Chapter 1: Backstory (1) To those fortunate enough not to have it, photographic memory sounded like a blessing.
A strange little superpower gifted by fate, one that many people imagined would make life easier and richer in ways ordinary minds could never manage.
After all, who would not want the ability to remember anything they had seen even once with perfect clarity, or the pleasure of reliving their happiest moments exactly as they unfolded?
To most people, it sounded wonderful.
The power to never forget, to carry every cherished memory untouched by the slow erosion of time while the years quietly slipped by.
But for those unfortunate enough to be cursed with it, the truth was far less romantic.
Because memories were never meant to last forever. They were meant to fade, soften, and eventually blur into something distant as the mind gently erased the edges of things too painful to carry forever.
Forgetting was not weakness.
It was mercy.
The mind buried fear, buried grief, buried nights that were too dark and screams that were too loud.
As without that quiet act of erasure, the past never truly became the past, and instead lingered with the same sharp edges it had carried in the moment it first occurred.
However, unfortunately for Riven Veyr, forgetting had never been an option, as his mind had always remembered everything, right from the very first moment his life had begun.
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"Alira look, he’s got your green eyes!
Just like Lyra...
It looks like your blood won yet again!"
Those were the first words Riven had ever heard, and till this day, he remembered them with the same clarity as the moment they were first spoken.
He remembered opening his eyes for the first time and watching the faces of his family as they gathered around him, their expressions lit faintly by the fire while the cold night pressed quietly against the walls of the hut.
Torren Veyr, his father, stood closest, his thick beard and gray eyes giving him the look of a true northman.
While beside him stood Lyra and Daren Veyr, his siblings, seven and eleven years of age, both watching him with curiosity evident in their eyes.
And then there was his mother, Alira Veyr, who held him as though he were the most precious thing in the world, her eyes filled with nothing but love.
Riven remembered all of it as it had been, every face and every expression preserved without distortion or loss, the moment remaining intact within him long after time should have blurred it into oblivion.
And that was the problem.
Because memories like that were never meant to remain unchanged, they were meant to soften and blur as the years passed, until even the sharpest emotions dulled into something distant and survivable.
But Riven Veyr had never been given that mercy, and so when everything was taken from him later that winter, nothing truly faded, nothing lessened, and nothing was ever forgotten.
—--------
He was seven months old at the time.
And it was supposedly the worst winter the Blue Frost Tribe had seen in nearly two decades, as the valley had fallen into a brutal famine that slowly strangled every settlement clinging to life across the frozen frontier.
Food had become scarce, hunting had grown dangerous, and even the forests had begun to empty themselves of animals, as those that survived migrated to other lands in search for warmer environments.
Riven remembered the tension that had begun settling over the village in the days leading up to the raid, a quiet dread that clung to the elders whenever they gathered near the fire after sunset.
His father had been among them.
Torren Veyr had spoken often with the other hunters, his voice low and serious while they discussed empty traps, failed hunts, and rumors of starving tribes growing desperate beyond the mountains.
Because in winters like that, men did not simply starve.
Eventually, they began hunting each other.
And that was exactly what happened, as the tragic raid began three nights later.
Riven remembered the sound first, a deep war horn that sounded like an angry moose call, echoing across the valley, before soon being followed by the sound of steel colliding with steel, as chaotic screams spread rapidly through the Blue Frost Tribe.
He also recalled the precise moment his mother froze.
Alira had been breastfeeding him when the horn sounded, her entire body going rigid while Daren rushed towards the doorway with conviction.
The young boy snatched the knife hanging beside the entrance and stood in front of the door, gripping the weapon with trembling hands as he resolved to protect their household, as even now, Riven could remember seeing his brother standing there.
Small.
Afraid.
But refusing to move aside.
While behind him, Alira pulled both himself and Lyra into her arms, before then whispering under her breath to the Goddess Of Moon.
"Please Minerva... please let the tribe warriors prevail..."
Her voice trembled while the sounds of fighting grew louder.
Boots crushed snow outside.
Men shouted.
Steel rang somewhere beyond the hut while the sounds of battle crept steadily closer through the village, until eventually, heavy fists slammed against the wooden door.
*THAK*
*THAK*