TEN THOUSAND HEARTS

Aren awoke in a field of doors.

Thousands of them.

Red doors.

Blue doors.

Broken doors.

Doors made of pine.

Doors painted with children's handprints.

Doors with brass knockers and carved initials.

Beyond each waited a memory.

He knew instinctively that opening them would be dangerous.

He opened one.

A woman stood in a kitchen.

Snow pressed against the windows.

A little boy sat on the table swinging his legs.

“You burned it,” he announced.

The woman stared at black bread.

“I prefer the term aggressively baked.”

The boy laughed.

The memory hit Aren with such tenderness that he collapsed.

He loved the child.

No.

Someone loved the child.

The feeling was inside Aren now.

He could taste it.

Warmth.

Fear.

Pride.

An irrational certainty that this tiny human mattered more than kingdoms.

Aren slammed the door.

He opened another.

A soldier kissed his husband before leaving for Blackhold.

Another.

A girl buried her dog beneath an apple tree.

Another.

Two sisters fought over a necklace and did not speak for seven years.

One died before apologizing.

Another.

Commander Raith carried Aren through the Red Gorge.

Aren shut that door too.

He ran.

There were too many.

Every bond stolen by Blackhold's Engine now lived inside the hollow spaces created by his sentence.

Not his emotions.

But his burden.

Aren ran until his lungs burned.

The field had no end.

Then someone appeared ahead.

Elara.

He stopped.

She wore blue.

Of course.

“You aren't real.”

“I know.”

That startled him.

The memory-Elara smiled.

“You made me.”

“I didn't.”

“You keep every version of me.”

She stepped closer.

“The woman who laughed in summer rain. The woman who waited through your campaigns. The woman who sat beside your bed after Orison.”

Aren looked away.

“And the woman who feels nothing.”

“Yes.”

He hated the compassion in the false Elara's voice.

“Go away.”

“You can't.”

“Why?”

“Because you still love me.”

Aren laughed bitterly.

“How embarrassing.”

“Yes.”

He looked at her.

She smiled.

The real Elara would have answered exactly that.

His chest tightened.

“How do I wake up?”

“You decide which door is yours.”

Aren looked across the endless field.

“I don't understand.”

“You are carrying everyone else's love. If you don't remember your own, it will drown you.”

“My bonds were severed.”

“Bonds are not love.”

The words struck him.

Aren stared.

Memory-Elara touched his chest.

“They cut everyone else's road to you.”

Her hand moved over his heart.

“They never touched yours.”

Aren woke screaming.

Seris held him down.

“Stop!”

Black fire covered the room.

Hadrik pinned Aren's shoulder with one hand.

Corin stood behind a chair holding a frying pan.

Lyssa sat inside a circle of chalk symbols.

Aren blinked.

“Why the pan?”

Corin looked offended.

“You were on fire.”

“And?”

“I improvised.”

Aren looked around.

They were in Blackhold's infirmary.

Sunlight entered through cracked windows.

“How long?”

Seris released him.

“Two days.”

Aren sat up.

Pain followed.

Not physical.

Emotional.

Thousands of quiet pressures moved inside him.

Longing for people he had never met.

Fear for children whose names he did not know.

Love letters remembered by strangers.

He pressed both hands against his face.

“Get them out.”

Lyssa looked down.

“We can't.”

Aren lowered his hands.

“What?”

“The Heartspire collapsed.”

He stared at her.

“The original bodies?”

“Some survived. Many didn't.”

“How many?”

Nobody answered.

Aren's voice hardened.

“How many?”

Hadrik spoke.

“Two thousand, maybe.”

The room tilted.

“And the rest?”

Seris's jaw tightened.

“Dead.”

Aren looked at Lyssa.

“But their Resonance—”

“Is in you.”

Silence.

Aren stood too quickly.

Seris caught him.

He shoved her away.

“Then put it back.”

“Into corpses?”

“Yes.”

“Aren.”

“Do it.”

Lyssa's voice broke.

“I can't.”

Black fire erupted across the floor.

Windows shattered.

Corin stopped joking.

Aren struggled to breathe.

Thirty-one thousand four hundred and six.

Now more.

Always more.

Everywhere he went, numbers followed.

Seris stepped toward him.

“Aren.”

“Don't.”

“You didn't kill them.”

“Don't.”

“Raith activated the Engine.”

“Because Rhest put it here.”

“Yes.”

“And why did Rhest send me?”

Nobody answered.

Aren laughed.

“He knew what I was.”

Lyssa frowned.

“What you were?”

“Useful.”

The word tasted familiar.

Equipment.

The court had turned him into a weapon, then delivered him directly to a machine only he could absorb.

Maybe his conviction had nothing to do with Orison.

Maybe Orison itself had been arranged.

The thought was too large.

Too dangerous.

Aren looked toward the door.

“Where's Raith?”

Hadrik moved between Aren and the exit.

“No.”

“Move.”

“He's dying.”

“Then I should hurry.”

Hadrik did not move.

Aren's eyes narrowed.

“I commanded men twice your size.”

“And buried them too, probably.”

The room went silent.

Hadrik's face changed.

Regret.

Then the Severance swallowed it.

Aren almost laughed.

Even insults lost meaning when the person who spoke them could not care afterward.

Hadrik folded his arms.

“You want answers. Dead men are poor conversationalists.”

Aren's black fire dimmed.

Seris pointed toward the bed.

“Sit.”

Aren stared at her.

“That's not a suggestion.”

“You are aware I outrank you?”

“You're a prisoner.”

“So are you.”

“I used to be a captain.”

“I used to have medical authority over generals.”

Corin leaned toward Lyssa.

“I'm enjoying this.”

Seris pointed again.

“Sit.”

Aren sat.

She checked his eyes.

“Any voices?”

“Thousands.”

Corin immediately stopped smiling.

Seris's hand paused.

“Constantly?”

“Not voices exactly.”

“What?”

“Feelings.”

Aren searched for language.

“A woman named Tarin is worried because her son joined the cavalry. A man whose name I don't know misses his wife even though she was apparently terrible at singing. Someone loved a horse named Bishop more than most people love their families.”

Corin nodded solemnly.

“Reasonable.”

Aren looked toward Lyssa.

“Can I access memories?”

“Fragments. Strong emotion creates imprint.”

“Can I choose which?”

“Eventually.”

“Can I access Raith's?”

She understood.

“Maybe.”

“Then we find out what Rhest did.”

Seris sighed.

“After you recover.”

“No.”

“Aren.”

He looked at her.

For one moment she seemed furious.

Not physician-furious.

Personal.

“You keep deciding your life has no value because other people were forced to stop valuing it.”

Aren froze.

Seris seemed surprised by her own words.

Then her expression changed.

The Severance.

Warmth leaving.

She blinked.

“Why am I angry?”

No one answered.

Aren's throat tightened.

Seris touched her forehead.

“I know you're reckless. I know that annoys me. But…”

She looked genuinely frightened.

“I can't remember why I cared.”

Aren stood.

This time nobody stopped him.

He walked past her.

“Aren.”

He paused at the door.

Seris's voice was quiet.

“I'm sorry.”

He did not turn.

“In an hour you won't be.”

He left.

Raith was dying in the command hall.

Sunlight shone through the broken ceiling.

Hundreds of bodies had been removed.

The former commander lay beneath the ruined Heartspire.

His hair had turned completely white.

Aren sat beside him.

Raith opened his eyes.

“You survived.”

“So did you.”

“Temporarily.”

Aren looked at him.

“Why did Rhest build the Engine?”

Raith smiled faintly.

“To save humanity.”

“Try again.”

“That is the answer.”

“From the Mourning?”

“From itself.”

Aren waited.

Raith coughed.

Blood touched his lips.

“The First Heartwrights misunderstood the Hollows. They thought grief created them.”

“It doesn't?”

“No.”

Raith laughed softly.

“Love creates them.”

Aren stared.

“Every great attachment leaves Resonance. When violently severed by death, betrayal, war… some of it remains. Enough forgotten love becomes hunger.”

“Hollows.”

“Yes.”

“So Rhest wants to remove love.”

“Not Rhest.”

Raith looked terrified for the first time.

“The man above him.”

Aren leaned closer.

“Who?”

Raith whispered two words.

“The Gentle King.”

Aren's blood went cold.

That name existed only in children's stories.

A king who ended a war by making his people forget what they fought for.

A monster who offered peace at the price of caring.

Raith seized Aren's wrist.

“He's real.”

Black fire hissed between their skin.

“And Orison?” Aren asked.

Raith's eyes filled with something close to grief.

“I’m sorry.”

Aren stopped breathing.

“For what?”

Raith looked at him.

“Orison didn't fall because you abandoned the Heartspire.”

Aren could hear every borrowed heartbeat inside himself.

Raith's fingers tightened.

“You were ordered away because they needed the city to fall.”