The path north twisted like a serpent through the woods, growing narrower with each step Eren took. Trees arched overhead like silent guardians, their bark blackened with age and moss. The deeper he went, the more the forest changed not in appearance, but in feeling.
It remembered him.
Not as Eren the boy from Elwyn Village, but as the one who drew Akreth.
The shadows whispered things. Sometimes his name. Sometimes hers.
He tightened his grip on the wrapped blade across his back.
He hadn't spoken since leaving the ruined watchtower. Not because he didn't want to. But because every time he tried, the words caught in his throat. The blade's presence weighed heavily on him now heavier than steel. It pulsed against his back like a heartbeat that wasn't his own.
By midday, he reached a clearing a place unfamiliar, yet not. The ground was littered with broken stone, shattered remnants of what might have once been a shrine. A single monument stood at the center, half-buried in ivy, engraved with faded symbols too worn to read.
Eren stepped toward it, brushing his hand across the surface.
A memory struck him not his own.
A woman stood here once, cradling a lifeless man in her arms. Her tears soaked the earth. Her voice echoed with grief so powerful, it split the sky. The man had drawn a blade… and paid the price.
The vision faded.
Eren staggered back, gasping.
"What was that?"
"This place remembers all who carry the curse."
The voice Akreth's slithered into his mind again. Less like speech now, more like thought made real.
"You're showing me visions now?"
"I show what your soul is ready to see."
He scowled. "Is that supposed to help me?"
"It already has. You are not the first. You are simply the first who remembers."
He said nothing more. Just stood there, heart pounding in the silence.
Then something moved.
A flicker in the trees.
He turned, instinctively reaching for the sword even before he realized it. The cloth slipped slightly, revealing the edge. The shadows pulled away from it, as though afraid.
From the treeline, a figure emerged tall, cloaked, face obscured by a hood of silver thread. No weapon. No visible threat.
And yet, Eren didn't relax.
"You followed me," he said flatly.
"No," the figure replied, voice calm and melodic female, but not soft. "I was sent to watch."
"By who?"
"The one who sealed the tower. And failed."
Eren narrowed his eyes. "You knew about the seal?"
The figure stepped closer, removing her hood. Her face was youthful, almost ageless, but her eyes… they were too ancient. Glowing faintly, like sunlight through morning frost.
"I am Lyselle," she said. "A Watcher of Forgotten Things. And you, Eren, are walking straight toward the end of the world."
He crossed his arms. "I already started. Can't really turn around now."
Lyselle studied him.
"You carry the blade. But the curse clings to you like fire. It is not just a weapon anymore, is it?"
"No. It's inside me."
A pause.
Lyselle nodded once. "Then you're dying."
His breath caught. "What?"
"The longer you bear it, the more your soul fades. That is the price Akreth demands for remembrance."
Eren looked down at his right hand. The fingertips had begun to gray slightly, as if frostbitten but warm.
"I'll pay it. As much as it takes."
"Even if it kills you?"
"If it brings her back…"
Lyselle didn't answer immediately. Then she reached into her cloak and drew a small pendant clear crystal, wrapped in vines of silver.
"Then take this. It will show you glimpses. Echoes of places where the veil is thin. Where the world beyond and this one almost touch."
He hesitated, then took it.
"What's the catch?"
"Every time you use it, it pulls a memory from you. Big or small, it won't tell you which."
Akreth pulsed in warning.
Lea's smile flickered through his mind.
He clenched his jaw, but nodded. "I'll take the risk."
"Then go east of here. Through the Hollow Vale. At the edge of that cursed land stands a door carved into the mountain. Knock three times, and speak her name."
"Lea?"
Lyselle's eyes darkened. "No. The name you haven't spoken yet."
Before he could ask what that meant, she vanished faded into mist, as if she had never been there.
He stood alone again.
The wind had returned.
So had the whispers.
He turned east.
And the sword pulsed like a drumbeat in his spine, counting down the days he had left.