Chapter 4 The field of forgotten

The face that stepped from the stone was not her mother's.

Not really.

It had her shape, her voice, her soft, knowing eyes-but none of the weight behind them. It was a mask built of memory, held together by longing. Aria stood frozen, her breath shallow, her hand clutching the feather like a lifeline.

"Aria," it said again, stepping forward.

Not a sound-a feeling. Like hearing someone speak underwater, beneath layers of silence. It felt right, but wrong. Close, but hollow.

Kael moved between them. "It's not her," he growled. "They only wear what you miss."

The Guide planted her staff, and a pulse of wind circled outward. The false mother flinched but did not vanish.

"She's stronger," the Guide murmured. "It's not just a whisper anymore. The Hollow is shaping thoughts now."

The wind whispered at Aria's back-gentle, coaxing.

Don't speak. Don't follow. Don't forget.

But the echo-mother tilted her head and said, "Come home, my little bird."

And with those words, Aria nearly stepped forward.

She remembered that phrase. Her real mother used to say it when Aria came in muddy from the orchard, when she brought back broken nests to repair, when she sang wind-songs into jars and pretended they were spells.

The echo knew that memory.

Which meant something else had been listening.

"I'm not your little bird," Aria whispered.

The echo's smile faltered. "Aren't you?"

Its voice twisted-too high now, too smooth. The illusion cracked, features shifting like melting wax.

And behind her, Kael gasped.

Another figure had stepped forward from the stones-a boy with Kael's own face.

But younger. Smiling. Before the stone. Before the silence.

Kael took a step back, fists clenched.

"Get out of my head."

The wind turned harsh-whipping dust, flattening the grass.

The shadows hissed, recoiling from its presence, and for a heartbeat, the silence broke.

A single, clear tone echoed through the Field of Forgotten-low, steady, like a tuning note from the world itself.

The Guide raised her staff again.

"No more listening," she commanded. "Run."

And then the earth beneath them split.

Not a quake-but a memory unraveling.

The field shattered like glass-stones crumbling, shadows shrieking. Aria felt the world tilt sideways, and suddenly she wasn't standing in the plain anymore.

She was in her home.

Or something shaped like it.

The kitchen was warm. Bread on the table. The scent of thyme and lemon.

Her mother stood at the window, humming a tune.

It hurt to see.

It hurt to know it wasn't real.

The feather pulsed in her hand-one beat, two-then glowed.

"Aria," her mother said, turning.

But this time, the illusion didn't smile.

It glared.

"You left me."

And the wind howled through the window like a blade.

Aria raised the feather.

"I never forgot," she said.

And the false mother screamed-not in pain, but in fury.

The dream cracked.

The walls fell.

And Aria was back in the field, breath ragged, kneeling beside Kael.

He was shaking, but alive.

His hand was on the stone. Her hand was on the feather.

The Field of Forgotten was gone.

Only broken earth remained.

And silence.

Real silence.

The kind that follows truth.

Later, when the wind returned and the Guide lit their fire, Kael looked at Aria and asked, "What did you see?"

Aria stared into the flames.

"A lie I almost believed."

He nodded.

"That's how the Hollow works," he said. "It doesn't destroy the world. It convinces us to do it for it."

And for a long time, neither of them said anything more.

But far away, the Hollow Wind stirred.

And remembered their names.

They entered the forest without knowing it.

One moment, the path beneath their feet was broken stone and ash. The next, soft moss gave way beneath their steps, and towering trees stitched the sky above with black and green. The wind no longer howled here-it moved like breath between curtains. Slow. Careful.

The Guide paused beneath a tree with silver bark and placed a hand against its trunk.

"This is the Whispergrove," she said quietly. "Here, language softens, and memory bends."

Kael tilted his head. "It smells like... ink."

He was right. The air had the faint scent of old parchment and dried flowers, as though the forest had been written instead of grown.

Aria touched one of the low branches and felt something shift in her chest.

She forgot what she had been about to say.

Kael frowned beside her. "Wait. What did you call this place?"

Neither of them could remember.

The Guide turned to them, her expression grim. "Do not speak your names aloud in the grove. It listens. And once it holds a name, it does not let go."

Aria's pulse quickened. The feather at her side vibrated slightly-unseen wind coiling through its barbs.

They walked in silence after that. The trees bent overhead like arches in an ancient cathedral. Each step forward felt like wading through memory-not water, not mist-memory. A thousand half-formed thoughts tugged at their heels. Snatches of songs. Faces long buried. Dreams never finished.

Kael stumbled suddenly, catching himself on a root.

"I'm fine," he muttered. "Just tired, I think. I-" He paused, eyes narrowing. "Wait. What's my...?"

He looked at Aria, confused.

"What did you call me?"

She opened her mouth, then stopped.

She didn't know.

The name had just slipped away, like breath in winter. There was only him, the boy with the stone and the fractured voice.

"You're forgetting," the Guide said gently. "The forest is testing you."

Kael gritted his teeth. "No. I know who I am. I'm-"

But his voice broke. Not with emotion, but emptiness.

The name was gone.

His hands trembled. The black stone pulsed faster in his palm, a frantic beat like panic.

"I don't... I don't want to lose myself."

Aria stepped forward. She didn't speak. Instead, she placed the feather in his hand.

Warmth bloomed. A rush of wind stirred through the trees.

Kael gasped, eyes wide, and clutched it to his chest. "Aria."

He said it like a tether.

Her name.

He hadn't forgotten hers.

The forest shivered.

"You held onto me," he said, voice quiet. "Even when I didn't know I was slipping."

The Guide watched them with something like sadness in her eyes.

"Most who come through here lose something," she said. "A word. A song. A name. It's the price of walking memory."

Aria looked around them. Faces flickered briefly in the bark-echoes of those who had come before and left pieces of themselves behind. Names carved in whispers. A forest of forgotten people.

She shivered.

They pressed on.

By dusk, they reached the grove's heart.

A ring of trees stood taller than the rest, bark polished smooth by wind and time. In the center, a pedestal-weathered stone, etched with dozens of names in hundreds of languages.

But one name had been scraped away.

Violently.

The Guide approached it and placed her hand gently over the void.

"This was the first," she said. "The one the Hollow tried to erase completely."

Kael frowned. "Who was it?"

"Not a who," she whispered. "A what. The first voice."

Aria stepped forward, staring at the empty carving.

And the wind whispered across her ear.

Remember me.

She did not recognize the voice. But it didn't feel foreign either. It felt old. Like thunder trapped in a jar.

Kael touched the pedestal, and the stone in his other hand flared faintly.

The trees sighed around them.

And then, from somewhere deep in the grove, something laughed.

Not joy.

Mockery.

The Hollow knew where they were.

And it was waiting.