I watch Emmy as she departs back towards the wall. A soldier's walk hiding a daughter's pain. The abandoned flowers rest between us, pale petals already wilting against hardened earth.

Within my frame, the wolf bones remain quiet. No predatory satisfaction. No memory of the hunt.

They offer nothing, as if Emmy's questions stripped them of their primal nature, leaving only a hollow space where instinct once prowled.

The memorial wall stands witness to our failed exchange. Thousands of names, thousands of stories ended.

How many held secrets like mine? How many truths died unspoken?

Movement draws my attention. The Captain approaches from where the Legion waits, his cracked skull catching the morning light. He stops at regulation distance, fist to chest in a silent salute.

No words are needed. He felt the shift in me, sensed the disturbance in the current that binds us. The Legion always knows when something troubles their commander.

I offer a gesture of dismissal. Not now. There are preparations to make, positions to secure.

Three days until the Drowned Kingdom attacks. Three days to ensure Haven stands ready.

The Captain withdraws, but not far. He takes a position where he can watch both me and Haven's walls. Protective without presumption.

The flowers deserve better than abandonment. I gather them carefully, stems fragile between claws meant for tearing. Pale roses, probably the last of the season, gathered from dangerous territories for a father who chose rest over resurrection.

A daughter's love made manifest in petals and thorns.

I approach Merik's name on the wall, the fresh carving stark against the weathered stone. The flowers rest gently against it. A poor substitute for answers, but all I can offer.

"Dead thing."

The voice is a low rasp. I turn to find Eren Falkreid, the veteran sergeant with the prosthetic arm. He leans against a crutch, his approach silent, a soldier's practiced stealth.

"Saw young Emmy heading back," he says. "I keep an eye on her. She looked troubled."

His good eye studies me, reading more than the surface. "You spoke with her."

It is not a question.

"She asked about her father."

Falkreid grunts. "Suspected she might, eventually. Girl's got a soldier's need for clarity. Hates loose ends."

He shifts his weight. "You didn't tell her everything."

Again, not a question. He knows the look of secrets kept, of burdens carried alone. His own scars speak of things better left unspoken.

"Some truths serve no purpose except to wound."

"Aye." He spits to the side, a casual gesture that somehow conveys volumes. "But wounds fester when not properly cleaned. Take it from someone who's lost enough flesh to know."

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His metal arm gestures at my frame. "You carry pieces of what killed him, don't you? Can see it in how you stand. A weight that's not just bone."

The wolf fragments stir slightly. Falkreid's perception cuts deep.

"Among others."

"Thought as much." He shifts again, studying the memorial wall. "Emmy will figure it out. Girl's too sharp not to. Better to control how she learns than let her discover it through blood and horror."

"You suggest I tell her everything?"

"I suggest," he says carefully, "that you consider what serves her best. Truth can be a weapon or a shield. Depends on how it's wielded."

He turns to leave, then pauses. "For what it's worth, I've seen you fight. Seen you protect. Whatever you were before, whatever pieces you carry, you choose what to do with them. That matters more than their origin."

He continues. "I know you care for that girl. Don't know why, but you do. You'll have to tell her the truth, even if she hates you for a time after."

His measured steps fade into the distance. The bell tolls again. Time moves forward.

The pull returns.

Stronger than before, it thrums through every fragment of my assembled form. Not Haven's need, not duty's call. The Field of Broken Banners calls me.

I leave the memorial wall behind. The Captain notices my departure but doesn't follow. He understands.

The Legion will hold their positions until I return.

My steps carry me past the watchful eyes of guards who no longer flinch at my passing. The fields stretch before me, but I barely register the twisted landscape. The pull drowns out everything else.

Home.

The word surfaces from a depth I did not know I possessed. The vast graveyard of forgotten warriors.

The Field greets me differently than before. Where once I felt only death's echo, now a pressure builds against my form. Not physical, but something deeper.

The weight of ten thousand final moments presses into my bones. Each step disturbs more than soil. I walk on unforgotten oaths.

The earth pulses. Not with life, but with purpose unfulfilled.

Beneath my claws, I sense them. Not corpses. Not individuals.

The fallen exist here as something singular, vast, and sleeping. Their combined will saturates every grain of dirt, every shard of rusted steel. They press against my frame.

Recognition. Kinship.

I am them. They are me. We are the Field.

This understanding settles into my marrow. Before, I came as a scavenger, taking what fragments I needed. Now I return as its heart.

Its will. Its champion.

I reach the Field's center where the last stand happened. Here the Demon King broke the allied forces. Here twelve legions fell in minutes, their formations shattered.

I stand at its center and close my hollow sockets.

Within me, the fragments stir. No longer just borrowed pieces. They have grown, evolved, become more than memory or instinct.

They have their own nascent wills.

My own consciousness expands, touching the silent army sleeping beneath the soil. I could raise them all, a tide of bone to sweep across the corrupted lands. The power is here.

Avernus's final miracle is a well that will not run dry.

One gesture. One command. They would rise.

But Emmy's question echoes through my hollow spaces. Who decides what you do?

The Arkashoth fragment, silent until now, comes forward. It offers no words, only understanding. It shows me the basin in its buried kingdom, the liquid that reflected potential futures.

It reminds me of the choice I made, to reject a dominion that would cost Haven its soul.

Understanding crystallizes. Arkashoth consumed to control. I could do the same here, raise these twelve thousand as extensions of my will. But that would make me no different from what I destroyed.

To lead is not to command. To protect is not to control.

The revelation shifts something fundamental in my frame. I am not master of these fallen warriors. I am their champion, one who serves even as he chooses.

Knowledge surfaces from deeper depths. The third symbol on that ancient altar, the one I'd barely comprehended. Not Aeternus with its power of final judgment. Not Atropos with its severing force.

The Chalice of Transformation. The power to grant form to purpose itself.

My awareness turns inward, touching each fragment that Veradin made permanent. The balverine alpha, savage and independent. Commander Ikert, the warrior-king.

Carida, the unwavering moral core. The dragon, ancient and proud. Each distinct, each carrying their own truth, yet all now part of me.

They are not me. But they are mine to shape.

I raise my hand toward the scarred earth. Spectral flesh shimmers. Power gathers, but not from me.

It rises from below, from the very ground where armies fell. Twelve thousand oaths answer my call.

Not to become my puppets.

But to lend their purpose to something new.

Transformation floods through me, the Chalice's power made manifest. I channel it toward the permanent fragments within, focusing not on binding but on release. Not on control but on creation.

The word surfaces from memory.

Lethe.

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