He didn't think, just followed the glow.
It flickered through the trees like a flame held just out of reach, soft, golden, familiar. He'd seen this kind of light before, back in the early days of the game. Sites of Grace. Checkpoints. Safety.
But this wasn't a game anymore.
Still, it felt the same. It pulled at him like it knew his name, even if he didn't.
The forest around him was quieter than it should've been. No wind. No birds. Just the hum of something ancient. A weight in the air, like he'd stepped into someone else's memory.
And then he saw something
In a hollow, half-swallowed by roots and ash, stood a broken shrine. The stone was cracked, overgrown with moss, and a statue lay in ruin beside it, missing a face, arms outstretched in welcome or warning. At its base, the light pooled like liquid sun.
A Site of Grace. Real. Whole.
It didn't hiss or flicker like the others. This one responded.
He stepped closer, heart thudding hard against his ribs, and reached out. The mark on his palm pulsed once, twice, then burned bright. A warm current rushed up his spine, and the light surged around him.
It was working.
For a breath, he felt real again. Seen. Recognized. And then
Steel tore through his back.
His knees hit the ground before he realized what happened. The sword punched clean through his gut, out his ribs, hot with fire. He gasped, eyes wide, mouth open in silent shock. Blood soaked the earth beneath him.
A shadow stepped past.
Silver armor gleamed with ornate runes. A white cloak drifted behind him, stained at the hem with ash. The knight didn't even pause. He pulled the blade free with a cold, practiced motion. Then turned.
The symbol on his chest caught the light: a chained sun. A Knight of Grace.
The world went blind.
Colors bled into black. The ground vanished beneath him. No pain now, just cold. An endless cold. And falling. Down into a dark with no shape, no sky, no sound.
He didn't dream, he unraveled. And then....
Air.
His chest heaved as he snapped upright, coughing hard. His body arched, dirt pressed to his face. He rolled onto his back, sucking in breath that felt foreign.
He was alive.
But not the same.
No blood on the ground. No knight. No Grace. Just dead leaves and the echo of something that had already moved on.
His limbs were heavy. Slower. His muscles didn't quite answer right. And his head…
His memories were thin.
Like the pages of a book had been torn out. Whole sections of thought, emotion, just gone. He couldn't remember what his laugh sounded like. Couldn't remember the name of the town he grew up in. Couldn't even remember the face of the friend he lost.
He knew he had those things. But now, they were just outlines.
Gone.
And in their place was a weight. A dull ache in the back of his skull, behind the eyes. A missing piece.
Resurrection wasn't clean.
It was brutal.
He sat there, hands pressed to his face, until a familiar voice broke the silence.
"What the hell happened?"
Veyla stood at the edge of the clearing, blade drawn, eyes scanning the space. Her breath caught when she saw the state he was in.
He didn't answer at first. He looked down at his palm.
The mark was still there, but fainter now. Duller. Like it had spent something it couldn't recover.
"I died," he said.
She froze.
He forced himself to stand, shaky. "A Knight. Of Grace. White cloak. Emblem like a sun wrapped in chains."
Her expression darkened.
"You're not one of us," she said quietly. "You shouldn't be able to come back."
"Yeah," he rasped. "Noticed."
"You remember everything?"
He shook his head.
Her voice softened. "What did it take?"
"I don't know."
She stepped closer. He met her gaze and for the first time, saw a kind of fear in her. Not for him. Of him.
"You're not just wrong," she whispered. "You're dangerous."
He didn't deny it.
Because in a world this broken, things that should stay dead... didn't always listen.
And those that came back?
They came back in a wrong way.