The Buried Name
The next breach came not in shadow—but in silence.
At dawn, the eastern gardens were gone. Not burned. Not torn. Just… erased. The vines, the stones, even the wind—vanished, as if the world had decided to forget a part of itself.
Cuco stood at the edge of that absence, staring into the place where color had bled to gray.
"They're removing," Lira said softly, stepping beside him. "Not attacking. Not claiming. Just… unmaking."
Cuco didn't speak.
The blade at his side felt heavier now. Hungrier.
And the bark creeping across his chest pulsed—not with light, but with memory. His dreams had returned. Not as visions… but as warnings.
> He'd seen a name—carved into a tree that didn't exist anymore.
His name.
But it wasn't Cuco.
It was something older.
---
That night, the Tome opened itself.
Not with a whisper, but a single, solid word written across the first page:
> "Remember."
Then, slowly, the pages began to burn in reverse—flames that stitched paper instead of devouring it.
And when they stopped, a story was written.
A boy. A blade. A betrayal.
A gate sealed with blood.
And at the heart of it all…
A name struck from every record. Erased from history.
Beast King.
A Dreamer who had not fallen—
But had chosen to become the forest itself.
To sleep beneath it.
To wait.
---
The next morning, Cuco woke with bark spread fully over his left side. His reflection did not match his face.
And on his arm, beneath the glowing mark, one word had bloomed in living root:
> Tanirika.
---
"Is that your name?" Tariq asked later, his voice small.
Cuco looked at the trees. At the windless, empty garden.
"No," he said quietly.
"It's the one I gave away."
---
The gate had never been just a door.
It had always been a crown.
And the one who wore it first was stirring beneath the roots again.