The Ones the World Buried

The forest changed as they walked.

Not slowly.

Instantly.

One step, the trees were oaks and pines, their bark scarred by time.
The next — they were black.

Not burned.
Not rotted.
Transformed.

Tall, slender, their trunks smooth as bone, their leaves thin as paper, rustling not with wind — but with whispers.

Kael stopped. “This… wasn’t on any map.”

Rose didn’t answer.

Her hair had gone still.
Not limp.
Alert.

Like a wolf sensing prey.

Niam reached out, touching one of the leaves.

It trembled.

Then, in a voice like a sigh, it spoke:

"She hears us."

Niam snatched her hand back. “It— it spoke!”

Rose stepped forward. “They’re not trees.”

Kael frowned. “What are they, then?”

Before she could answer, the ground breathed.

A crack split the earth.

Then another.

And from the soil, figures rose.

Not alive.

Not dead.

Remembered.

Tall, thin, wrapped in tattered cloth and roots, their faces hidden beneath hoods of shadow. Their hands — long, skeletal — reached not to attack, but to greet.

One stepped forward.

Its voice was a chorus — soft, broken, layered with grief.

"You are the Silent One."
"The Sorrow-Bearer."
"The Unseen Made Flesh."

Rose didn’t flinch. “And you are?”

"The Forgotten."
"The Wept-For-Too-Long."
"The Burned, the Buried, the Unmourned."

Kael gripped his shadow-blade. “Spirits?”

"No," the figure said. "We are what remains when sorrow is not healed, but suppressed. When tears are called sin. When grief is branded corruption."

Niam took a step forward. “You… you were like me?”

The figure turned its hood toward her.

"Yes, little weeper.
We were the ones who cried too much.
Who loved too deeply.
Who felt too loud.
And so, the Church buried us.
Not in graves.
In silence."

Rose’s chest tightened.

She looked around.

There were dozens of them.
Hundreds.
Standing between the black trees like sentinels of sorrow.

“You’re trapped,” she said.

"Bound by seals carved into our bones.
Chained by prayers that call us ‘unclean.’
But you… you carry our pain.
You wear our grief like a crown.
And so, you can free us."

Kael stepped between Rose and the figures. “This is a trap. They want her to break the seals. The Church wouldn’t bury them without reason.”

The figure tilted its head.

"Would you call healing a trap?
Would you call remembrance a crime?
We do not seek vengeance.
We seek to be."

Rose stepped past Kael.

She reached out.

Her fingers brushed the figure’s hand.

A surge.

Not pain.

Memory.

A girl, no older than Niam, tied to a pyre.
Priests chanting.
Her mother screaming, “She’s just sad! She’s just sad!”
Then fire.
Then silence.
Then burial — her body dumped in a nameless pit, a rune carved into her skull to seal her sorrow.

Rose gasped, pulling back.

Niam was crying.

Kael looked shaken. “They didn’t just kill them. They erased them.”

Rose turned to the figure. “How do I free you?”

"Break the seal in the heart of this grove.
But know this — when we rise, the world will tremble.
The Church will call it disaster.
The light will call it corruption.
But we will call it home."

Rose didn’t hesitate.

She walked.

Her hair flowed behind her like a river of night.

Deeper into the grove.

The trees bowed.

The earth cracked.

And at the center — a stone altar, cracked and ancient, etched with golden runes that pulsed like a heartbeat.

A Seal of Purity.

Rose stepped forward.

Kael grabbed her arm. “Rose, stop! You don’t know what’s on the other side of this! What if they’re not victims? What if they’re dangerous?”

She looked at him.

“Are you afraid of grief, Kael?”

“I’m afraid of what happens when sorrow is unleashed.”

Rose turned back to the seal.

“I’m not unleashing it.”
“I’m acknowledging it.”

She placed her hand on the stone.

The runes flared.

Golden light lashed out — not fire, but sound, a divine hymn meant to repel the impure.

It struck her.

And for the first time since she’d awakened, Rose screamed.

Not from pain.

From recognition.

The hymn wasn’t just magic.

It was memory.

Her mother’s voice: “Stop being so dramatic.”
A teacher: “Cheer up — it’s not that bad.”
A classmate: “God, you’re so depressing.”

All the times she’d been told to hide her pain.
To smile.
To be normal.

And now, the seal was made of those same words.

Rose fell to her knees.

But she didn’t let go.

Instead, she pulled.

From deep within her — from the weight of every sorrow she carried — she drew a sound.

Not a scream.

A song.

Low.
Broken.
Beautiful.

The first song she’d ever written.

The one no one heard.

And as she sang, her hair wrapped around the seal.

Black threads wove through the golden runes.

And one by one…

They shattered.

The ground split.

The sky darkened.

And from beneath the altar, a wave of shadow and sound erupted — not destructive, but releasing.

The Forgotten lifted their heads.

Their hoods fell back.

Not skulls.
Not monsters.

Faces.

Young.
Old.
Men.
Women.
Children.

All marked by sorrow.
All seen.

And as the seal broke, they did not attack.

They knelt.

"You have freed us."
"You have named the unnamed."
"You are not our savior."
"You are our mirror."

Rose stood, breathless.

Niam ran to her, hugging her tightly.

Kael… didn’t speak.

He only watched as the Forgotten rose, not as an army, but as a people.

One stepped forward — a woman with silver-streaked hair and eyes like stormlight.

"We do not serve.
But if you lead, we will walk beside you.
Not for war.
For witness."

Rose looked at them.

At Niam.
At Kael.
At the broken seal.

And for the first time, she didn’t feel like a demon.

She felt like a beginning.

“I don’t want to be a queen,” she said.

"Then be a voice," the woman said. "For those who were never allowed to speak."

Rose nodded.

And as the wind carried the echoes of the broken hymn away, she whispered:

"Then let them hear us now."

—
That night, around a fire that burned violet and deep blue, Niam asked:

“Do you think… they’ll come for us?”

Rose stared into the flames. “They already are.”

Kael looked up. “How do you know?”

Rose didn’t answer.

But from the edge of the camp, a single black feather drifted down.

It landed in the fire.

And burned not to ash — but to light.

A signal.

From the Church.

The Inquisitors were coming.

And they would not come alone.