Chapter 3-The General's Unfinished business
1413 Words
The eastern forest had been quiet for three days.
That was what frightened General Feli Ruiz the most.
Silence was never a good sign.
He stood inside the military command chamber, one hand resting against the edge of the long wooden table. A large map of the eastern territories stretched before him, covered with red and black markings.
Three villages.
Two abandoned watchtowers.
One missing patrol.
And beyond them all-
the eastern forest.
"Nothing?"
Feli's voice was calm.
The soldiers standing before him exchanged uneasy glances.
"Nothing, General."
"Not even tracks?"
"None that remain."
Feli looked down at the map.
"Then you're telling me twelve soldiers simply disappeared?"
The captain swallowed.
"We found their horses."
"And the men?"
"Nothing."
Feli's jaw tightened.
He hated answers like that.
In war, people disappeared for reasons.
Ambushes left blood.
Murder left bodies.
Enemies left tracks.
But the Hollowing left nothing.
That was what made it different.
It didn't kill people in the way ordinary enemies did.
It took something from them.
Sometimes their memories.
Sometimes their strength.
Sometimes their very sense of self.
And sometimes-
it left only an empty shell behind.
Feli slowly straightened.
"Seal the eastern road."
The captain looked surprised.
"But, General, the Royal Hunt has already ended. The nobles are returning to the capital."
"I know."
"Then why close the road now?"
Feli's eyes hardened.
"Because whatever happened in that forest isn't over."
No one argued.
They knew better.
"Send another patrol?"
"No."
The captain blinked.
"No?"
"Not until I know what we're dealing with."
Feli turned toward the window.
Beyond the military fortress, the distant mountains were covered in gray clouds.
Something had changed in the forest.
He had felt it himself.
A pressure in the air.
A strange pulse beneath the earth.
And then-
the girl.
Selerin.
He had met countless people throughout his years as a soldier.
Kings.
Princes.
Generals.
Spies.
Assassins.
People who smiled while planning someone's death.
People who cried before ordering one.
But there was something about that girl he couldn't explain.
Not because she was unusual.
Because something about her felt-
familiar.
Feli closed his eyes.
For the briefest moment, he saw another forest.
Another time.
A child running through the trees.
A woman's voice shouting his name.
A flash of silver light.
Then nothing.
His eyes opened.
The memory disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Again.
Always the same.
He had been carrying that fragment for years.
A memory without a beginning.
A memory without an ending.
And every time he tried to reach deeper, something inside him seemed to push him back.
"General."
Feli looked over his shoulder.
His oldest companion, Captain Ren Kai, stood near the door.
"You asked to speak with me?"
"Yes."
Ren waited until the others had left.
When the door closed, the room became quiet.
"You went into the eastern forest during the hunt."
Feli said nothing.
Ren continued.
"You saw something."
"I saw many things."
"You know what I mean."
Feli looked back at the map.
Ren approached the table.
"Was it the Hollowing?"
"I don't know."
"But you suspect it."
Feli's fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
"I suspect something older."
Ren's expression changed.
"Older than the Hollowing?"
Feli didn't answer immediately.
Then he reached beneath his coat.
He removed a small, weathered book.
Its leather cover was cracked with age.
No royal seal marked its surface.
No name.
Only a symbol.
A circle divided by a single vertical line.
Ren stared at it.
"Where did you get that?"
"From the restricted archives."
"You know those records are forbidden."
"I know."
"Then why are you reading them?"
Feli opened the book.
Several pages were missing.
Others had been burned.
But one page remained.
Written in ancient script was a name.
YI.
Ren's expression became serious.
"The Yi Legacy."
Feli nodded.
"The royal family that disappeared from official history."
"That's just an old story."
"Then why was every reference to them removed?"
Ren had no answer.
Feli turned another page.
There were drawings of symbols.
Ancient seals.
A crown.
And beneath it-
a strange mark.
Feli stared at it.
His blood ran cold.
He had seen that mark before.
Not in a book.
Not in a ruin.
On Selerin.
He remembered the moment clearly.
The girl had been standing beneath the trees, her collar slightly displaced.
For only a second, he had seen the mark beneath it.
He hadn't been able to explain why his attention had immediately been drawn to it.
Now he understood why.
The symbol in the book was almost identical.
Almost.
But there was one difference.
The mark on Selerin had appeared-
alive.
Feli closed the book.
"We need to find the rest of the records."
Ren frowned.
"Why?"
"Because the Yi Legacy may not be dead."
Silence.
Then Ren asked quietly,
"Do you believe one of them survived?"
Feli looked toward the darkening sky.
"I don't know."
He thought of Selerin.
The girl from the Wen household.
The girl who knew nothing about the mark beneath her collar.
The girl who had looked at him with suspicion the moment he noticed it.
He remembered something else.
When the strange white stag had appeared in the forest, it had not run from Selerin.
It had approached her.
Animals feared soldiers.
They feared weapons.
They feared blood.
But the stag had looked at Selerin as though it recognized her.
Feli had dismissed it at the time.
He could no longer do so.
"I have an unfinished mission," he said.
Ren looked at him.
"What mission?"
Feli's eyes darkened.
"To find out what happened to the Yi bloodline."
---
That night, Feli remained alone inside the archive.
Hundreds of scrolls surrounded him.
Most were useless.
Political treaties.
Genealogies.
Records of wars.
Marriage agreements.
Royal succession documents.
But the deeper he searched, the stranger the gaps became.
Entire decades had been erased.
Names had been scratched from pages.
Family trees ended abruptly.
And whenever the Yi name appeared-
someone had tried to destroy it.
Feli pulled another scroll from a shelf.
Dust covered his gloves.
He opened it carefully.
A partial family record.
Several names were missing.
One remained.
Yi Ren.
Feli froze.
Something stirred inside his memory.
A boy.
A little older than himself.
Standing beside a river.
Laughing.
"Feli!"
The memory struck him so suddenly that he nearly dropped the scroll.
A child's voice.
A hand grabbing his.
Running.
Forest.
Fire.
Then-
a woman.
Her face was hidden.
She was kneeling beside someone.
Blood covered her hands.
Feli heard her whisper something.
Only three words.
"Protect the child."
His breathing stopped.
The memory vanished.
Feli gripped the table.
"Yi Ren..."
He whispered the name.
Why did that name feel like a wound?
He had spent years trying to remember.
But every path led to the same darkness.
A missing child.
A vanished royal family.
A promise he couldn't remember making.
And now-
Selerin.
Feli slowly closed the scroll.
"No."
He shook his head.
It couldn't be.
There were countless girls in the kingdom.
Countless families.
Countless coincidences.
A mark didn't prove anything.
Neither did a strange reaction in the forest.
Neither did an old memory.
He needed evidence.
Until then, Selerin was only a civilian girl under the protection of the Wen household.
Nothing more.
That was what he told himself.
But deep down, he already knew he was lying.
---
Near midnight, Feli finally left the archive.
The palace corridors were nearly empty.
As he walked, he passed a window overlooking the city.
Most of the lights had already gone dark.
But one building remained illuminated.
The Wen estate.
Feli stopped.
He remembered Selerin's expression from the forest.
Fear.
Confusion.
And beneath both-
something else.
A feeling he couldn't name.
He had spent years searching for a royal bloodline that history insisted no longer existed.
Now, after one encounter in the eastern forest, his mission had suddenly become personal.
Feli looked toward the distant estate.
"I'll find the truth."
He didn't know whether he was speaking about the Yi Legacy-
or about Selerin.
Perhaps both.
Then the wind changed.
A cold breeze passed through the palace corridor.
For a moment, Feli thought he heard something.
A whisper.
Almost like a voice coming from far beyond the mountains.
He turned.
Nothing.
Only darkness.
But somewhere in that darkness, something had awakened.
And Feli Ruiz knew one thing with absolute certainty.
The mission he had thought was finished-
had only just begun.
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