Chapter 12 The Forgotten Promise

The battlefield smelled of wet ash. A light rain had fallen before dawn, turning the black earth into thick mud that clung to every boot, and Zevran adjusted the hook over his shoulder as he joined the line of corpse collectors spreading across the valley.

His ribs still hurt. Every breath reminded him of the officer's punch inside the First Grave.

"You're limping," Borik said, catching up beside him.

"I slipped yesterday."

Borik snorted. "You must have slipped into a wall."

Zevran managed a small smile but said nothing more. At the edge of the field, House Nocthar soldiers watched every movement, and since Cassian Vale's arrival there were twice as many patrols as before. No one wandered from their assigned section anymore.

The collectors worked in silence for hours. Body after body, armor, broken weapons, forgotten faces. For the first time since receiving the Eyes of the Forgotten, Zevran avoided looking directly at the dead, afraid of another flood of memories tearing through him the way the last one had. The First Judge's warning kept surfacing in his mind. Choose what you see. He still wasn't sure how.

Near midday his hook caught on something beneath a collapsed wagon, and he knelt and pulled away the broken planks. A young boy lay underneath, no older than twelve, his clothes nothing like military issue, not a single weapon anywhere near him.

Borik frowned. "That's strange."

"What is?"

"He isn't a soldier. He shouldn't be here at all."

An overseer wandered over, barely glancing down before speaking. "Leave him. He'll go with the others. Throw him on the cart." He walked off without another word.

Borik sighed. "Poor kid," he said, and returned to his own work, but Zevran stayed where he was, something about the boy's face refusing to let him move on. Very carefully, he looked into it anyway, and the silver mark beneath his sleeve warmed as the world disappeared around him.

A warm afternoon opened up in its place. The boy laughed as he ran through a small village carrying a loaf of fresh bread, his mother calling after him not to run, the boy shouting back that he was hungry. Then the memory shifted, smoke and screaming replacing the sunlight, House Nocthar soldiers storming through the village while the boy hid beneath the same wagon Zevran had just pulled him from, tiny hands pressed over his own mouth to keep from crying out. Boots stopped beside him. A soldier looked underneath, and their eyes met for one unbearable second. The boy whispered, "Please," and the soldier hesitated only a moment before driving a spear through the wagon anyway.

Darkness swallowed the vision, and Zevran stumbled backward, gasping, his stomach twisting violently. He barely made it behind a ruined wall before he was sick, his whole body trembling with the effort of staying upright.

Someone placed a hand on his shoulder. Borik.

"You alright?"

Zevran wiped his mouth. "I—" He couldn't finish. The memory still felt too real, the boy's whispered please still ringing somewhere behind his eyes.

"You've gone pale," Borik said.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

"Just tired."

Borik clearly didn't believe him, but he let it go. "Go wash your face. I'll cover your section." Zevran nodded gratefully and made his way toward a small stream cutting across the battlefield, kneeling beside it to splash water over his face again and again. Even with his eyes closed he could still hear the boy begging.

When the shaking finally eased, he noticed something lying in the mud beside the stream. A small wooden pendant, simple and hand carved, a bird shape on one side and a single word on the other. Mother. He closed his fingers around it slowly.

That evening, instead of heading straight home, he followed the memory instead. The village wasn't far from the battlefield, and most of the homes there had already been abandoned, though one small cottage still showed signs of life. An elderly woman sat outside it, staring toward the distant valley, and she looked up as he approached.

"Can I help you?"

He suddenly didn't know what to say. He couldn't tell her what he'd seen, couldn't explain how he knew. Instead he simply held out the pendant.

Her hands began to shake as she took it. "My son," she whispered, tears filling her eyes almost instantly.

"I'm sorry," Zevran said, lowering his head.

She clutched the pendant against her chest. "For three years I thought maybe—" Her voice broke before she could finish. "Thank you."

Zevran stood in silence, aware there was nothing he could say that would soften what she'd carried for three years. As he turned to leave, she called after him.

"Young man." He looked back. "You gave a mother an answer. That matters more than you know."

The walk back to the settlement felt longer than usual. His ribs still ached, and his head still throbbed from the vision, but somewhere beneath the pain sat something else entirely, something steadier. For the first time since the mark had appeared on his hand, he understood why the Court had chosen this power at all. It wasn't only meant to uncover guilt or hunt down the guilty. Sometimes it existed simply to give the forgotten a voice, even years too late.

As darkness settled over the settlement, a pair of unseen eyes watched him disappear into Garrick's shack. From the shadow of a nearby alley, Cassian Vale quietly closed his notebook.

"You weren't supposed to leave the settlement today," he murmured to himself, a faint smile touching his lips. "So where exactly did you go?"