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CHAPTER 43 — When Shadows Learned His Name
The world tilted around Aren as the mist thinned, carrying the last echo of the shadow's voice. His heartbeat still rattled violently inside his chest, but the forest had returned to its usual shape—twisted, ancient, and cold.
Lirien guided him to sit on a fallen log, never taking her eyes off him.
"Aren… whatever that thing was, it reacted to you. It knew you."
Aren swallowed hard.
"I know."
Lirien knelt in front of him. "Do you understand what that means?"
"No," he whispered. "And that's the part that scares me."
Because deep in his bones, something felt wrong.
Not the forest.
Not the magic.
Him.
He pressed his palms to his temples as a sharp headache clawed through his skull.
"I don't belong here," he said through clenched teeth. "Not the way people think. Not the way even I thought."
Lirien's expression softened, but her voice stayed steady.
"You said the shadow… recognized you."
Aren nodded slowly.
"It wasn't just looking at me. It was—studying me. Like it remembered something I forgot."
The wind stirred, carrying the faint scent of iron, damp soil, and something older—like dust from a sealed room finally disturbed.
Lirien placed a hand over his trembling one.
"Aren… look at me."
He forced his eyes up.
"You are not helpless," she said firmly. "You are not broken. Whatever this world is showing you—whatever it's pulling from your past—it doesn't control you."
Aren wanted to believe her.
But the image of the silhouette stepping through the trees kept replaying in his mind.
The way its head tilted—
The way it reached for him—
The way it whispered his name like it had waited years to say it again.
Aren whispered, "Lirien… what if this world didn't summon me? What if my memories invented that summoning to protect me from the truth?"
Lirien froze.
"Aren," she breathed, "that would mean—"
"That I wasn't summoned at all," he said quietly. "I was pulled. Dragged in. Because something in this world is tied to me in ways I don't understand."
And maybe… never tried to understand.
Before Lirien could respond, the ground beneath them trembled—softly at first, then harder, like a distant heartbeat shaking the soil.
Aren shot up.
"What now?"
Lirien drew her blade, eyes narrowing at the shifting mist.
"That's not a creature," she said. "That's reality. It's changing again."
The trees around them flickered—just for a blink—replaced by white walls and flickering ceiling lights.
Aren's breath hitched.
The hallway.
But only for a moment.
The forest snapped back, but the air remained distorted, vibrating with unstable magic.
Something was bleeding through.
Aren took a step back—only for a voice to whisper behind him:
"Running again?"
He spun around.
Nothing there.
But the voice wasn't the shadow's.
Wasn't Echo's.
It sounded like—
Him.
Lirien grabbed his arm. "Aren—we need to leave this area. The fracture is widening."
"But the voice—"
"Is not real," she said sharply. "Not in the way you fear."
Aren didn't fully believe her.
Not anymore.
Because when he looked down, just for an instant, he saw footsteps in the dirt that didn't belong to him or Lirien.
Small.
Bare.
Wet.
Echo's.
Aren's heart nearly stopped.
"Lirien," he whispered shakily, "I think… I think the fractures aren't just memories."
Lirien tightened her grip. "Then what are they?"
Aren stared into the dark forest, feeling something watching him from every angle.
"Warnings," he whispered.
"Or pieces of the truth trying to find me."
Lirien pulled him close.
"Then we face it together."
The tremor subsided. The mist settled.
But the world felt different now.
Thinner.
Fragile.
Listening.
Aren took a slow, shaky breath.
"Lirien…"
"Yes?"
He looked toward the shadows where the silhouette had stood.
"It knows my name.
But I don't know mine anymore."
And somewhere in the depths of the forest—
just beyond hearing—
something laughed.
Soft.
Familiar.
Broken.
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