Silence falls like a blade.
Lunaya feels her own breath catch in her throat.
"My... name?" she repeats.
Erynd nods slowly, his eyes becoming almost translucent,
shot through with a flash of fear she has never seen in him before.
"The real name. The one they took from you when they erased you.
The one that connected you to yourself... and to your power."
Kael clenched his teeth.
"We don't need that. She doesn't need that."
Erynd looked at him, calmly, implacably.
"If the Corbins get your name before you do,
they'll be able to reach you anywhere.
Talk to you.
Command you.
Claim you."
Lunaya turns pale.
"What do you mean... command me?""
Erynd takes a breath, as if he's about to tell her something unbearable.
"Your name is a key. Not a word. A key that opens you
... and closes you.
A key that nullifies your will if someone else possesses it."
Kael growls deeply, an animalistic, primal sound that makes the clearing vibrate.
"They won't touch her."
Erynd looks down at Lunaya.
"They've already started."
She freezes.
A burning sensation runs down her spine, followed by a dull,
cold feeling, as if something, or someone,
were brushing against her mind.
Kael feels it too. He turns to her abruptly, panicked.
"Lunaya? Hey! Stay with me, look at me!"
His thumb caresses her cheek,
but she feels as if her vision is doubling. The trees shake,
becoming darker. A shadow passes behind a trunk.
Erynd staggers, his feathers bristling.
"They whisper her lost name. They search for the broken syllable
... the missing piece..."
He raises his head abruptly.
"They're testing her."
Lunaya closes her eyes, and a sound crosses her mind.
A breath.
A syllable.
A muffled whisper, as if someone were trying to say something that no longer exists.
She trembles.
Kael pulls her close.
"LUNA! Stay here. With me. Breathe. Do you hear me?"
But the sensation intensifies.
As if someone were turning an invisible key in her chest.
As if she had to answer a call she doesn't understand.
"I... I feel... something..."
She swallows, a cold panic rising in her throat.
"Someone is looking for me."
Erynd takes a step forward, alarmed.
"Don't answer. Don't think about anything.
Don't let any emotions rise to the surface."
"How do you expect me to?!"
Her voice breaks.
"It's in my head!"
Kael cups her face in his hands,
his voice trembling with raw, desperate love.
"They're not the ones who will tell you who you are.
It's you.
Do you hear me? It's you!"
Lunaya wants to answer, but the burning sensation grows.
A white light explodes behind her eyelids.
And suddenly, she hears a voice.
Not Kael's.
Not Erynd's.
Not a human voice.
An ancient voice.
Cold.
Authoritative.
"Come back."
The ground gives way beneath her.
Her body tenses.
Kael screams her name, but the sound fades away,
as if muffled by water.
Lunaya suffocates.
She falls to her knees.
Erynd's eyes widen in horror.
"They're trying to trigger her!
They want her name from within!"
Kael doesn't think.
He pulls Lunaya close to his chest and lets out a wild scream that makes the air vibrate.
His Lupine Resonance explodes,
creating a wave of heat that pushes the shadow back into Lunaya's mind.
The grip loosens.
She gasps, taking a violent breath as if she has come back from far away.
Erynd trembles.
"That won't be enough.
They know she's vulnerable.
They'll push again. Again. Until she gives in."
Kael glares at him, his eyes narrowed with stifled anger.
"So what do we do?
Wait for them?
Run away?
Hide her?"
Erynd looks up at the moon, and the truth falls like a sentence.
"There's only one way to stop them from taking her name."
Kael growls.
"Tell me."
Erynd stares at Lunaya.
"She must find it before they do."
A sharp silence.
Lunaya's heart races.
"How... do I do that?"
Erynd crouches down in front of her.
His eyes turn dark, an almost liquid silver.
"There is a place where your name cannot lie," he whispers.
Kael stiffens, immediately suspicious.
"What place?"
Erynd answers without taking his eyes off her.
"The Sanctuary of the First Breath."
The wind picks up suddenly,
as if the mere name had awakened something in the forest.
Lunaya frowns.
"Where is it?"
Erynd takes a deep breath, as if the answer is difficult for him.
"Where you were first born."
Kael growls, a low, instinctive sound.
"Stop talking in riddles."
"I am not talking in riddles, Erynd replies.
I am speaking as someone who has seen truths you are not ready to hear."
He turns to Lunaya.
"Your true name is sealed in the roots of the world.
The Corbins tore you away from it,
but they could never enter the Sanctuary. No one can.
He pauses.
Except you."
A shiver runs through Lunaya.
"And... if I go there, I'll get my name back?"
Erynd nods slowly.
"Yes."
Then his gaze darkens.
"But it's not just a name. It's everything they took from you.
Everything you've forgotten.
Everything they forced you to forget."
Kael places a protective hand on Lunaya's back.
"You don't need that."
Erynd stares at him, calm, without aggression.
"If she doesn't get it back, they'll take it.
And if the Corbins have her name...
He swallows.
They'll be able to extinguish her."
Lunaya freezes.
So does Kael.
"Extinguish?" Kael repeats, his voice icy.
"Empty her, Erynd says softly.
Take away her will. Her soul. Her memory."
He turns to Lunaya.
"And you will become... a puppet. A vessel."
The air around them thickens.
Kael pulls Lunaya closer.
"Never.
His voice is a growl.
They will never touch her."
Erynd tilts his head slightly.
"Then she must remember before they do."
A heavy silence falls.
Lunaya inhales slowly.
"This Sanctuary... where is it?"
Erynd closes his eyes for a second.
When he reopens them, something in his gaze has changed.
"North of the forests.
Where the trees never age.
Where the earth breathes.
Where your name was spoken even before your body was formed."
Kael shudders, a visible tremor running through his shoulders.
"It's a dead zone, he says.
A forbidden territory. No wolf enters there."
""No ravens either, replied Erynd.
That's why it's the only place where she can be herself."
Lunaya frowned.
"Why me?"
Erynd looked at her as one looks at a truth too heavy to hold in one's bare hands.
"Because you were created there."
Her eyes widened.
Kael does too.
"Created?" Kael whispers.
Erynd nods.
"You weren't born like the others.
His voice is almost a whisper.
You were woven. Sculpted. Called into the world.
He pauses for a second, the words tearing at his throat.
You were an oath made flesh."
Lunaya feels her skin tingle, as if her body recognizes something her memory still refuses to accept.
"Who... created me?"
Erynd lowers his eyes.
"The world itself. The Breath."
Kael stands up, furious.
"No. No, that's impossible. Those are stories. Myths."
Erynd looks at him, unblinking.
"And yet she is here."
Lunaya feels her throat tighten.
"And if I find my name... what do I get back?"
Erynd answers without hesitation.
"Everything."
Kael clenches his fists.
"It could destroy her."
"Or restore her, replies Erynd.
But if she doesn't, she'll die. Not her body. Her."
Lunaya's heart beats too fast.
"And... if I refuse?"
Erynd stares at her for a long time.
"Then the Corbins will find you.
And they won't ask your opinion about finishing what they started."
A wave of dizziness sweeps through her chest.
She finds it difficult to breathe.
Kael rests his forehead against hers.
"You don't have to decide now. We'll find another option.
We always do."
Erynd watches silently.
Something like pain flashes across his eyes.
"Time is running out," he whispers.
"They called you once. They'll do it again."
Lunaya closes her eyes.
In the darkness, she hears another broken syllable.
A syllable that wants to be hers.
A syllable that could save her... or lose her.
She opens her eyes again.
"I want to go to the Sanctuary."
Kael stares at her, stunned.
Erynd lowers his head.
Not in triumph.
In silent devotion.
"Then, says Erynd, we leave at dawn."
The night seems to hold its breath.
And far away, deep in the forest...
A disembodied voice still whispered a fragment of a lost name.
Like a promise.
Like a threat.