The journey north was a long, quiet funeral. They walked away from a void where a city of memory had stood, the sky behind them shimmering with the wound of its unmaking. Sineus felt the Heart of Truth, a hard, dense weight in its clay cylinder, tucked inside his tunic. It was a constant reminder of his purpose, the single point of focus in a world that had lost its anchor. He watched Alani Vainu, the guide from the Forest Folk, as she led them through the thinning southern woods into the deeper green of the north. Her steps were sure, her gaze distant. She was listening for a place the world had not yet forgotten.
For days they moved through lands that felt healthier, the Pod-sloy beneath Sineus’s sight growing thicker with the quiet, layered histories of ancient trees and undisturbed soil. The constant ache behind his eyes, a companion since Belogorod, eased into a dull thrum. Here, the past was not a chaotic storm but a settled dust. They left the open roads, following game trails and the whisper of streams. Fedor Sokolov, his face a mask of grim patience, checked their dwindling rations of hard biscuits and dried meat. He said little, his presence a solid, physical fact in a world of ghosts.
Levan Dadiani walked with a new, unsettling stillness. The Khevsur warrior’s pride had been scoured from him, leaving behind a core of cold, hard clarity. He and Fedor still carried Kira Zaytseva between them. The archivist remained lost in the silent echo of the dying star she had unleashed, her face pale and still, her breathing shallow. She was a living ghost, a testament to the price of their escape.
Then the forest changed. The trees grew larger, their bark thick and gnarled like the skin of old men. The air grew cool and damp, smelling of deep earth and moss that had not seen the sun in a century. Sound began to die. The crunch of their boots on the forest floor softened, the rustle of leaves muted. They had walked into a place of profound quiet.
Alani stopped. She turned, her eyes clear and calm. They stood at the edge of a clearing, a space where the trees were titans. Dappled sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, falling in soft, shifting pools on a floor of dark, rich soil. The air was still. It felt ancient.
— We are here, — Alani said, her voice barely a whisper, yet it carried in the strange silence. — The Sacred Grove.
Sineus stepped past her, into the clearing. The quiet was a presence. It was not the absence of sound, but the absorption of it. He felt the memories here, not as flickering images, but as a deep, resonant hum in the very substance of the world. They were held within the wood, in the soil, in the patient, living stillness of the grove.
— This is where the seed must be planted, — Alani confirmed, her hand resting on the rough bark of an immense oak. The tree felt less like an object and more like a witness.
Fedor and Levan gently lowered Kira to the ground, propping her against the base of a tree. Her eyes remained closed. Fedor took up a position at the edge of the clearing, his hand resting on his axe, his gaze sweeping the perimeter. Levan stood near Kira, a silent, unmovable guardian.
Alani’s gaze swept over the ancient trees, a look of reverence on her face. — These trees hold the true history. They do not forget. They do not cut away the pain. They absorb it all. They remember for the forest.
A living archive. The thought settled in Sineus’s mind. Not of stone and dead paper like the Scriptorium, but of wood and sap and slow, patient growth. It was the perfect antithesis to the Blight, which fed on the void of what was forgotten. Here, nothing was forgotten.
He walked to the center of the grove, to the oldest tree, a behemoth whose roots were thick as a man’s waist. This was the place. He knelt, the damp soil cool against his knees. With steady hands, he pulled the clay cylinder from his tunic. The wax seal Kira had broken was gone, the cap held in place by a simple leather tie. He undid the knot.
He tipped the cylinder, and the Heart of Truth rolled into his palm. It was smaller than he expected, a polished stone the size of a pigeon’s egg, dark and smooth. It was warm to the touch, and a faint, soft light pulsed from within its depths, a slow and steady heartbeat. This was the hope of the world. A single, tiny seed of truth.
He began to clear the soil at the base of the great tree, his fingers digging into the dark, rich earth. He would plant it here. He would give the world back its memory.
A twig snapped at the edge of the grove.
Fedor’s head jerked up. — Knyaz. Company.
Sineus looked up from his work. A figure stepped out from between two ancient trunks, moving from shadow into a pool of dappled sunlight. He was alone. He wore dark, functional steel, his face calm, his eyes holding a cold amusement. It was Kurov.
He had tracked them. Across plains and through forests, he had followed them here, to the heart of their hope.
Sineus rose slowly to his feet, the Heart of Truth clutched in his hand. He met the warlord’s gaze. Kurov was not a void anymore. Sineus’s sight, the vision that showed him the Pod-sloy, no longer saw a man-shaped hole in the world. He saw a man. But the armor the man wore was a screaming tapestry of stolen agony.
It was not a solid thing. It was a shimmering, layered shroud of misery. Sineus could see the memory of the Kinslayer War clinging to Kurov’s pauldrons, a greasy, flickering film of fraternal betrayal and blood on snow. He saw the memory of a northern famine, a horror cut from some city much like Belogorod, encrusting the steel of his gauntlets like a layer of spectral frost. The terror of Alani’s own people, a memory of a blight-scourge that had swept through their forests a generation ago, writhed around his greaves like living thorns of shadow.
He was a walking plague of despair, a thief of histories who wore his plunder as a shield. He had come to the quietest place in the world, and he had brought all its stolen screams with him.
Kurov smiled, a thin, predatory expression. His gaze was not on Sineus, but on the small, glowing seed in his hand.
— You have done well, little prince, — Kurov’s voice was calm, conversational. It did not belong in this silent place. — You brought my property to the perfect altar.
The warlord's words hung in the silent grove. The thief of histories had come to collect his final prize.
