Your name

The morning sun filtered through the high trees, painting the training fields with streaks of amber and gold. Metal clashed in rhythm, shields rose and fell, and voices barked in command. Soldiers moved like clockwork, dust curling under their boots. The field was alive—but none more so than General Saryna Velka.

She strode past lines of recruits, her cape trailing behind like a second shadow. Her gaze was sharp, her voice sharper. For years now, she had trained hundreds, led thousands, forgotten names as quickly as they were called. She did not need to remember them—only their ability to obey.

But today, something paused her.

She stood with the scroll of names in her gloved hand, the ink slightly smudged from morning dew. Her eyes scanned down, and then—

Rivaan Thorne.

The ink on his name was no different, no brighter. But her gaze lingered.

She blinked, lips pressing together slightly. She had seen the name before. Many times. Yet only now did it hold weight.

Her eyes lifted toward the line of sparring soldiers. And there he was—moving fast, parrying well, form clean but not flashy. He was not the best. Not the loudest. But something in the set of his jaw and the weight in his shoulders was familiar. Like a sound you hear in dreams and forget by dawn—until it echoes again.

Nayre Mordane, Her mentor standing beside her, noticed.

“You know the name?” he asked.

She shook her head, slowly. “No... but I don't know”

Rivaan hadn't seen her yet. Or perhaps he had and pretended otherwise. He was good at keeping his gaze down when needed. But when he lifted it—just once—it landed straight into hers.

A moment. Brief. But it cracked through the silence in her mind.

She looked away first.

---

**Rivaan’s side**

He had not expected her to be there.

He had trained here for three years now. She came often, but never for long. She commanded from distance—rarely stopping, never noticing.

Until today.

When she called names, he had heard his own countless times without reaction. But this time, her voice wrapped around it differently. Her silence afterward felt like thunder.

He remembered the battlefield. The chaos. The blade meant for her that he had parried. The cut on his arm that still flared in the cold. And the way she had looked at him—not with thanks, not even with recognition—but with something deeper. A haunted pause.

Now, her eyes were not haunted. Just heavy.

After the roll-call, she said nothing to him. Walked past. But her footsteps slowed for the first time in years.

That night, by the barracks fire, Rivaan sat alone, running a whetstone along his blade. His mind was not on the steel. It was on her voice.

And her silence.

He whispered her name once, not aloud.

Saryna.

And something in the night air shivered like a memory not fully buried.

---

In the castle, Prince Auren read the day's military report.

"General Velka spent extended time on training field," the note said. "Paused at recruit Thorne’s name."

He leaned back in his chair. Eyes narrowed. A slow, unreadable smile formed.

"Interesting," he murmured.