They warned us not to enter the Whisper-Forest.
Not because of beasts. Not even because of rift-hunters.
But because the trees remember things you wish forgotten.
We crossed the threshold at dusk. The air grew cold enough to still breath in my chest. The light bent strangely here—sunlight flickering like candlelight through oil-slicked glass.
Aeris rode curled around my shoulders, silent. Even his normally bright ember-glow was dimmed to a pulse. Lyra walked ahead, braid tucked beneath her hood, her fingers twitching as if counting something under her breath.
"I don't like this," I murmured.
"No one does," she replied.
The trees leaned in—black-barked, barkless in places, as if something had scraped memory off their skin. Their roots rose and fell in unnatural patterns, curling like veins. Some were carved with faces. Others bled sap that shimmered like liquid starlight.
Then one of the trees spoke.
I froze.
It didn't use a mouth. It had none. It didn't use a voice, exactly. It used intention.
And it said my name.
Not the name I use now.
Not the fractured alias the Rift branded into me.
But my true name.
The one no living tongue should remember.
"…Aetherion…"
I turned slowly, pulse hammering in my throat. The wind didn't blow. Nothing moved.
But the tree to my left had changed. Thin glyphs burned across its trunk now—runes that shimmered with each syllable it should not know.
"Did you hear that?" I whispered.
Lyra didn't turn. "Don't answer it."
"It said my name—"
"Don't. Answer."
She kept walking. Faster now. Her hand hovered near the blade at her hip. Aeris hissed low in my ear.
"They're not talking to you," he whispered. "They're talking through you."
I stumbled forward, eyes darting from tree to tree.
Another whisper.
Another name.
This time: Lyra's.
Her real name. The one she never told me.
She flinched.
"Why do they know us?" I demanded.
"Because they were here before the rifts," she said. "Before kingdoms. Before stars. These trees remember the First Flame. They watched it burn. They remember what we were—before we were shattered."
I touched one of the trunks, lightly.
A mistake.
Visions exploded across my mind—a screaming sky, black wings unfurling across suns, a hand (mine?) reaching for something buried deep inside the dirt, a blade that split a planet in two, and the sound of a voice I haven't heard in this life but know like bone knows marrow.
"You failed us."
I staggered back, breath ragged.
"What did you see?" Lyra asked, voice tight.
"I… I don't know."
But that was a lie.
Because I saw myself. Not as I am—but as I was.
Godlike. Terrible. Alone.
"I think I killed something," I muttered. "Something sacred. Or… or maybe I became it."
She didn't answer.
We pressed deeper. The forest narrowed. The trees grew denser—no longer trees, but statues of wood and root, their faces warped into expressions of anguish or awe. Their eyes followed us.
And then, the ground whispered.
Not aloud. But underneath our feet, beneath the soil. Echoes of voices wrapped in layers of time. Too many voices. Chanting. Singing. Screaming.
They sang of the Throne Beneath the Earth.
They called it The Broken Monarch.
I collapsed to one knee as pain lanced through my skull. A name echoed, not mine—but related to me. A brother. A twin. Or… a rival?
Lucien.
That name again.
I heard it before—in a vision, when divine steel pierced my side.
Now it returned, coiled in the roots.
"Lucien weeps. Lucien waits. Lucien will burn the lie from your flesh."
I clutched my chest.
It burned there. A star-seal beneath my ribs.
Aeris jumped down, eyes glowing now.
"Something's wrong," he growled. "The forest is pulling too hard. If we stay, you'll drown in the past."
Lyra spun, eyes frantic. "There's a clearing ahead. If we reach it, the voices weaken."
But the trees shifted.
Literally moved.
One slammed down between us and the path forward.
Its bark split open—slowly. Horribly. Like skin tearing to reveal a second mouth.
Inside was me.
A figure, shaped like me. Eyes gold and hollow. Hands bleeding starlight. A smile like an eclipse.
It opened its mouth.
And in my voice, it whispered:
"You were never the savior. Only the fire before the flood."
I stumbled back.
Aeris leapt in front of me, growling. Lyra drew steel. The figure stepped forward, but as it did, its body split into mist—and that mist flowed into the roots.
Gone.
"What was that?" I gasped.
Lyra said nothing.
But Aeris muttered:
"…A memory echo. That forest pulled your guilt from the past and made it real. It's what they do. The Whisper-Forest lies—but not by creating things. By revealing them."
I looked down at my hands. They glowed faintly now, light pulsing under the skin like something trying to break out.
My fingers curled.
I wanted to deny it all.
But I couldn't.
Because even now, deep in the roots of this cursed forest, I recognized the version of myself I saw.
And worse still—
I wasn't sure I disagreed with him.