Ese Per Dimrin.

Kaela should have run. But instead, she whispered back: "What do you want?"

The faceless man stopped. For a long moment, the world held its breath. Then, from the smooth plane of his face, a crack appeared—thin as a hair, dark as a promise. And from that crack, a single word bled into the air, written in mist:

In the village of Thornwood, tucked between a wolf-tooth mountain and a lake that never froze, the old folks spoke three words only in whispers: Ese Per Dimrin .

The children of Thornwood still tell the story. But they no longer whisper the name.

She remembered a war fought with songs. A city built inside a single teardrop. A king who traded his shadow for a second chance. And she remembered his name—not Ese Per Dimrin, but what came before.

She froze. The berries fell from her basket, one by one, like tiny purple hearts.

She had wandered too far picking moonberries, the fog rolling in from the lake like a slow, silver tide. The world turned soft, edges bleeding into white. Then came the voice—not loud, not close, but inside her skull, as if her own thoughts had grown a second tongue.

Ese Per Dimrin. The one who waited. The one who was remembered.

He had no face. Not a blank one, not a mask—just a smooth, pale oval where a face should be. He wore a coat of stitched shadows, and his hands… his hands had too many fingers. He tilted his head, and the mist sang again.

From that day on, Kaela did not fear the mist. She walked into it willingly, basket in hand, and spoke the old words back to the faceless man. She reminded him of joy, of laughter, of the name he once had. And slowly, piece by piece, the mist began to thin.

The mist curled around her ankles, then her knees, then her throat. It was cold, but not the cold of winter. The cold of absence —as if the mist was not water, but the space where memories had been ripped out.

And then she saw him.

They sing it.