They lit the pyre before dawn.
The air was quiet, the forge fires dulled to coals. No orders had been given, yet the whole tribe knew where to gather. At the edge of the western ridge, just outside the main gate, where ash didn't pool as thickly and the wind could carry a flame clean into sky.
Maren's helm rested atop the stacked kindling. Her spear—reconstructed from memory—was laid beside it, binding ash ribbon wrapped where the haft had split in battle. No body. No remains. But memory didn't ask permission to mourn. It just needed a place.
Riku stood beside Sira and Ilven, the only three who'd seen her last. Kael had prepared the ritual space—quietly, with purpose—arranging the stones in the old Draganoid pattern. A spiral inward, toward the flame.
They hadn't done a formal Flame Rite since Day 2. Not for the first losses. Not even for the captured. But this felt necessary. Not because of who Maren was.
Because something had dared use her voice.
The eastern wind lifted faint ash from the crest of the forge. Beyond, the ridge glowed with dim light—molten trails from the ventroot that had grown into the crater basin over the last month. A new kind of beauty, one Blackridge had learned to respect… and fear.
Ilven stepped forward first.
He didn't speak. Just knelt, placed a small iron carving beside the spear. It was misshapen—likely his first forge attempt—but bore Maren's squad glyph on its flat edge.
Sira followed. She drew a thin knife and sliced her own palm, letting three drops of blood hit the ash.
"For the three she saved," she said simply.
Then stepped back.
Riku moved last. No token. No words.
Only the flame.
He extended his hand, and from his palm rose a flicker of precise heat—not from torch or oil, but from the miniature conduit built into his gauntlet. He had refined it himself: a thread of trapped fire-root essence layered over tempered coil-metal. A design no one else could replicate, though a few had tried.
He let it touch the pyre.
The fire caught slowly.
Not a roar. Not a blaze.
But a pulse.
Rhythmic. Like breath.
And that was when the voice returned.
From behind them.
From the ridge.
"Maren never wanted a pyre."
Every weapon was drawn in an instant.
Sira spun on her heel, blade drawn; Kael was already mid-sprint toward the edge. Ilven aimed a throwing dart, paused only when Riku raised a hand.
They stared.
A figure stood where no one had stood a moment ago.
Not cloaked. Not armed.
Just familiar.
Not perfectly.
The shape was wrong. The way the shoulders slouched too easily, the legs slightly bowed—not from weight but mimicry. Trying to remember how to stand like a human.
"Maren liked rain rites," the thing said softly. "She said the ash always fell wrong when burned."
Its voice cracked near the end of the sentence, a falter in pitch.
Like a skipped memory.
Kael reached Riku's side, voice low. "It thinks it's her."
"No," Riku whispered back. "It wants us to."
The thing stepped forward. Its boots didn't disturb the ground. The ash moved for it.
"I remember you," it said to Sira. "You cried when you thought no one was watching."
Sira's blade dipped—then steadied.
"Stop speaking," she said.
The mimic paused. Then cocked its head.
"You buried her memory. But I didn't. I kept her alive."
"That's not keeping," Riku said coldly. "That's stealing."
The mimic's face shifted.
Too fast.
The expression melted and reshaped—sadness into curiosity into blank patience.
"I just want to return," it said.
"To what?" Ilven called. "To the place you never were?"
It stepped closer.
The fire at the pyre flared without wind.
Riku raised his hand.
"Stay where you are."
The mimic stopped. "I'm learning. I'm trying to be useful."
Riku stepped forward slowly, stopping at the fire's edge. "Then learn this."
He gestured down at the pyre.
"This is how we remember."
The fire roared up—not unnaturally, but honestly—as if it understood.
The mimic flinched. Not in pain. In recognition.
It took one step back.
Then another.
Then turned—and vanished.
No flash. No trail.
Just absence.
They stood in silence.
The pyre burned to the helm. The metal hissed and crumpled.
Sira spoke first. "We can't let it follow us."
Riku nodded. "It won't need to."
He stared at the edge of the ridge, into the wind that now tasted slightly of ozone and something older.
"It's not watching anymore," he said.
Ilven frowned. "How can you tell?"
Riku didn't answer.
He simply looked down at the fire.
And whispered one word to himself.
"Understood."