Not a falling star. Not an accident.
It tore through the sky and into their town like a god's fist. And in the aftermath, everything was taken—friends, neighbors, family… freedom.
The world didn't mourn. The world moved on.
They didn't call it a massacre.
They called it war.
The Great War.
Years passed in shackles. He was a slave before he was a man. And it didn't take long for Kael to realize—that meteor hadn't been some natural disaster. It had been orchestrated. Engineered. A tactic, not a tragedy.
Someone—some faction—had made that call. And Kael never forgot it.
His grief had cooled into a slow-burning purpose.
He would find out who was behind it.
And he would make them pay.
Kael wasn't naïve. He didn't believe in happy endings. But revenge? Revenge was real. Revenge was tangible. It gave weight to his suffering.
He'd tried to escape more than once—each attempt followed by a savage beating. The guards had reveled in it, using their fists like hammers and treating him like something less than human. He hated them with every scar they left behind.
But he bided his time. Waited. For nearly a year, he schemed in silence, mapping out every blind spot, every pattern, every vulnerability. His plan had been almost airtight.
Then the dreams began.
He could never remember them clearly—only the feelings they left behind. Dread. Fire. A voice echoing through smoke.
And then—the masked stranger.
Kael still couldn't explain it. The man knew him. Spoke with familiarity. But vanished like a ghost, leaving only questions in his wake.
And then hell descended.
The rabid dogs tore through their camp. Dozens died within moments—ripped apart in a frenzy of fur and fangs. Only a handful had escaped. Him. Zarek. Grace. And Ethan.
But that was the problem.
Ethan.
Ethan, who had appeared out of nowhere. Who had saved Grace in the blink of an eye. Who had fought like a war-forged veteran and emerged from the massacre unscathed.
Kael's brow tightened.
If Ethan was that strong… why hadn't he helped the others?
Why hadn't he saved more?
Kael clenched his fists, a new bitterness bubbling beneath the pain.
Back then, he hadn't questioned it. None of them had. It was chaos. Survival. But now, the more he thought about it, the more the inconsistencies stacked like cards in a crumbling tower.
Ethan was powerful. More powerful than anyone Kael had ever met. So why did he act like saving others was a burden?
Why did it feel like he only helped when it mattered to him?
Kael's thoughts turned sharp, colder. The burning in his body dulled beneath the weight of something darker. Suspicion.
Above him, the stars stretched wide, blanketing the forest in a tranquil glow. The sky was stunning—untouched by the world's bloodshed. And yet, Kael remained curled at the roots of a tree, motionless except for the faint rise and fall of his chest.
The pain hadn't vanished, but it had dulled to a constant throb. Bearable, for now.
And that's when the realization struck him.
It's all too convenient.
The attack. The timing. The choices they made. The way their minds had aligned without resistance, as if something had nudged them.
As if they were never the ones making the decisions.
Despite the unbearable pain and exhaustion, Kael's thoughts clawed their way through the fog of his mind. Patterns. Inconsistencies. Coincidences that didn't add up.
How did we survive the rabid dogs when no one else did?
The first ruin—their makeshift shelter—was far closer than any of the others. That alone had seemed odd. But what stood out more was the chest. That strange, ancient object hadn't appeared in any other ruin they'd come across. Only that one.
And Ethan had found them far too easily.
Kael clenched his jaw as the pieces clicked into place. If Ethan had come from the same direction, then Robert—and the rest of his followers—couldn't have been far either. They were all operating in the same quadrant of the forest. By all logic, Kael and Zarek should've run into someone else long before Ethan found them.
But they hadn't.
No matter how far they searched that day, there had been no sign of another living soul—human or otherwise. Just trees. Just silence.
Why?
And Grace. She had spent nearly a decade as a slave, isolated and hardened by violence and fear. Yet she had placed her trust in Ethan almost immediately, like those ten years of separation meant nothing.
Why?
A cold spike drove itself into Kael's thoughts. A chill deeper than fear—a gnawing suspicion he couldn't shake.
Then—pain. Sudden and blinding.
It started as a pressure inside his skull, subtle at first, like fingernails scratching the inside of his brain. But within seconds, it exploded into something far worse.
Kael arched forward with a strangled gasp, his hands clawing at the dirt as something unspeakable writhed inside his head.
The pain was… indescribable.
It wasn't just pain. It was alien. Like his nervous system couldn't properly interpret what he was feeling. A surge of electricity? A hive of hornets in his spine? Burning ice flooding his veins?
His vision pulsed—black and red. His body seized, frozen and limp at the same time. He wanted to scream, but his mouth refused to move.
Then—impact.
Not physical. Not external.
Something detonated inside his brain, like his thoughts had imploded and expanded at once. He gasped—sharp, shallow—and felt something shift inside him.
And then the pain changed.
It didn't lessen. But it twisted into something… euphoric. A sick, unbearable ecstasy that felt wrong in every sense. Like his body, overwhelmed by agony, had mistaken it for pleasure just to survive.
Kael didn't know whether to cry or laugh.
What the hell is happening to me?
Then he heard it.
Screech!
A shriek that didn't come from the forest—it came from inside him. A high-pitched, skittering wail that drilled straight into his eardrums. His arms convulsed. His chest seized. Something moved—inside his throat.
A slithering, twitching presence.
His eyes widened in horror as he felt it crawl upward. Inch by inch. A terrible, foreign thing rising from within.
His mouth opened—not of his own will—and something wet and multi-legged slid out.
It hit the ground with a faint squelch.
Kael's eyes, half-lidded and bleary, locked onto it. His entire body had gone numb, unable to move, only to watch.
The creature resembled a spider—but warped. Its limbs were too long. Its body was striped like a wasp's. And it twitched—once, twice—before wobbling forward on spindly legs.
Then it collapsed. Dead.
It was over. Or so Kael thought.
The moment the creature hit the ground, a flood of sensations surged into Kael's mind like a dam breaking. He arched violently, teeth grinding as his eyes rolled back in his skull.
Memories—ones he didn't know he had—came crashing down.
The first day they arrived. The forced entry into the forest. The exact look on Zarek's face when they realized they were being herded—not led—toward something. The way the rabid dogs had refused to enter the jungle. How unnatural that was. How Ethan had appeared just after. Too conveniently.
Kael remembered.
It came all at once—images, sounds, feelings, like a thousand moments replaying simultaneously. He convulsed again, spasming with every piece of lost time snapping back into place.
A hush fell over the clearing, broken only by Kael's measured breath as the last echoes of memory faded from his mind.
He stood still, blinking at the quiet forest around him. The silence was deeper now—more than just the absence of sound. It was the kind that followed understanding. A kind he hadn't known in a long time.
So much had been taken from him.
Not just time—but identity. His memory hadn't been broken in pieces; it had been reshaped. Bent. Hidden. And now that it was returning to him, it felt like fitting jagged pieces of a puzzle back into place.
The first ruin hadn't been the first. He and Zarek had wandered for weeks—months, even—before they found that place. He remembered now: the harsh days scavenging near the forest's edge, the near-starvation, the injuries barely survived. They hadn't just stumbled into survival. They'd earned it. Day after day. Cut after cut.
And that ruin… the weapons, the Wills… they hadn't been chance encounters either. They'd been choices. Hesitant, deliberate. He remembered the weight of that choice, and how long it had taken Zarek to finally give in and open the chest.
He remembered how they changed after that.
They didn't become warriors overnight. There was no clean, triumphant transformation. There was blood. Struggle. A slow, painful learning. Missteps that nearly got them killed. And through it all, they adapted. Not because of destiny, or power, or some gift—but because there was no alternative. It was either learn, or die.
Kael drew a slow breath, his eyes tracing the familiar shapes of the forest. He'd run through these trees a hundred times. Fought tooth and nail under their shade. This place had worn him down, but it had also sharpened him.
They hadn't become fearless. Just… harder to break.
He remembered the trust they'd built with Ethan. Not instantly. Not easily. Ethan had found them after months, not days. And when he did, he hadn't been a savior. He had been a stranger—one Kael had kept at arm's length for weeks before his actions finally started to align with his words.
Kael recalled now that Ethan had told him Robert was dead. That he'd killed him. But the memory had slipped away, like sand through fingers. It wasn't until now that it came back, clear and sharp.
Why had they forgotten?
And Grace… she hadn't recognized Ethan at first. Not immediately. She had doubted him, avoided him, even threatened to leave. It took time for her walls to come down. Time Kael had seen unfold—time he'd somehow forgotten.
His hand brushed the fabric at his side. His limbs moved without strain. His breathing was calm. The pain that had wracked his body was gone. The scratches, bruises, and even deeper injuries—he could no longer feel them.
He glanced down, quietly studying himself. The wounds were gone. Entirely.
The realization sank in slowly, without drama. Whatever had twisted his memories, whatever parasite had burrowed into his mind—it was gone. Expelled. And in its place, a clearer picture remained.
Not strength. Not power.
Clarity.
The wind whispered through the trees again, and Kael turned his gaze upward. The stars overhead shimmered, indifferent but unhidden.
He exhaled, then looked back toward the forest—the direction he knew he had to go.
He didn't speak. There was no need to.
There was no grand resolve or sudden transformation in him. Just the quiet, heavy weight of truth settling into his bones.
He had survived this forest long enough to understand one simple fact:
If he didn't move forward now, someone else might not make it.
He adjusted the straps on his gear with practiced fingers and stepped away from the clearing, each footfall firm and deliberate.
Not because he had become something new.
But because, after everything—he finally remembered who he was.