The letter vanished like dry leaves carried off by the wind. Only the smell of old paper and a strange lightness in the air remained, as if something had been released, not delivered.
No one spoke. Not even Vespera, who would normally make a joke about "magical letters that only show up when we're hungry." Not even Elara, who sat with her grimoire open, eyes fixed on the pages as if she expected the answer to rise from between the lines. Not even Liriel, who stared at the horizon, her necklace pulsing with a slower, deeper light.
I held the small piece of paper that had fallen from the letter — a smaller, almost insignificant fragment that had come loose when the breeze carried it away. On it, only one line, written in ink that still glowed faintly:
The path reveals itself where the shadows do not fear being seen.
Vespera took the piece, turning it over and over. "This isn't a map. It's a badly written poem."
"It's a map," said Liriel, without taking her eyes off the horizon. "It's just not drawn on paper. It's drawn in memory."
Elara closed the grimoire with a soft thud. "So… what do we do? Do we go to Orlanthe? The place where he disappeared? The city that vanished?"
"No," answered Liriel. "We go to the place where he chose to disappear. Where he wrote for the last time. Where he tried… to remember who he was."
I stayed silent. "And where is that?"
She finally looked at me. Her eyes were no longer those of a fallen goddess. They were the eyes of someone who had lost everything and still decided to remain.
"In the forest of Neth'Vael. Where he wrote his first poem. Where he wrote his last plea."
Vespera raised an eyebrow. "And you know that why? Because you were his secretary?"
Liriel didn't laugh. Didn't scoff. She just said:
"Because I was the first person he ever read to."
The silence was heavier than the weight of the pack on my back.
The forest of Neth'Vael wasn't on the maps because it wasn't a place meant to be found. It was a place meant to be remembered.
The road that led to it was long, and there was no one to guide us. No one who had returned. No one who had heard the whispers and still had the courage to speak.
When we arrived, the air was already different. It wasn't cold. It wasn't warm. It was… waiting. As if the forest itself was breathing, and every leaf, every branch, every root knew we were there — not as intruders, but as rememberers.
The trees weren't tall. They were ancient. Their trunks were dark, but not rotten. Their bark bore runes — not carved by magic, but by human hands. Small, delicate. Words. Sentences. Fragments of verses.
Elara stopped before a tree whose bark looked polished. Carved into it, with care:
"If silence is the greatest fear, then the bravest voice is the one that still dares to whisper."
She touched the carving with her fingers. "This… is his."
Liriel approached. She said nothing. She only placed her hand over the same carving. And for a moment, the necklace on her chest glowed, not with light, but with warmth — as if responding to a touch forgotten for centuries.
Vespera, who normally refused to walk in silence, stayed quiet. She walked behind us, her eyes scanning the trees, the roots, the small pieces of paper that seemed to have fallen from the sky — aged parchment sheets, with thin, nearly invisible handwriting.
"Look at this," she murmured, picking up a fragment caught between two roots. "'The wind does not hear me. But you… you heard me.'"
She looked at me. "This is a letter. Written to someone."
"To Liriel," said Elara, without lifting her eyes from the ground. "He wrote to her. Many times. Before he became a general. Before he became what everyone remembers."
Liriel didn't answer. She only walked ahead.
The forest wasn't dense. It was… open. As if it had been shaped to let the light in. And at its center, where the ground curved gently like a hand inviting someone closer, there was a small clearing. In it, a simple wooden table, two chairs, and on the table, a book.
It wasn't a large book. Nor a heavy one. It was worn leather, with frayed edges. The cover lay open.
And on the first page, in handwriting I recognized — light, fluid, almost musical — it was written:
"For whoever comes after me:
Do not seek me to win. Seek me to understand. Because what I did was not wrong. It was just... very lonely."
Elara approached, hesitant. "He wasn't a general. He was a poet who lost his voice."
"And then someone gave him a weapon instead of a quill," Vespera added.
I sat down in the chair. The wood was warm. As if someone had just been sitting there.
Liriel stood before the book. She didn't touch it. Didn't open it. She just looked.
"I saw him here for the first time," she said at last. "He was twenty. Sitting in this same chair, writing about the moon. He said it looked like a broken mirror, and that all of us, mortals, were the scattered pieces."
She took a deep breath.
"I asked why he didn't write about gods. He replied: 'Because gods don't know what it's like to be afraid of being forgotten.'"
She closed her eyes.
"I called him a fool. And he smiled. And said: 'Maybe. But at least I'm a fool who still believes someone will read.'"
A soft breeze passed. A leaf fell. And on it, as if it had been placed there by someone who was no longer present, there was a single word written in silver ink:
"Come."
Elara looked at me. "He's not here. But he is waiting."
Liriel opened the book. The next page was blank. The one after it too. But the third… the third had something.
It wasn't text. It was a drawing.
A circle. Inside it, five points. Each point connected by thin lines. A flower. The five-petaled flower.
And below, a single sentence written in a different style — firmer, more urgent:
"The Seventh did not die. He was erased. But the fragments that carry his soul… they are all here. They are in you. They are calling me."
I looked at my pack. The amulet, the scepter, the ring, the orb, the pendant — they were all warm. Not with danger. With… response.
Vespera stepped closer. "So… he doesn't want us to kill him. He wants us to remember him."
"Yes," said Liriel. "And the only way to remember him… is to be ourselves."
Elara lifted the book. "And what if he's wrong? What if, by remembering him, he comes back… as he was before?"
Liriel closed the book carefully. "Then we will remember him as he is now."
She looked at me.
"Do you still want to know what to do, Takumi?"
I looked at the book. At the drawing of the flower. At the words he had left for someone who might never have existed.
And then I looked at Elara, who still trembled but held the book firmly. At Vespera, who wasn't making jokes, but stood there with her bow on her back, ready to protect. At Liriel, who had returned from death, not out of duty, but out of choice.
"No," I answered. "I know."
"What is it?" she asked.
"We're not going after him," I said. "We're going to wait for him to come."
Liriel smiled. A small smile. Genuine.
"Good answer."
Vespera laughed softly. "And if he doesn't come?"
"Then," said Elara, "we've already done what we needed to."
She opened the book again. And with the tip of her finger, she wrote on the last blank page:
"We are here.
And we still remember you."
The ink did not dry. It did not fade.
It shone.
As if it had been read.
The wind returned. And this time, it wasn't just a whisper.
It was a voice. Faint. Tired. But clear.
…thank you.
No one spoke.
But we all felt it.
And for the first time, it wasn't chaos that united us.
It was remembrance.
And the courage not to forget.
The forest breathed.
And we, without needing more words, began to walk back.
Because the next step wasn't to find a general.
It was to wait for a man, who had been forgotten, to find the courage to return.
And us? We would be here.
Even if the tavern bill was still waiting.
Even if Vespera had forgotten her bow in some tree.
Even if Elara had fainted from a "comfort-shadow" spell that only created a lovely reflection of stars.
And even if Liriel, passing by a tree with a carved verse, had whispered, almost imperceptibly:
Zephyron.
No one replied.
But the leaf that fell at that moment…