Chapter 10 – The Memory Siege
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The fortress rose from the broken earth like a wound that had refused to heal.
It wasn't made of stone.
It was built from remembered ruins—splintered walls, inverted towers, shattered bridges stacked atop one another in a madman's vision of a citadel. It stretched impossibly tall, scraping the low, churning sky.
At its heart: the Choir King's first stronghold.
And around it, battle raged.
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Anterz and Elaria crouched atop a ridge overlooking the scene.
Below them, a ragged army fought desperately against the Choir-blooded.
Men and women armed with battered steel, stolen magic, crude shields painted with a single symbol:
> A shattered sun.
The Free Remnant.
Survivors who refused the memory plague.
Rebels without gods, fighting a war without mercy.
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Elaria wiped blood from her temple—some from earlier, some from now.
"This isn't just defense," she said.
Anterz nodded grimly.
"They're trying to storm the fortress."
He tightened his grip on Valteris.
"We're not going around this time."
She smirked, exhausted but defiant.
"I wasn't planning to."
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A scream tore the air.
A Free Remnant fighter—a boy no older than sixteen—was seized by a Choir soldier.
The soldier's face glowed from within, veins lit with false memories.
He rammed his hand into the boy's forehead.
For a heartbeat, the boy froze.
Then began to change.
Armor blossomed over his flesh, memory-forged and burning.
His eyes went blank.
He turned, mouth open in a voiceless hymn, and attacked his own people.
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Elaria swore.
Anterz didn't hesitate.
He vaulted down the ridge, Valteris howling free of its scabbard.
The ground shook as he landed.
Three Choir-blooded turned toward him, jaws splitting into impossible grins.
They charged.
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First clash:
Anterz met the first with a low sweep—cutting through the soldier's knee, then pivoting to sever his throat before he hit the ground.
Second:
The next tried to pierce his side with a spear made of memory-light.
Anterz caught the weapon with his bare hand—let it burn into his skin—and dragged the wielder forward, running him through in a single brutal thrust.
Third:
The last leapt high, twin axes flashing.
Anterz raised Valteris.
The two weapons met in a shriek of twisted music.
The force drove him back a step—but only a step.
He gritted his teeth.
And slammed his forehead into the attacker's.
Bone crunched.
The Choir-blooded dropped.
Anterz finished it with a downward stab, clean and merciless.
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Across the field, Elaria fought like a storm.
Her dagger sang silver arcs through the air.
She didn't match strength with the Choir-blooded—she broke their rhythm, slipping inside their strikes, cutting tendons, slashing throats.
The field became a patchwork of dead men and dying dreams.
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A Free Remnant captain—a woman with one arm and armor stitched from scavenged plates—waved them toward the gates.
"Push to the breach!" she shouted, voice raw.
Anterz and Elaria sprinted toward the shattered archway where the fortress had cracked.
More Choir soldiers spilled out.
Singers, their mouths sewn open.
Beastmen twisted by failed memories.
False knights wielding blades that bled light.
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Anterz hit them like a hammer.
Valteris blurred in his hands—no longer a tool, but an extension of the will that refused to bow.
Steel clanged.
Light burst.
The air reeked of burning thought.
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A false knight swung a hammer big enough to shatter stone.
Anterz ducked, rolled, came up slicing.
The knight's arm dropped to the mud.
He didn't scream.
Didn't bleed.
He simply shattered, like a statue forgetting it existed.
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Elaria drove a knife into a Singer's throat.
The hymn cut off mid-note.
The Free Remnant charged after them, roaring their own defiance.
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Inside the fortress, the air was worse.
Heavy.
Sticky.
Memory clung to the walls, oozing from broken stones.
Visions flickered at the edges of sight:
Victories never won.
Loves never lost.
Worlds that begged to be real.
It took everything Anterz had to focus.
Every step felt like wading through the dreams of a dying god.
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Deeper inside, the fortress pulsed.
A heartbeat of wrongness.
The Choir King wasn't here.
Not yet.
But his echo was.
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They reached the inner sanctum.
A massive hall, lined with statues of gods who had never existed.
At its center, a well.
And above the well, suspended by chains of light—
A figure.
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Anterz froze.
Elaria inhaled sharply.
It was a man.
Tattered robes.
Long hair matted with blood.
Eyes open—but empty.
Anterz's chest tightened.
He knew this man.
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It was Theron.
The Warden of the Last Seal.
One of the few who had helped Anterz destroy the Tower.
He had stayed behind.
Chosen the end.
And yet—here he was.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Anchored.
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Elaria stepped forward.
"Theron," she whispered.
The man's head twitched.
The chains hummed.
The memory-stone at the center of the well pulsed faster.
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Without warning, Theron screamed.
The sound cracked the walls.
And from the broken statues poured guardians—memory-forged beasts of glass and bone, twisted into shapes that should not stand.
They rushed Anterz and Elaria without hesitation.
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First beast:
A six-legged wolf, its body stitched from broken mirrors.
It lunged.
Anterz sidestepped.
Drove Valteris into its spine.
The wolf exploded into a storm of broken reflections.
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Second:
A serpent with wings, its eyes weeping chains.
It dove at Elaria.
She dodged under the first strike.
Threw her dagger—catching it in the mouth.
It convulsed, trying to sing, and shattered mid-air.
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But they kept coming.
Ten.
Twenty.
More.
A tide of monsters born from regret.
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Anterz fought with grim precision.
Valteris flashed in killing arcs.
The ground became a slick of crushed memories.
Elaria fought at his side, fast and brutal.
But it wasn't enough.
They were being buried.
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The Free Remnant captain crashed through the doorway with a handful of soldiers, yelling:
"Cover them!"
She hurled a spear that pinned one glass-beast to the wall.
The tide slowed—barely.
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Anterz pointed at the well.
"That's the anchor!"
Elaria nodded, breathless.
"I'll get Theron!"
He covered her as she sprinted through the melee, weaving between beasts and memories.
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Elaria reached the well.
The chains of light shivered as she touched them.
Theron's head snapped toward her.
For a terrible moment, she saw not the man—
But the memory.
The tool.
The Choir's first Herald.
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He lunged.
Chains whipping out like serpents.
Elaria dodged the first.
Slashed at the second.
Drove her dagger into the memory-stone.
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The chains screamed.
The fortress shook.
Theron fell, limp, to the ground.
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The beasts froze mid-attack.
Crumbled.
Faded.
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Anterz rushed to Elaria's side.
Theron coughed once.
Blood.
But his eyes cleared.
He looked up at them.
And for a moment, he smiled.
"Still stubborn," he rasped.
Then fainted.
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The Free Remnant captain barked orders.
"Get him out!"
Her soldiers lifted Theron's broken body carefully.
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Anterz and Elaria followed them out into the dying light.
The fortress crumbled behind them—stones collapsing into ash and regret.
Another victory.
Small.
Bloody.
Real.
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At camp that night, Theron slept under heavy guard.
The Free Remnant made rough celebration—raiding supplies, lighting fires that pushed back the sickly dark.
Elaria sat by Anterz, watching the flames.
"You think he'll live?" she asked.
Anterz stared at the stars.
"I don't know."
She leaned against him.
"You saved him."
"No," Anterz said.
"He saved himself."
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Far to the east, above another broken city, a new storm of memories gathered.
And somewhere beyond it, the Choir King sang a new verse.
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