Read Lost Memories free: the opening chapter

The Silver Dust

The air tasted of static and ozone. Not the clean tang of a coming storm, but the metallic burn of spent energy, of the very earth struggling to hold itself together. Dust, fine and silver, swirled around Kaelen’s boots, kicked up by the frantic hooves of the pack-beasts. The caravan, a ragged string of covered wagons and weary merchants, had been pushing north for three days, skirting the edge of the Glimmering Chasm, and the tension had been tightening with each league. He could feel it in the pinched faces of the drivers, the way they constantly scanned the bruised purple sky, the feverish clutching of charms and wards.

He wasn’t here for their peace of mind. He was here for the coin. Vanguard Captain, disgraced and stripped of his command after the debacle at Blackrock Pass, Kaelen Vance now traded his skills as a Skein-Weaver for whatever scraps he could find. It wasn’t glory, but it paid for the specialized tinctures that slowed the creeping emptiness within his mind. Every application of kinetic force, every gravity-shift, demanded a price. A memory.

The beasts came without warning. Not the lumbering, grotesque horrors rumored to crawl from the Void, but something… faster. Lean, obsidian shapes, like shadows given teeth and claws, erupting from the warped landscape beyond the skeletal trees. Void-spawned skraelings. They moved with a jerky, unsettling grace, their bodies phasing in and out of focus as if unsure of their own existence. Five of them. Enough to scatter the caravan, to bleed the merchants dry, to earn Kaelen a decent sum if he moved quickly.

“Brace yourselves!” he barked, his voice roughened by disuse and regret. “Form a circle. Keep the beasts between you and the wagons.”

Panic flared, predictable and irritating. Merchants scrambling, drivers shouting, pack-beasts braying in terror. He suppressed a sigh. Discipline wasn’t a luxury he could afford to demand. He needed action, and he needed it now.

He extended a hand, palm open towards the nearest skraeling, and felt for the Skein. The ley-lines of Aether-glass, the world’s circulatory system, thrummed beneath the soil. Here, at the edge of the Chasm, the Skein was frayed, depleted. The silver dust that flowed through it felt gritty, almost… reluctant. He had to coax it, to pull the energy upwards, to weave it into a kinetic shield.

His vision blurred for a heartbeat, a fleeting image of sun-drenched stone and climbing roses. His grandmother’s garden. Gone. Erased. The first thread of memory sacrificed to the Skein. He pushed the pang of loss aside. Sentiment was a weakness.

The shield materialized as a shimmering wall of distorted air, intercepting the skraeling’s first lunge. The creature slammed into the barrier, momentarily stunned, its shadowy form flickering violently. Good. But one shield wouldn't be enough. There were four more.

---

“Faster, Captain!” a merchant shrieked, clutching a jeweled amulet. “They’re getting through!”

Kaelen ignored him. Focus. He needed to conserve his energy. Simple kinetic pushes would suffice for the weaker beasts. He extended his awareness, weaving strands of force into the legs of another skraeling, sending it stumbling and sprawling. A quick, brutal twist of the Skein, and its momentum carried it crashing into a wagon wheel. Wood splintered. The creature howled, a sound like wind whistling through broken glass.

He moved with a fluid, economical grace honed by years of training. Each step, each gesture, a calculation of force and energy expenditure. He wasn’t fighting with brute strength, but with precision, with an understanding of the Skein that bordered on instinct. He manipulated gravity, subtly altering the weight of the skraelings, throwing them off balance, making them easier targets. He directed the momentum of their own attacks back against them.

But the Skein was thinning. Each weave, each manipulation, felt more difficult, more draining. The images flickered faster now, more insistent. The scent of woodsmoke. The laughter of children. The warmth of his sister, Lyra, braiding flowers into his hair. Fragments. Ghosts. He clenched his jaw, forcing them down.

“We can’t hold them much longer!” a driver yelled, his voice cracking with fear.

Kaelen knew he was right. The skraelings were adapting, learning to anticipate his movements. One of them, larger and more aggressive than the others, broke through the shield, its claws raking across the side of a wagon. The merchant inside screamed.

He needed to end this. Now.

He channeled all his remaining energy, reaching deep into the Skein, ignoring the screaming protest of his fading memories. He visualized the kinetic force, not as a shield, not as a series of pushes and pulls, but as a single, devastating shockwave. A surge of raw power that would obliterate the remaining skraelings.

The price? A substantial chunk of his past. Something significant. Something… irreplaceable.

He closed his eyes, bracing himself. He reached for the memory, the one that resonated most strongly, the one that clung to the edges of his consciousness. The layout of his childhood home. Every room, every corridor, every hidden alcove. The place where he'd felt safe, loved, complete. The place Lyra had always called “the Sunstone.”

He relinquished it.

A searing pain lanced through his mind, as if a vital part of him had been ripped away. He stumbled, momentarily disoriented, but forced himself to maintain control. The silver dust within the Skein flared, responding to his desperate plea.

---

The shockwave erupted from his outstretched hand, a concussive burst of energy that slammed into the remaining skraelings with the force of a collapsing mountain. They were vaporized, their shadowy forms dissolving into nothingness before they even had a chance to react.

The air crackled with residual energy. The merchants stared at him, mouths agape, their fear slowly giving way to awe. The pack-beasts whinnied nervously.

Kaelen lowered his hand, breathing heavily. He felt… empty. Not just physically exhausted, but hollowed out, as if a piece of his soul had been stolen. He tried to picture his childhood home. To recall the arrangement of the rooms, the color of the walls, the position of the windows. But all he found was a swirling void, a blank canvas where memories should have been.

He pressed a hand to his temple, trying to grasp at the fragments. A fireplace. A rocking chair. Lyra’s laughter. But they were elusive, fading like smoke. The more he strained, the more they slipped away.

He’d known this would happen. He’d accepted the cost. But the reality was far more brutal than he’d imagined. It wasn't a simple erasure of detail. It was a fundamental alteration of his self. A severing of a connection to his past.

“Captain Vance,” the merchant he'd ignored earlier approached, his face pale but relieved. He held out a pouch of coins. “You saved us. All of us. I… I don’t know how to thank you.”

Kaelen took the pouch, his fingers numb. He didn’t bother to count the coins. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Except, perhaps, finding Lyra. She’d been taken months ago, snatched from the streets of Silverhaven by agents of the Glass Spires. He’d promised himself he’d find her, no matter the cost. Even if it meant sacrificing everything he was. Everything he had been.

He forced a grim smile. “Just glad I could be of assistance.”

He turned away from the caravan, towards the north, towards the looming darkness of the Glimmering Chasm. He stood for a long time, letting the biting cold air scour his face, before turning his back on the abyss. He walked toward the lights of Oakhaven.

The town did not resemble a bastion of civilization. It appeared as a scab, a crust of iron and stone clinging to the edge of the Sunderlands. The buildings were hunched against the wind, their roofs weighed down by heavy slabs of slate to keep them from being carried off into the void. As Kaelen approached, he felt the familiar, low-frequency hum of the Skein beneath the soil. It was a jagged sound, not the smooth, resonant chord of a healthy ley-line, but the fractured, screaming vibration of a resource being bled dry by the desperate.

He reached the gatehouse, where a guard in the battered leather of the Vanguard stood shivering. The man did not look up as Kaelen approached, his eyes fixed on the distant, pulsing purple tear in the sky.

“Another one back from the edge,” the guard grunted, barely glancing at Kaelen. “Collecting coin for the forgetting?”

Kaelen didn’t answer. The guard didn’t seem to expect one. He simply waved him through, his gaze returning to the ominous glow of the Void.

As Kaelen passed through the gate, he noticed a figure standing in the shadows, watching him. A woman, cloaked and hooded, her face obscured. She held herself with an air of quiet intensity, her eyes burning with an unsettling intelligence. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been waiting for him. That she knew more about him than he knew about himself.

He paused, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword. But he hesitated. Something about the woman’s presence felt… different. Not threatening, exactly. But knowing.

She stepped forward, her voice a low, melodic whisper that cut through the wind. “Captain Vance. They say you trade in memories. Tell me… what have you lost?”

“What have you lost?” she repeated, the question hanging in the frigid air like a shard of ice.

Kaelen lowered his hand, the phantom weight of the memory-trade settling upon his shoulders. He’d become accustomed to the probing gazes, the hushed whispers. Kinetic Weavers were… unusual. Feared, often. Admired, rarely.

“More than I care to remember,” he said, his voice rough from disuse. He hadn’t spoken much in months, not since the last true conversation he’d had with Lyra.

The woman tilted her head, a sliver of pale skin visible beneath the hood. “A common enough answer. But yours… feels heavier. Deeper. It isn’t simply the price of your craft, is it?”

He bristled. “My craft is my own concern.”

“Everything in the Sunderlands is everyone’s concern, Captain. Especially when it involves the Skein. You draw power from it, manipulate kinetic energy. But even the strongest weave requires a tether. A sacrifice.” She gestured vaguely towards the pulsing tear in the sky. “The Void doesn’t give freely. It takes. And you, Captain, are paying a steep price.”

Kaelen’s jaw tightened. She was right, of course. Every act of Kinetic Weaving demanded a personal offering. A memory, a skill, a piece of himself. Small things at first. The taste of a particular fruit, the name of a childhood friend. But the larger the weave, the greater the cost. He’d started small, reinforcing cart axles, accelerating seed growth for struggling farmers. Then it had escalated. Protecting caravans, diverting landslides, pushing back the ever-encroaching Void-spawned beasts. And with each act, the erosion of his past accelerated.

“I know the terms,” he said shortly.

“Do you?” The woman’s lips curved into a faint, unsettling smile. “Do you truly understand what you’re losing? It’s not just what you forget, Captain. It’s how. The subtle shifts in your personality, the erosion of your empathy, the dulling of your joy. Each memory is a thread in the tapestry of your soul. Pull enough of them, and the whole thing unravels.”

Kaelen turned away, needing to escape her piercing gaze. He needed to reach the Broken Anvil, the only inn in Oakhaven that didn’t reek of desperation and regret.

“I’m going to find a room,” he said, his voice clipped.

“Before you do,” the woman said, stepping closer, “allow me to introduce myself. I am Seraphina. I study the Weavers. I document the effects of kinetic manipulation on the psyche. And I suspect, Captain Vance, that you are a particularly fascinating case.”

He stopped, his hand tightening into a fist. “I’m not a specimen.”

“Perhaps not. But you are a symptom. A warning. The Sunderlands are filled with Weavers who have bartered away their humanity for power. They become… hollow. Instruments of force, devoid of compassion. I try to understand why. And more importantly, if there’s a way to stop it.”

Kaelen considered her words, a flicker of something akin to hope igniting within him. Could she… could she offer a solution? A way to mitigate the cost of his magic?

“And you think I hold the key?”

Seraphina nodded slowly. “I think you’ve pushed further than most. You’ve traded away more. You’ve reached the precipice. And I want to know what you see when you look into the abyss.”

He scoffed. “I see nothing but darkness.”

“That’s not true. You see the echoes of what you’ve lost. The ghosts of your former self. And those ghosts… they can tell a story.” She paused, then added, “Tell me about your home, Captain. Before the Sunderlands. Before the Void. Before you became a Weaver.”

Kaelen felt a cold dread creep into his heart. He hadn’t thought about his childhood home in years. Not consciously, at least. He’d deliberately suppressed those memories, fearing the cost of recalling them. But Seraphina’s words had unlocked something within him, a longing for a past he thought he’d buried forever.

He hesitated, then began to speak, his voice barely a whisper. “It was a small village, nestled in the Silverwood. Oldhaven. Surrounded by orchards and vineyards. My father was a carpenter, my mother a healer. We weren’t wealthy, but we were happy.”

As he spoke, images flickered through his mind, sun-dappled orchards, the scent of wood shavings, his mother’s gentle touch. He described the layout of the village, the winding cobblestone streets, the central marketplace, the ancient oak tree that stood at the heart of it all. He spoke of his friends, his first love, the simple joys of a life lived in harmony with nature.

With each detail he revealed, he felt a growing sense of emptiness. The memories were fading, becoming fragmented, like shards of glass. He was watching his past slip away, piece by piece.

“The town hall… it had a clock tower, made of white stone,” he continued, his voice strained. “And a bell that chimed every hour. My father helped build it. He was very proud of that.”

The image of the clock tower shimmered, then dissolved into a swirling vortex of grey. He blinked, trying to hold onto the memory, but it was gone.

Seraphina watched him intently, her expression unreadable. “You’re losing it, Captain. You’re actively unmaking your past.”

He knew she was right. The cost of recalling the memories was far greater than he’d anticipated. He’d traded away a piece of his soul with every word he spoke.

“I need to stop,” he said, his voice trembling.

“Not yet,” Seraphina insisted. “There’s one more detail I need to know. The old temple, on the hill overlooking the village. What was inside?”

Kaelen closed his eyes, focusing all his mental energy on the image of the temple. It was a crumbling structure, built from dark stone, its roof long since collapsed. He remembered exploring it as a child, fascinated by the ancient carvings and the eerie silence within.

“There was an altar,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Made of obsidian. And… and a statue. A statue of a woman, holding a weaving shuttle. She was… radiant. Beautiful.”

He felt a sharp pain in his head, a searing agony that threatened to overwhelm him. He was losing more than just the image of the temple. He was losing the feeling of it. The sense of wonder, the innocent curiosity.

“That’s enough,” he gasped, clutching his head. “I can’t…”

Seraphina reached out and placed a hand on his arm, her touch surprisingly firm. “One more, Captain. Just one more. The layout of your home. The exact arrangement of the rooms. The position of the furniture. Everything.”

Kaelen stared at her, his eyes wide with terror. He knew what she was asking. He knew the cost. But he also knew that Lyra was out there, somewhere, and that finding her was the only thing that mattered.

He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the inevitable. He began to describe his childhood home, room by room, detailing every nook and cranny, every piece of furniture, every cherished possession. He described the warmth of the hearth, the scent of his mother’s cooking, the sound of his father’s laughter.

As he spoke, the memories began to unravel at an accelerated rate. The colors faded, the textures blurred, the sounds distorted. He was watching his entire childhood disappear before his eyes.

Finally, he reached the last room, his bedroom. He described the small wooden bed, the worn rug, the bookshelf filled with his favorite stories. He described the window that overlooked the orchard, the view of the Silverwood bathed in moonlight.

And then, it was gone. Completely and utterly gone. The room, the house, the village… all erased from his memory. He was left with a hollow emptiness, a void where his past once resided.

He collapsed to his knees, his body wracked with sobs. He didn’t know who he was anymore. He didn’t know where he came from. He was a ghost, adrift in a sea of oblivion.

Seraphina knelt beside him, her expression filled with a mixture of pity and fascination. “It is done,” she said softly. “You have paid the price.”

Kaelen looked up at her, his eyes vacant. “What… what have I done?”

“You have unlocked something,” Seraphina replied. “Something within the Skein. Something that will help you find Lyra.” She paused, then added, “But be warned, Captain Vance. The cost of this power is far greater than you can imagine. You may have found a path to your goal, but you have also lost yourself along the way.”

The sample ends here.