One Week Later
The forgetting continued.
Small things at first. Things anyone might forget.
Where he left his sword. What he ate for breakfast. A conversation from the day before.
Then slightly bigger things.
A training exercise he'd attended—no memory of it. A message he'd been asked to deliver—found days later, still in his pocket. A promise he'd made to help a soldier move supplies—the soldier waited all afternoon. Aldric never came.
"You're doing it again," Lira said quietly.
They sat behind the supply tents, the same spot they'd used for months. Hidden. Safe. Watching.
Grog looked at her. "Doing what?"
"Counting. Noting. Making lists in your head." She tapped her temple. "I can see it. Every time Aldric forgets something, you add it to the pile."
Grog didn't deny it.
"How many this week?"
"Seven." His voice was flat. "Seven things he should remember. Doesn't."
Lira was quiet for a moment. "That's more than last week."
"Yes."
"And last week was more than the week before."
"Yes."
The pattern was clear. The forgetting was accelerating. Slowly—so slowly anyone else would miss it. But they weren't anyone else. They'd been watching for months. They knew every quirk, every habit, every normal forgetfulness that came with being young and busy.
This wasn't normal.
This was something else.
---
Mirena joined them at sunset.
She'd been gone all day—"research," she'd said, and nothing more. Now she dropped onto the ground beside them, exhausted, her dark hair wild from wind.
"The village," she said. "The old woman. I talked to her."
Grog straightened. "And?"
"And she remembers more. Things she didn't tell you before." Mirena pulled out a small notebook, pages covered in her cramped writing. "Aldric's mother didn't just notice him talking to shadows. She tried to stop it."
Lira leaned forward. "How?"
"Brought in a priest. Some wandering holy man who claimed he could drive out spirits." Mirena glanced at her notes. "He spent three days with the boy. Prayers. Rituals. Burning herbs." She looked up. "Didn't work."
Grog's jaw tightened.
"The mother kept trying. Different priests. Different rituals. Nothing worked. The shadows always came back." Mirena paused. "The old woman said the mother was terrified near the end. Not of dying—of what she was leaving behind."
Lira frowned. "She knew?"
"She suspected. Strongly enough to beg the old woman to watch over Aldric after she was gone." Mirena closed her notebook. "The old woman tried. For a year. Then Aldric stopped coming to the village altogether. Stayed on that farm alone until he was old enough to join the border scouts."
Grog thought about that. A child. Alone on a farm. Grieving. No one to talk to but the shadows that had always been there.
The only friend he had when it mattered.
Vorlag's words echoed in his mind.
"The priests," he said slowly. "Did any of them actually try? Really try?"
Mirena understood the question. "The old woman thinks so. The first one—the wandering holy man—he spent three days. Left exhausted. Told the mother the boy was beyond his help." She hesitated. "Said the thing attached to Aldric was older than any spirit he'd ever encountered. Said it felt like it had been waiting for this child specifically. For generations."
Silence.
Grog looked toward the camp. Toward the cookfire where Aldric was probably sitting, laughing at something, forgetting something else.
Generations.
"It picked him," Lira whispered. "Before he was born. Before his parents met. It's been waiting for him specifically."
Mirena nodded slowly. "That's what the old woman believes. That's what the priest believed. That's what—" She stopped.
"What?"
"That's what the mother believed too. Before she died." Mirena's voice was quiet. "She told the old woman once that she'd dreamed of him. Before he was conceived. A boy with her husband's eyes and her hair, standing in a circle of ancient trees, speaking to something in the dark. She woke up terrified. Told herself it was just a dream."
Grog's hands clenched.
"But it wasn't."
"No." Mirena shook her head. "She dreamed him. Before he existed. And whatever she dreamed—whatever she called without meaning to—it heard. It waited. It chose."
The weight of it pressed down on them.
Twenty-five years until the end. But the beginning went back further. Generations further. Maybe centuries.
Vorlag hadn't just found Aldric by chance.
It had made him. Shaped him. Waited for him.
And now he was here, forgetting things, while red eyes watched from the trees.
---
That night, Grog couldn't sleep.
He lay in his tent, staring at nothing, the stone warm against his hip. His mind churned through everything Mirena had said.
Generations.
Chosen before birth.
A dream the mother had.
What did any of it mean? How did you fight something that had been planning this since before you were born?
He didn't know.
But lying there in the darkness, he made a decision.
He couldn't fight Vorlag directly. Couldn't match its power or its patience or its centuries of planning.
But he could fight for Aldric.
Not the Aldric who would become a monster. Not the Aldric who would make a deal with darkness. The Aldric right now—seventeen, annoying, oblivious, good.
That Aldric was worth fighting for.
And maybe—just maybe—if Grog fought hard enough, loved hard enough, stayed hard enough, that Aldric would have a reason to choose differently when the moment came.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
---
Morning came cold and gray.
Grog found Aldric at the cookfire, same as always. Same smile. Same terrible jokes. Same obliviousness to the darkness growing inside him.
"Grog!" Aldric waved him over. "Sit. Eat. I saved you the good spot."
Grog sat.
They ate in comfortable silence for a while. Then Aldric spoke.
"I forgot something again," he said quietly.
Grog looked at him.
Aldric stared into his bowl. "This morning. I couldn't remember your name. For like—a minute. Just standing there, looking at you, and I couldn't—" He shook his head. "It came back. Obviously. But for a minute, it was just gone."
Grog's heart pounded.
"That's never happened before," Aldric continued. "Forgetting a name. Forgetting a friend's name." He looked up. "Something's wrong with me, isn't it?"
Grog met his eyes.
Brown. Normal. Human. Scared.
Tell him, a voice whispered. He deserves to know.
But another voice—colder, more cautious—held him back.
Not yet. Not until you understand more. Not until you know what telling him will do.
"Aldric." Grog's voice was steady. "You're fine. Everyone forgets things."
"This isn't everyone forgetting things. This is me forgetting you." Aldric's jaw tightened. "I'm not stupid. I know when something's wrong."
Grog said nothing.
Aldric stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, his expression shifted. Something like understanding. Something like hurt.
"You know," he said quietly. "You know what's happening to me. And you're not telling me."
"Aldric—"
"Don't." He stood. "Just—don't."
He walked away.
Grog watched him go.
The stone burned against his hip.
And somewhere in the trees, red eyes watched it all.