Chapter Seven: The City of Forgotten Names
They traveled by shadow and script.
Remiel gave Soot a scroll inscribed with a glyph known as the Path of Unreading—a forbidden map that revealed places the Ministry had purged from history. With it, they traced a trail south, through scorched libraries and cities with blacked-out signs, until they reached the edge of memory itself.
Beyond that?
The City of Forgotten Names.
It wasn't marked on any map. It didn't appear in oral records or coded texts. You could only find it if your blood carried language not yet written. Soot's did.
The air changed when they passed through the old gate.
The city wasn't ruins.
It was alive. But broken.
Buildings leaned like forgotten thoughts. Walls were painted with symbols that changed when no one looked. Statues wept letters instead of tears. And the people… they moved like sleepwalkers, their eyes empty, their tongues still.
"Why don't they speak?" Soot asked.
Remiel's voice was low. "Because they don't remember what their names were. To name yourself is to be real. Without it… they drift."
Soot swallowed hard. "How do I find the quill?"
Remiel handed him a torn page from the Book of Flesh.
It contained a single line.
Where the last story ends, the quill begins.
They walked to the center of the city.
A tower stood there, cracked and spiraling, wrapped in thousands of paper ribbons. Each ribbon held a name crossed out violently—ink scorched and melted into the fibers.
"This is the Archive of the Erased," Remiel said. "Every time the Ministry erased a name from prophecy, it was tied here."
Soot approached slowly. The ribbons swayed as if whispering.
As he touched the tower, a searing pain shot down his arm.
New script burst from his skin, branding his left wrist.
A name once forgotten must be remembered to lift the seal.
Then he heard a voice.
Small.
Familiar.
From behind him.
"Soot?"
He turned.
And froze.
Tali.
From the Hollow.
The girl with one eye, who'd fed him, protected him, mocked him like a sister.
Except now—her eye was blank. Her mouth moved, but no sound came.
He ran to her.
"Tali! It's me."
Her fingers touched his face. She looked confused. Lost. She tried to speak, but her tongue stilled in her mouth.
"She's forgetting," Remiel said gently. "The closer she came to this place, the more of her identity unraveled."
Soot felt rage swell in his chest. "Why would the Ink do this?"
"It didn't," Remiel said. "The Ministry did. They sent her here. All threats to the script are funneled into forgetting."
Soot grabbed her hands. "Then I'll make her remember."
He knelt before the Archive of the Erased and whispered her name.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
"Tali. Tali. Tali."
The tower shivered.
A single ribbon detached, fluttered toward him, and wrapped around his wrist.
Soot watched as a name burned itself into the ink of the ribbon:
Talis Emberlight
The moment the name sealed, Tali gasped—her body jolting like a soul returned.
Her eye cleared. Her voice came back in a scream.
"Soot?! Where—what—what is this place?!"
He held her tightly.
"You came for me," she whispered.
"Always."
And then the ground cracked beneath them.
From the tower's base, a new structure emerged.
A pedestal of bone and inked stone. On it sat the second quill—this one shaped like a thorn, wrapped in barbed script.
Soot stepped forward.
The wind howled.
But as his fingers reached for the quill, a blade of black ink slashed the ground before him.
A voice rang out.
"You touch that, Prophet, and you'll bleed the last of your future."
A tall figure stepped from the shadows.
He wore armor etched with denial spells. His cloak was made of shredded scrolls. And across his chest, written in deep crimson script, were three words:
Ink Shall Die.
Remiel stiffened. "Inkburners."
Soot stood tall. "Who are you?"
The man smiled.
"I am Veyr, First Dissenter of the Order of Flame. We burn the lies of prophecy—and you are the biggest one of all."