Chapter 20 — Names Beneath Borrowed Stone

I told him that.

He didn't laugh.

We'd reached Veyr's Rest just before noon, three days after Bellmere and one day after the snow stopped trying to bury us alive.

I knew the town.

I'd helped save it years earlier during the northern breach.

Not alone.

Never alone.

Cassian had planned the evacuation. Seris had found the old ward tunnels beneath the eastern wall. I'd done what I usually did.

Hit the large thing until it stopped being a problem.

Apparently history had simplified that too.

We entered wearing travel cloaks with our wings hidden beneath glamour cloth. Mine were harder to conceal now. A few black feathers had appeared near the edges since the mountain pass, and every time I caught sight of them I found something else to look at.

Seris noticed that.

Of course she did.

"We need food," she said.

Cassian glanced around the market.

"We need information."

"I need food."

"You ate this morning."

"That was six hours ago."

I looked at him.

"She's right."

Cassian stared at us.

"Both of you become useless when hungry."

"Friendship," Seris said, "is knowing someone's weaknesses."

"I thought that was blackmail."

"Very similar."

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Then we reached the central square.

And saw Cassian.

Stone Cassian, specifically.

He stood nearly four metres tall, sword raised toward the sky, wings spread behind him in heroic perfection.

Cassian stopped walking.

I looked at the statue.

Then at him.

Then back at the statue.

"They gave you better hair."

Seris covered her mouth.

Cassian's expression didn't move.

I walked around the monument.

"They also fixed your posture."

"Zyrion."

"Very generous."

"Stop."

I read the inscription.

My smile faded.

CASSIAN VALE

SHIELD OF VEYR'S REST

MASTER STRATEGIST OF THE NORTHERN DELIVERANCE

BY HIS WISDOM, COURAGE, AND COMMAND, THE CITY ENDURED.

I read it again.

Cassian stepped beside me.

"This wasn't here before."

"No."

"When did they build it?"

Seris pointed toward the small date beneath the inscription.

"Recently."

After the House of Still Waters.

Of course.

A group of children gathered near the monument while an elderly guide spoke loudly enough for us to hear.

"Cassian Vale understood the creature couldn't be beaten with brute force alone."

Cassian went rigid.

The guide continued.

"He organised the city's defence while the unstable Star-Chosen, Zyrion Caelaris, was directed toward the enemy."

I blinked.

Seris slowly looked at me.

"Directed?"

I whispered.

She bit her lip.

"Don't."

The guide pointed toward a carved relief beneath the statue.

There we were.

Sort of.

Cassian stood in the centre.

Soldiers around him.

And behind them was a figure with huge wings and a sword.

Me.

No face.

No name.

Just a weapon-shaped person carved into the background.

The guide continued.

"Records tell us Caelaris possessed extraordinary power, but little control. Commander Vale was often responsible for directing that power toward useful ends."

I stared.

Seris muttered, "That's not what happened."

"No."

Cassian's face had gone pale.

A boy raised his hand.

"Was the Star-Chosen evil?"

The guide hesitated.

"Not at first."

That hurt more than I expected.

"He was dangerous," the guide continued. "Some historians now believe Commander Vale spent years preventing him from becoming the monster he would later reveal himself to be."

I laughed.

I couldn't help it.

The guide looked over.

So did everyone else.

Seris grabbed my sleeve.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know."

I laughed harder.

Cassian stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

Maybe I had.

"They turned you into my keeper."

"This isn't funny."

"It's a little funny."

"Zyrion."

"You hated being called my strategist."

His jaw tightened.

"Don't."

"And now I'm yours."

I pointed at the relief.

"Look at me. I'm basically a sword with hair."

Seris made the mistake of looking.

A tiny laugh escaped her.

Cassian glared.

"Sorry."

"Both of you are impossible."

The guide had moved the children farther away from us.

Probably sensible.

I leaned closer to the relief.

"They made your shoulders enormous."

Cassian looked like he wanted the ground to open.

"Can we leave?"

Then I saw the empty space.

My laughter stopped.

There should've been three people.

I remembered the battle clearly.

Seris standing beneath the eastern tower with old ward maps spread over a barrel.

Seris shouting that the monster wasn't attacking the walls randomly.

Seris finding the hidden resonance chamber beneath the city.

Without her, Cassian's strategy wouldn't have worked.

Without her, I'd have struck the wrong anchor.

Without her, Veyr's Rest would've fallen.

But the relief showed only Cassian.

Soldiers.

Me in the background.

No Seris.

Even now, I can still picture that blank stone clearly.

I moved closer.

Maybe she'd been carved elsewhere.

Nothing.

"Seris."

She already knew.

Her expression had gone strangely blank.

"They removed you."

Cassian looked down at the relief.

"What?"

"You're not here."

Seris shrugged.

"Apparently I was busy elsewhere."

"That's not funny."

"I know."

I looked at the inscription beneath the relief.

The official account had a title.

THE DISCIPLINE OF POWER.

That was when the joke died completely.

A brass plaque listed excerpts from the revised battle history.

Cassian predicted each movement of the aberration.

Cassian ordered civilian evacuations.

Cassian identified the creature's anchor.

Cassian restrained the Star-Chosen from reckless action.

Cassian directed the final strike.

Every clever thing he'd actually done remained.

Every clever thing Seris had done had become his.

Everything I'd done had been rewritten as dangerous strength under his control.

It was brilliant.

Not true.

But brilliant.

Cassian got his name.

The Council got its warning.

And I became exactly the story they needed.

I looked at him.

"This is what they wanted."

His eyes stayed on the plaque.

"I didn't ask for this."

"I know."

"Zyrion, I swear—"

"I know."

And I did.

That was the problem.

Cassian looked horrified.

But beneath it, for one heartbeat, I saw something else.

His shoulders straightened.

His eyes moved over his name.

Commander Cassian Vale.

Not my friend.

Not my strategist.

Not the man behind the Star-Chosen.

Him.

Only him.

The satisfaction disappeared so fast I could've convinced myself I'd imagined it.

I didn't blame him.

Maybe I should have.

Instead, I remembered the campfire.

I want people to hear Cassian Vale and know who that is.

Well.

They did now.

He looked sick about it.

Mostly.

"I wanted my own victories," he said quietly.

Seris looked at him.

Cassian swallowed.

"Not yours."

I understood.

More than I wanted to.

Seris reached up and touched the stone where she should've been.

Her fingers rested against blank space.

"This is how it starts."

"What?" I asked.

"Erasure."

Her voice had changed.

The scholar in her had taken over.

"They don't burn every record. That's too obvious. They replace them. Change one line. Remove one name. Repeat it enough times, and eventually the lie has more copies than the truth."

Cassian stared at his statue.

"So we destroy it."

Seris turned.

"No."

"What?"

"If we smash this, they replace it and say fugitives attacked a monument to a hero."

I almost smiled.

"She's annoyingly good at this."

"I heard that."

"What do we do?" Cassian asked.

Seris looked at the children leaving the square.

"We remember."

That answer scared me.

Not because it was weak.

Because memory suddenly felt fragile.

We found copies of the new history in a nearby bookshop.

Cassian bought three.

The shopkeeper recognised his face halfway through the transaction.

We ran.

For several streets.

Seris laughed the whole time.

I did too.

Even Cassian eventually joined in.

Later, outside town, we stopped beneath an old bridge.

Seris opened one copy and began correcting it in red ink.

Aggressively.

Cassian watched her cross out an entire paragraph.

"You're enjoying that."

"Immensely."

I leaned over her shoulder.

She added her own name beside the ward discovery.

Then mine beside the final strike.

Then wrote Cassian's beside the evacuation strategy.

Three names.

The way it had happened.

She handed me the pen.

"Your turn."

I stared at the page.

"What do I write?"

"The truth."

Simple.

I looked at Cassian.

Then Seris.

Then the black feathers hidden beneath my cloak.

History had already started deciding what each of us would become.

Hero.

Monster.

Nothing.

I wrote one line beneath the official account.

None of us saved Veyr's Rest alone.

Seris smiled.

Cassian didn't.

He was still looking at the statue on the distant hill.

His statue.

His name.

Everything he'd wanted.

Given to him by the people hunting us.

That evening, when we left Veyr's Rest behind, I finally understood why Seris feared rewritting history so much.

A sword can kill a person once.

A lie can keep killing them long after they're gone.

The Council hadn't erased me yet.

Not completely.

First they were teaching the world how to remember me wrong.

And before they buried my name beneath the earth, they'd already begun by carving Seris out of the stone.