“I will forget my own search,” he said, “if you remember how to speak one true word again.”

Thmyl carried no sword. Instead, he carried a — a strange looping chain made of fossilized sound. When he swung it, it didn’t cut flesh. It cut memory . Anyone struck by the drbh forgot the last seven years of their life in a single, silent breath.

The queen’s vizier — a sly thing named — approached Thmyl with a deal. “Erase the queen’s sorrow,” the vizier signed, “and she will give you the Water of Naming — the only force that can unweave the curse on your own lost name.”