The night market of Altaran thrummed with quiet desperation. Lanterns of phosphorescent blue dangled over narrow stalls, their glow reflecting in the glazed eyes of debtors and drifters. The air smelled of charred kelp and cheap tobacco mixed with the sharp tang of hot iron from the sweat-smelting forges. I moved among them like a ghost—silent, unremarkable—focusing on each footfall to mask the steady hum beneath my ribs: anticipation, always anticipation.
Inside my satchel lay the tools of my trade: neural scalpels honed to sub-neuronal precision, mnemonic stabilizers humming with Vitae Solis, the rare "sun's blood" extract, and a roll of flex-circuit sheeting for sealing memory ports. Each item was a promise of escape or damnation, depending on the client's desperation.
My name is Ilyas Varin. In the underbelly of this city, they call me Rook. I erase memories—for power brokers covering treachery, magistrates burying inconvenient witnesses, widows haunted by truths they can't bear, and murderers desperate to wage war on their own guilt. Every request peels back another layer of Altaran's corruption. I keep my own mind a fortress: locked, warded, impenetrable. Until tonight.
Gods, why does it always come down to this? I thought, scanning a pair of mercenary twins haggling over an illegal toxin. This is such a mess. But need sharpens focus, and gold dulls morality.
A stall draped in creeping ivy—bio-luminescent tendrils pulsing emerald—marked my rendezvous. The ivy's slow breathing seemed almost alive. A slit in the worn canvas: the broker's eye. A fist-sized token dropped through, copper embossed with Blackwell Consortium's sigil. Thirty thousand crowns, guaranteed—nonrefundable. I snatched it, the metal warm in my palm.
"Signal," the broker hissed. I pressed my thumb to the ivy; the drapes fell back, revealing a narrow wooden platform and a curtained alcove beyond.
I stepped forward. The shuffling of marketgoers faded behind me. Silence opened its velvet mouth as the drapes closed.
In that quiet, a single candle burned lacquer-bright. The flame refused to dance, as if locked in defiance of every breeze.
On an iron-bound chair sat the client: tall, shoulders squared in rigid tension. Even downcast, he exuded controlled power.
"Rook," he said, voice low and measured. "You come alone?"
I set my satchel on a small table beside us, unclasping its latches. "Always."
He turned. Bronze eyes, shadowed by sleepless nights. A cruelty of determination lingered in their depths. Perhaps it was resolve or suffering—sometimes they feel the same.
"Commission: remove everything from the night of the Corvax murder."
My breath hitched. Lord Corvax's death was legend: a diplomat found in his study, blood pooling like spilled rubies across the floor. The official report? An "unknown assassin," blamed on a wandering mercenary—no proof, no trial. Convenient. But my client wanted more than the standard memory wipe: he sought the erasure of the crime itself, of sight and sound and that last cold pulse.
You can't un-know you don't know.
I slipped on my neural goggles—sleek lenses that mapped the cortex like constellations. The world shifted into infrared and synaptic flashpoints. I studied him: the tension in his jaw, the faint tremor in his fingers.
"This is delicate," I said. "You want not just recall gone, but the sensation erased. The adrenaline, the taste of copper, the echo of his final breath."
He met my gaze. "I was there. I saw too much. Every whispered confession will cost me my sanity." His voice cracked with self-condemnation. "I need oblivion."
I swallowed my own caution. You want a clean slate, but minds don't come blank. I gestured to the chair. "Sit."
He did, as though stakes higher than life itself compelled him. I found the port behind his ear—a discreet silver disc beneath skin. Memory ports were illegal without sanction, but necessity made conspirators of us all.
I affixed the stabilizer, its hum a lullaby of uncertain promises. He shivered.
"In three," I warned, "the scalpels engage."
One. He clenched his seat's arms.
Two. I inhaled, fingers steady on the activator.
Three. I pressed.
Blue tendrils of light traced across his temples, weaving circuit paths in his cortex. I whispered reassurance, though neither of us believed it.
I dove into memory. First, the click of Corvax's door latch. The hush of pages turned in his study. Then—snap—the flash of the blade. My client's pupils dilated in that revision: the unspoken question—why he had weapon drawn—and the dark stain that blossomed on polished wood.
His face contorted; I felt the tremor of adrenaline surge through him, recorded in synaptic tremors. My gloved hand pressed tighter against his shoulder.
Stay focused.
I isolated the neural patterns of shock, pain, finality. Each a filament I severed. But then—I found a stray echo: my own voice, my own panic preserved in a tremor of memory. A brief vision of me—behind iron bars, cradling my head—pleading.
My breath caught. Impossible. My past was supposed to be sealed behind wards even I couldn't breach.
I willed myself back to the task. Corvax's scream. The metal groan of his chair. The cold drip of crimson. I severed them all. The filament snapped.
His head lolled back, beads of sweat gleaming. I withdrew the scalpels, disconnected the port. He blinked.
"What… happened?" His voice was distant, as though emerging from water.
"Freedom," I said, pulling off the goggles.
He stood, dusting invisible ash from his coat. With a curt nod, he dropped a second token—proof of complete transaction—and vanished into the night market's restless pulse.
I remained until the candle guttered out. Darkness closed around me.
Hours later, back in my loft above the silent canal, I poured a measure of spiced amber. Moonlight pressed across shuttered boards, mapping silver veins on the rough-hewn floor.
I held the glass close. The Corvax memory, gone from him, seeded itself in mine. That flicker of my own distress—my voice from a forgotten cage—haunted me.
Who remembered me? I wondered.
Tomorrow, I'd hunt the Blackwell Consortium's shadow alleys. Trace every whisper, every coded ledgers. I'd find that client's true face.
And if need be… I'd find the cage.
Because some memories, no matter how deeply buried, are never meant to stay erased.
The city outside thrummed on—lanterns pulsing like heartbeats, secrets flowing in every gutter and corridor.
And I, Rook the Memory Forger, stood at the edge of oblivion, scalpel in hand, tracing the fragile line between who we were and who we choose to be.