Chapter Three: Ruins

Sandstone blocks crumbled when they slammed into marble, though you would not know that until you wandered among the ruins. Considering the building had stood untouched for a thousand years, it was shocking to see an entire corner blasted apart.

The calendar hanging crooked on the wall still read “Mid-Moonharrow,” but the angle of the sun beyond the shattered stone told you it was Larksveil now—the season when the thaw began and new life pushed up through the earth.

A cut burned across your forehead. Blood trickled down your face and slipped past the corner of your mouth, copper-bright on your tongue. You did not remember being inside when they came. Only waking to chaos and shattered glass.

Why is there so much glass?

You picked through the rubble carefully, gathering what wouldn’t slice open your hands. Scraps of paper. Pottery shards. Broken vial stoppers. You were barefoot, and your feet—already numb and bleeding—left thin streaks of red across the marble floor.

Outside, voices gathered beyond the ruined wall. Cries of outrage and anguish drifted inward. The temple had not been a fortress. It had been a home.

For what, you couldn’t remember.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Someone climbed through the jagged opening in the sandstone. He was short—no more than four feet tall—with a long blond beard and a satchel slung across his back.

“You.” He pointed at you like an accusation.

“I’ve done nothing.” Deny. Deny. Deny. Especially when you truly had no idea how you’d ended up here. “I’m cleaning.”

The gnome—because once he clambered over the rubble there was no mistaking what he was—strode directly toward you and stared up with beady black eyes and a jaw set hard with suspicion.

How could someone so small take up so much space?

“Where is your supervisor?” he demanded.

You glanced wildly around the ruined chamber. You didn’t even know where you were, much less who was in charge.

“Don’t you work here?”

You looked down at yourself. Drab brown linen. Tunic and trousers the color of dark bread. Your feet were filthy beneath the blood. No shoes. Your hand lifted instinctively to your scalp and met bare skin. Completely bald.

“Sir, I have no idea who is in charge. I don’t think I work here.”

Something in your answer changed his expression. His suspicion loosened into concern. He began pacing the room instead, stopping now and then to retrieve fragments of labeled glass from the floor. Then he went pale.

“What is it?” you asked, though you couldn’t force yourself to move. Your feet felt rooted to the marble.

“These are memory vials,” he whispered.

Only then did you notice the hallway beyond the ruined chamber. Past the arched doorway sat a vast library—or perhaps a vault. Shelves disappeared into shadow.

“The Heartkeep,” you murmured before you even realized you knew the words. The center of memory magic in Saudade. “I didn’t do it.” The denial came instinctively. You looked over the devastation and somehow knew it wasn’t your fault.

But did you know whose fault it was?

The gnome hurried through the archway, shouting for the Heartkeep’s warden while you stood frozen, trying to cut through the thick fog blanketing your mind.

What happened here?

He returned moments later looking even more panicked.

“She’s gone,” he wheezed, as though he’d sprinted the entire complex on his short legs. “Her desk is overturned. Papers everywhere. The front door is standing wide open.”

“But the citadel must stand,” you murmured. Anguish rose unexpectedly in your chest. “What have I done?”

Your hand pressed against your heart as the gnome rounded on you.

“Yes,” he snapped. “I’m wondering the same thing. What have you done?” He narrowed his eyes. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t want to share that with you.”

Even as you spoke, instinct screamed at you to run. Memory or no memory, you were the only witness left in the room. If the city guard arrived, they might drag you away and never let you leave.

The gnome sighed and raised both hands in surrender.

“I’m not good with people,” he muttered. Then he stuck out his hand. “Bristlebeard.”

Odd, considering his beard looked rather soft.

Pain flickered across his features. “I was here too…” He trailed off. “Never mind.”

You looked down and realized the blood from your feet had begun sticking you to the marble floor. Bristlebeard knelt immediately, shrugging off his satchel and pulling free cloth, bandages, and a clear medicinal solution.

“I’m a healer,” he said gently. “Let me help.”

The moment his hands touched your ankle, your body returned to itself all at once. Every cut began to sting. Tiny lacerations you hadn’t even noticed burned awake beneath his careful fingers.

You wanted desperately for the pain—for anything—to trigger your memory. To prove you hadn’t done this. That the goodness you felt somewhere deep in your bones was real and not simply vanity.

That you would never violate The Heartkeep.

Once your feet were wrapped, you stood carefully and began gathering the broken glass again out of pure instinct, despite the fact it had cut you in the first place. Black lettering shimmered across several shards.

Hollis Marcellin

More fragments waited nearby. Empty vials. Empty memories.

You knew what that meant somehow. If the vial was empty, the memory was gone—either returned to its creator or lost forever.

There was a third possibility you didn’t want to consider.

More names surfaced among the wreckage.

Bellamy Crelwyr

Isolde Lavelle

Bumble Crevenglen

Drummond Peters

Corwin Cricklespan

“A lot of C names,” you murmured.

Bristlebeard appeared beside you so suddenly you startled. He snatched the shards from your hand, wincing as he read them.

“Let me see.”

Though, clearly, he already was.

“Crelwyr. Cricklespan…” he muttered, saying the names aloud as though arranging them in some invisible order. Then a dark realization crossed his face and he bolted through the archway again.

“Bristlebeard!” you called after him, but he was already gone.

Outside, the sound of boots echoed through the streets. The guard was gathering.

You needed to leave.

You moved toward the curved archway, following directions your body seemed to remember even if your mind did not. Every turn came instinctively, your feet guiding you through the ruined Heartkeep before you consciously chose the path yourself.

“Wait!”

Bristlebeard intercepted you before you reached the front entrance. He clutched an empty velvet bag in trembling hands.

“Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” he asked breathlessly.

You shook your head.

“All the gods,” he cursed softly, holding up the bag. “Mine. Mine are gone.”

You frowned. “You were coming here?”

When he nodded, your gaze swept across the ruined halls. Most memories spent the rest of their existence inside the Heartkeep. Protected. Preserved.

“Why?”

Bristlebeard tore off his hat and crushed it in his hands.

“I made a mistake,” he whispered. “I relinquished every memory of my father.” His voice cracked. “I want them back.”