“The ones who cast no shadow are the ones who’ve already died once.”

  — Selene of the Third Veil

  ---

  The mist never truly lifted in the Whispering Range. Even after the storm passed, it clung to the trees like breath on glass—soft, uncertain, and always watching.

  Sir Billion walked ahead in silence, Gravemark now wrapped and strapped to his back. The tension had not disappeared—it had merely shifted. From violence… to something heavier.

  Memory.

  Arata followed him cautiously, with Yume quietly drifting behind, her light dimmed.

  “I thought knights were loyal to the Queen,” Arata finally said.

  Billion didn’t stop. “We are.”

  “But you didn’t report me.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t.” His voice was tired, almost bitter. “I said I won’t kill you. Yet.”

  Arata gritted his teeth. “That’s not much better.”

  “No,” Billion admitted. “It isn’t.”

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  ---

  They reached a ridge overlooking the eastern valley. Down below, the faint lights of a small encampment flickered in the fog—neutral ground, old hunter territory. Billion gestured for them to stop.

  “This far from the capital, we’re safe for a day, maybe two. After that, word will spread.”

  Yume hovered beside a broken tree branch. “They’ll sense the fray soon.”

  Billion looked at her sharply. “You know about the fray?”

  “I felt it,” she replied. “Before I ever saw him. It surrounds him like a curse stitched into his skin.”

  The knight didn’t reply. Instead, he sat on the edge of a fallen stone and pulled off his gauntlets. His hands were scarred—one knuckle branded with an old, forgotten sigil.

  Arata noticed it.

  “That mark… You used to belong to a house.”

  Billion looked down at it for a long time. “Yes. A long time ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “I failed,” he said simply. “And they erased me.”

  Yume’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not all, is it?”

  “No.” Billion finally looked up. “I was one of the first to see a Class A identify case in the royal court. A boy with dual affinity. Just a child.”

  He paused.

  “They killed him before he could speak his name.”

  Arata felt a weight settle in his chest.

  “They erased his parents. The records. Burned the village to ash. And they promoted me for reporting it.”

  A bitter laugh escaped his throat.

  “I was so proud… and so blind.”

  He looked directly at Arata now.

  “You should not exist. And yet—you do. So I have to ask: why now? Why you?”

  Arata stared back, uncertain.

  “I don’t know.”

  But even as he said it, a pulse echoed in his chest—soft, ancient, almost like a whisper in the blood:

  Not why. When.

  ---

  That night, as they camped in silence, Yume floated down and sat beside Arata’s shoulder.

  “You look like him,” she said softly.

  “Who?”

  “Akira. Billion’s son.”

  “I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

  “Neither do I. But that map… that cabin… it didn’t react to you because of who you are now. It responded to something deeper. Something older.”

  “Something I forgot?”

  “Or something that was never yours to begin with,” she said. “Time is fraying. Meaning is slipping. You might not be a boy who lost his memory. You might be a memory trying to become a boy.”

  Arata looked into the fire.

  And for the first time, he wondered if he was dreaming someone else’s life.