The path wound downward, narrow and quiet.
The scouts had called it the Valley of Names. No one knew what the original name had been. It had been buried, like so much else, beneath ash, war, and silence.
But the valley had not forgotten.
The first sign was the stones.
Small. Smooth. Arranged in rows along the cliffsides. Each one was marked not with glyphs, not with scripts but with a single word, etched by hand.
A name.
Some were fresh.
Others had been weathered by years of rain.
When Eren first saw them, he stopped walking.
Elira stepped beside him.
"You know this place?"
"I've never been here," he said.
"But it knows you."
Syra moved ahead, checking the trail.
"These names go on for miles."
Varn, walking a respectful distance behind them, spoke softly.
"This is where the forgotten go to be remembered."
Eren walked forward slowly.
He passed names carved by trembling hands. Names too short to have been spoken for long. Names followed by no titles, no lineages, no legacies. Just the echo of a life lived and left.
They made camp near the center of the valley.
That evening, as the sun sank below the ridge, the stones began to glow.
Faintly.
Silver.
Like firelight remembered by the earth.
Elira touched one gently.
"This one says Calen."
"I had a brother named that," a woman near the fire said.
She wasn't crying. Just watching.
"Not sure if it's him. But maybe."
Eren looked around the circle.
"So many names."
Varn sat near a torch, eyes lowered.
"The Circle feared this place. Said it was dangerous to give voice to the forgotten."
"Because memory is power," Syra said.
Eren nodded.
"No fire burns brighter than the one lit by remembrance."
He stood.
Walked to the center of the clearing.
And drew Akreth.
Its silver runes lit without command.
He held the blade before him.
"This place was not made for warriors."
He turned slowly.
"It was made for witnesses. For those who had no voices, but left echoes anyway."
He pointed the blade toward the sky.
"No name carved here is small. No name is lost."
One by one, the camp followed.
They knelt before the stones.
Some added new names.
Others simply traced old ones.
A child placed a flower beside one stone and whispered, "You're not alone anymore."
And the stone warmed beneath her palm.
Eren sat in silence long after the others slept.
Akreth across his knees.
The stars above felt closer than usual.
Elira sat beside him.
"You've made something here."
"I didn't mean to."
"You did it anyway."
They didn't speak for a while.
Then she asked, "Will you carve a name?"
He nodded.
And did.
With the tip of the blade, he etched a word into the nearest stone.
Lyria.
The letters shimmered as they formed.
No fire.
Just light.
Elira placed a hand on his.
"She would have stood beside you."
"She still does," he said.
The next morning, the valley was filled with the sound of quiet footsteps.
Dozens more had arrived in the night.
Some bore names.
Others came to find them.
And above it all, Eren stood once more.
Not as leader.
Not as bearer.
But as flame.
The kind that did not consume.
Only remembered.