The guild hall's atmosphere had shifted from a tomb to a buzzing hive. My exit was less of a terrifying parting of the seas and more of a... well, people still got out of the way, but now they were whispering about me, not just freezing in fear.
I waited for her outside, leaning against a pillar of smooth, cold bone. A few minutes later, she floated out, looking immensely pleased with herself.
"So,"
I said, pushing off the pillar.
"You seem to know a lot about me."
She grinned, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
"You could say that. You were... memorable."
"Memorable how? The 'incinerating a nest because it was too loud' kind of memorable, or the 'got kicked out of the Blessed Springs' kind of memorable?"
"Both,"
she laughed.
"But mostly the latter. You had a type. Spirits with a little... spark left in them. Who weren't ready to just fade away."
She floated a little closer, her voice dropping to a playful whisper.
"Let's just say your cot saw more action than most of the hunters' in there."
I blinked. The heat was back on my neck.
"You're telling me we...?"
"Once or twice,"
she said with a casual shrug that was anything but casual.
"Don't get a big head about it. You weren't the only charming rogue with hellfire for hands around here. But you were the most... dedicated."
I stared at her, my mind completely blank. I was trying to picture it. Me.
"Wow. Okay. So I was an amnesiac, terrifying, pyro-maniac... himbo?"
"Something like that,"
Lyra said, her smile softening.
"The point is, you weren't just a weapon. You were... fun. And you looked out for people you liked. So I'm returning the favor. Besides,"
she added, her tone turning practical,
"watching the great Cinder have a full-blown identity crisis is the most entertainment I've had in a decade."
"Glad I could be of service," I deadpanned.
"So,"
she said, clapping her hands together.
"The Tanglewoods. Where it all went wrong. Let's go."
We didn't use the main paths. Lyra knew back routes, spirit alleys, and forgotten passages through the capital's underbelly. As we navigated the less-traveled parts of the city, my "instincts" kicked in. I'd put a hand out to stop her before a patrol of hulking Bruiser-spirits rounded a corner. I'd sense an Ashen Hound pack before they emerged from the fog. My body was on autopilot, a veteran moving through familiar territory.
Lyra watched it all with a raised eyebrow.
"See? Your body remembers. Even if your head's empty."
The landscape began to change. The solidified sorrow of the city gave way to twisted, petrified trees that looked like they were frozen mid-scream. The air grew thicker, harder to breathe, and the psychic static became a chorus of faint, overlapping sobs. The Tanglewoods.
We found the clearing. It was a mess.
The ground was scarred with massive, sweeping burns—my work. But there were other marks too: precise, deep punctures in the earth that smelled of ozone, and patches of ground that were frozen solid, glittering with faint blue energy.
"Zay,"
Lyra whispered, pointing at the ice.
"His blue flame burns cold. Really cold."
...
"He used so much power... that the heat became cold."
But the most prominent feature was a massive, desiccated sac-like structure—the remains of the Matriarch. And everywhere, covering the ground like a grisly carpet, were the shriveled, parchment-like husks of thousands of Memory Leeches. They'd been wiped out, but clearly not before they'd done their job.
Lyra floated over the battlefield, her playful demeanor gone, replaced by a professional analysis.
"This was a massacre. You two clearly won the fight... but at what cost?"
She pointed to the husks.
"They don't just eat memories, Leith. They reproduce by overloading a host with stolen memories until it... pops. A Matriarch that size... its final defense wouldn't be to attack. It would be a desperation move. A psychic bomb."
She landed near me, her expression grim.
"I think it unleashed its entire stored library of stolen lives directly at you two. A tsunami of every regret, every sorrow, every painful memory it had ever consumed. Zay's power is a shield; he might have weathered it. But you..."
She looked at my hands.
"Your hellfire is pure offense. You wouldn't have blocked it. You would have taken the full force of it head-on."
The pieces clicked into place with a cold, horrifying finality.
"It didn't just attack me,"
I said, the truth settling in my gut like a stone.
"It didn't try to eat my memories one by one."
Lyra nodded.
"No. It drowned you in them. It hit you with so much, so fast, that your mind couldn't handle it. It didn't steal your past... it buried it under a mountain of other people's pain."
I looked out at the field of husks, the tomb of my own mind. I wasn't empty. I was a landfill.
And somewhere under all that garbage, was me.