The world had changed since Lucian retrieved the first shard.
Across the globe, ancient monuments shimmered into visibility, their illusions shattered by the reawakening of myth. Obelisks that had long been buried now pierced the skyline of modern cities, and dormant ley-lines blazed like veins of fire under the Earth's skin. Old gods were no longer content to slumber in story—they stirred, tested, whispered.
The storm that had gathered over Mount Talos had not dissipated. It had split, coiling like a serpent across continents, birthing twin eyes over the Pacific and Atlantic. Myth was waking, and it was watching.
Lucian, Clara, Isaiah, and Velkyr stood at the edge of a dead forest. Before them stretched a canyon, unmarked on any map, guarded by petrified trees and thick with a silence so deep it felt alive. Beyond the canyon, surrounded by shifting mists, rose the spires of a city lost to history.
The City of Forgotten Kings.
"No one's ever returned from here," Isaiah murmured, checking the runes on his map. "The last known mention was from a Thamurian scribe over a thousand years ago. He said the city steals your name."
Clara adjusted the grip on her staff. "That's not poetic. That's a literal warning. If it erases your name, you forget who you are."
Lucian stepped forward, his voice calm. "That's why we must go together. Keep speaking your names. Speak mine if I falter. The city feeds on isolation."
Velkyr gave a sharp cry overhead and descended, landing on a stone pillar with unnerving grace. Her feathers shimmered with a faint gold light. "There's movement in the city. Shadows. They're watching."
"Let them watch," Lucian replied. "We're not the same people they expected."
---
Crossing the canyon was like walking through a dream half-remembered. The mist was not mere vapor—it whispered. It reached for their thoughts, probing, testing the seams of their memories. Clara's light wards flickered like candle flames against hurricane winds.
Lucian led with a shard hovering beside him, casting a faint glow that pushed the fog away like a divine halo. Every few minutes, he would speak names aloud:
"Clara. Isaiah. Velkyr. Lucian."
And they would repeat, anchoring themselves in shared remembrance.
The city emerged all at once—one step through mist, and it was suddenly there. Black stone towers pierced the sky. Roads paved in silver veins hummed with latent myth. Statues of crowned figures lined the streets, their faces half-worn away, their names scratched out.
"They were kings," Clara whispered, reading the shattered inscriptions. "But something removed their stories."
Isaiah frowned. "No, not something. Someone."
As they walked, figures began to appear—spectral remnants cloaked in royal garb, their faces covered by veils. They stood in doorways, watched from archways, silent and unmoving.
Lucian felt a tug in his chest.
One of the statues bore a broken crown.
The name beneath it had been violently carved away, but as Lucian touched the pedestal, a memory stirred—not his, but familiar. A sword raised in defiance. A battle cry shouted in ten languages. A sacrifice made to seal a bargain.
He staggered.
Clara rushed to his side. "Lucian!"
"I saw... I saw him. The Everking. This is where he fell."
Isaiah gasped. "This city didn't forget them. It consumed them. It exists to erase legacy."
They reached the center of the city—a throne plaza with no throne. Instead, at the center was a hole in reality, a wound in the air that pulsed like a heartbeat. Runes spiraled around it, forming a cage made of memory.
The shard at Lucian's side surged toward the void.
He gritted his teeth. "It wants to complete the next step."
A voice rang out—a whisper at first, then a chorus:
"Name yourself."
The void pulsed.
Clara and Isaiah stepped back. Velkyr screeched.
Lucian stepped forward.
"I am Lucian of Caer Theron. Son of the line of the Everking. Scion of myth."
The void hissed, and shapes emerged from it—figures in tattered regalia, kings without memory, clawing at the air.
Isaiah drew a protective ward. Clara readied a blast.
But Lucian did not fight.
He raised the shard. Its light expanded, and the shades screamed.
"I remember you!" he shouted. "Avaran the Builder. Sereth the Flame-Tender. Myrion the Twice-Crowned."
Each name struck like thunder. The shades stilled, faces flickering with humanity.
The wound sealed.
And in its place stood a second shard.
Lucian stepped forward and took it.
He spoke softly. "You are not forgotten. Not anymore."
---
Outside the city, as they emerged from the mist, the air was different. Lighter. The storm over Talos had split again.
And in the far distance, beyond the horizon, something massive moved beneath the sea.
Lucian looked toward it.
"We're not just awakening myths. We're unearthing a war the gods tried to bury."
Clara placed a hand on his arm. "Then we fight it together."
Isaiah nodded. "And we remember everything."