Chapter 11 – What the Dying Remember
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The fires in the Free Remnant camp burned low, throwing long, uncertain shadows across the broken earth. Smoke drifted toward the stars, which had begun to pulse strangely again—brightening and dimming like the heartbeat of some distant, dreaming thing.
Anterz sat alone beside the largest fire, staring into the embers. His armor was scorched. His hands were nicked with shallow cuts that would sting later, once adrenaline finally fled. Valteris rested across his knees, dull and heavy, like a blade that had seen too much in too little time.
The taste of the battle still clung to the back of his throat: blood, dust, old regrets.
But it wasn't the memory of fighting that haunted him.
It was the memory of Theron—broken, shackled, singing songs he hadn't chosen.
That haunted him worst of all.
---
Elaria returned quietly, her boots barely stirring the ash.
She crouched by the fire, tossing him a strip of dried meat.
He caught it without looking.
"Still unconscious?" he asked.
"For now," she said. "They stitched what wounds they could. But..." She hesitated.
"But?"
She wrapped her arms around her knees, voice low. "The damage wasn't just physical. He's... stitched wrong inside. Not just flesh. Memory."
Anterz finally looked at her.
"Can he be saved?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "I've never seen someone pulled back this far. It's like trying to unmake a story already told."
They fell into silence.
The fire crackled, small and angry.
---
Midnight passed.
The sky trembled again, faint ripples passing across the stars like ripples over black water.
Anterz couldn't sleep.
Neither could Elaria.
They sat together, silent sentries against a night that refused to sleep.
When the first bird-cry pierced the air—a single, shrill note of something not quite living—Elaria rose.
"He's awake," she said simply.
Anterz followed her through the camp.
---
They found Theron lying on a battered cot inside one of the patched-up tents, wrapped in a rough blanket. A small oil lamp burned near his head, throwing his face into flickering shadow.
He looked older now.
Not just tired.
Aged, as if the years he should have lived had been burned into him all at once.
His eyes fluttered open as they entered.
And though he smiled faintly, there was no mistaking the sorrow behind it.
"Still ugly, Anterz," Theron rasped.
Anterz allowed himself a thin smile.
"And you look like hell."
Theron coughed—a dry, rattling sound—and shifted slightly, wincing.
"Felt worse," he muttered.
He turned his head, regarding Elaria with something like wonder.
"You survived," he said softly. "I'm glad."
"So did you," she said, sitting at his bedside.
"For now," Theron murmured. His voice cracked on the last word.
---
Anterz pulled a stool close, sitting heavily.
"What happened to you?"
Theron's gaze grew distant.
"I stayed behind," he said. "When you broke the Heart, when the Tower fell... I stayed in the core. Tried to hold the pieces together. Tried to give the world time to heal."
He shivered.
"But memory doesn't heal. It festers."
He turned hollow eyes on them.
"The Choir found me there. Or maybe... they grew from me. It's hard to tell."
Anterz leaned forward.
"What do you mean?"
---
Theron exhaled slowly.
"When the gods fell, their memories didn't just scatter. Some of them stayed stitched into the Tower's bones. Rooted deep. Waiting."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"The Choir wasn't born from worship. It was born from hunger. From every unfinished prayer, every broken oath, every last whisper of 'what if...?' that was never answered."
He opened his eyes again, and Anterz saw real fear there.
"Those memories fed on the Tower's ruin. On mine. They shaped themselves into songs. Into monsters. Into kings."
---
Elaria's voice shook.
"The Choir King?"
Theron nodded weakly.
"Not a man. Not a god. A... convergence. A memory given will."
He gripped Anterz's sleeve weakly.
"You have to understand. He doesn't just want to restore the gods."
He licked his cracked lips.
"He wants to overwrite everything."
---
Outside the tent, the wind rose, carrying faint whispers.
Half-remembered songs.
Names Anterz had never spoken.
Faces he had never known.
The world itself trembled on the edge of remembering wrong.
---
Elaria swallowed hard.
"What's the plan, then? Destroy the Choir King?"
Theron shook his head fiercely—too fiercely. He gasped, clutching his chest, but forced the words out.
"You can't kill him."
"Why not?" Anterz demanded.
"Because he's not... a single thing. He's networked—tied to every fracture, every echo. Kill him here, he rises elsewhere."
He gritted his teeth against pain.
"You have to cut the roots."
Anterz frowned.
"The fractures?"
"No," Theron whispered. "The wells."
---
Silence fell, heavy and immediate.
Even the wind seemed to hush.
Elaria leaned in.
"The wells where memory congealed," she said. "Like the one under the Cradle."
Theron nodded.
"They're seeds. Anchors. Places where the Choir's dream is strongest. As long as even one stands, the King can rebuild."
He squeezed Anterz's hand once.
"You have to find them."
"Destroy them."
He paused.
"And survive it."
---
Anterz sat back, staring into nothing.
It wasn't just a war against a man.
It was a war against hope itself—against all the dreams and regrets and songs the world had ever whispered into the dark.
Destroying the wells wouldn't just mean fighting.
It would mean fighting memories.
Dreams people didn't want to lose.
Maybe even his own.
---
Elaria stood.
"How many wells?"
Theron's face crumpled.
"Six," he said. "Scattered across Elaran. Each tied to a different forgotten god."
He swallowed.
"And one deeper than the rest. Hidden."
Anterz's voice was low.
"The King's cradle."
Theron nodded once.
---
Outside, a low horn sounded.
Short. Sharp.
Not a warning.
A summons.
Anterz and Elaria exchanged a glance.
They stepped outside into the cold light of pre-dawn.
At the edge of the camp, a messenger from the Free Remnant stood panting, blood running down one arm.
"The Choir—" he gasped.
"They're coming."
---
Across the broken fields, a new storm gathered.
Not a memory storm this time.
A march.
Hundreds of Choir-blooded soldiers.
Singers with glowing throats.
Dream-beasts stitched from regrets.
And leading them—
A knight clad in armor of shivering glass, wielding a sword longer than a man was tall.
The Choir King's Hand.
---
Anterz drew Valteris.
The blade pulsed once—eager.
Elaria grinned, wild and fierce.
"You ready?"
Anterz flexed his fingers around the hilt.
"No," he said.
"But when has that ever stopped us?"
---
The first horns sounded again.
The Remnant rallied—shouts, banners rising.
A desperate defense.
A last stand, maybe.
Or the beginning of something more.
---
Theron's voice carried faintly from the tent behind them.
"Remember..."
"Memory isn't fate."
"It's a choice."
---
The ground shook as the Choir army approached.
The sky darkened.
The dreams roared louder.
And Anterz smiled grimly, stepping forward into the coming storm.
Because he still had one choice left.
And he would fight for it.
---