The torchlight moved like a will-o'-the-wisp through the mountain dark.
Arjuna followed, sword sheathed across his back, his breath misting in the cold. The ash-strewn path wound between jagged rocks and shattered relics. Half-buried statues peered out from the snow like the faces of drowned kings. Their eyes were worn smooth.
The light led him to a cave mouth tucked behind a leaning pine. Smoke curled lazily from within. For a moment, he hesitated. The last time he had entered a place of warmth, the world had ended.
But the fire called.
He stepped inside.
The cave was deeper than it seemed, the entrance little more than a veil for the stone corridor beyond. It widened into a hollow chamber with firelight flickering against the walls. Skewered meat roasted over the flames, and a figure hunched beside it—thin, cloaked in patched leathers, humming a song without tune.
The figure turned. A young man—though his eyes were older than they should've been—blinked behind soot-smeared spectacles.
"Oh," the stranger said mildly. "You're not a mountain bear."
Arjuna said nothing.
The man waved a stick of meat. "You hungry, knight?"
"…You know what I am?"
"You have a god-blade on your back. Your boots are warded, your armor's pre-cataclysm design, and you smell like a grave. If you're not a knight, you're the strangest pilgrim I've met."
Arjuna stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"Name's Tellen. Historian, grave-thief, and occasionally accused heretic. I collect stories. And it's not every day a knight stumbles out of the sky."
"I didn't fall from the sky."
Tellen tilted his head. "You remember that for certain?"
Arjuna hesitated. "No."
Tellen tossed him a waterskin. "Drink. You look like you've been dead for a while."
He drank. The water was bitter but clean.
Tellen leaned back against the stone, chewing thoughtfully. "Tell me. Do you know your name?"
"…Arjuna."
"Well. That's one mystery solved."
Arjuna looked into the fire. "What happened to this world?"
Tellen's smile faded. "Ah. That's the big question, isn't it? Depending on who you ask: divine war, apocalyptic love story, or an extended suicide pact between gods."
"I saw bones as tall as towers."
"You would have. The gods bled out, but the world never stopped bleeding. There are places where time cracked. Forests where it's always dusk. Oceans that forget the people who drown in them."
Arjuna felt something twist in his chest. "How long has it been?"
"Since what?"
"…Since I died."
Tellen looked at him. Really looked. Then said, gently, "A thousand years, give or take."
Arjuna didn't speak.
The fire crackled.
Tellen poked it with a stick. "I suppose it makes sense. You're one of the Ash-Woken, aren't you?"
"The what?"
"Warriors from the Divine War who never truly died. Or maybe they did, but some part of them stayed angry enough to return. Usually brought back by curses, lost vows, or old love. You don't strike me as the angry type, but the sword says otherwise."
Arjuna looked at the blade resting beside him. The red cloth still whispered.
Tellen caught the look. "Careful. Swords like that remember things even when men don't. That one's older than the Tower of Stars."
Something stirred in the flames—an image, fleeting and cruel.
A woman with silver eyes.A battlefield of broken halos.A hand brushing his cheek, gentle before the storm.
Arjuna flinched. The fire hissed.
"You saw her, didn't you?" Tellen's voice was low now.
"I… don't know who she is."
"You loved her," Tellen said, not unkindly. "That much is clear."
"Was she real?"
Tellen shrugged. "Some say she was a goddess. Others call her the Witch Queen. Me? I think she was both—and something else. Her name's been scrubbed from most records, but the old bards whisper of her still."
Arjuna's voice cracked. "Tell me."
Tellen's eyes gleamed. "They say she was called Nyssara. That she walked with gods and made war against heaven. That she loved a mortal knight… and when he was taken from her, she broke the sky to get him back."
Arjuna felt a jolt in his chest. Painful. Familiar.
"…Me?"
Tellen raised his hands. "Hey, I just tell stories. But if you are that knight… you're in for a very messy afterlife."
Silence fell. The cave seemed to listen.
Finally, Arjuna asked, "Why help me?"
Tellen smiled. "Because I collect dead things. Stories, relics, songs. And you, Arjuna, are the rarest kind: a forgotten hero with unfinished business. You might just lead me to the greatest tale never told."
He tossed another log on the fire.
"You're going to Ashwood Hold, aren't you?"
"I saw it in the valley."
Tellen nodded. "Then I'll come with you."
Arjuna narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
Tellen grinned. "Because that ruin's cursed, and anyone who enters alone dies screaming. But if I follow you, maybe I get to write your last chapter. Or maybe… maybe I see the world change."
The fire flickered low.
Outside, the wind howled against the stone.
And far away, in a city of black spires, a woman stirred in her sleep.
She dreamed of a red-cloaked knight walking through ash.
And she smiled.