He couldn't breathe.
Not because of pain, not anymore. That had passed the way a river passes a stone, slowly, surely, until the stone wasn't there anymore. Just silt.
And that was what he was now.
Silt.
Merlin didn't cry. He couldn't. That part of him had gone quiet hours ago. Or days. Or however long he'd been here. Time was waterlogged.
He knelt in the middle of nothing. No forest. No sky. Just dark, wide, flat.
There were no stars.
No gods watching.
No voices.
Even the system stayed quiet.
'So this is it. This is what it feels like when memory stops being a story and starts being your skin.'
His hands were steady.
That was the worst part.
No tremble. No collapse. Just the same numb stillness that had crawled into Rathan's bones over decades and now made a home in his.
He looked up.
There was no up.
Just the heavy press of a world that no longer wanted to witness.
And then—
Someone breathed.
Not him.
The air shifted, thinly.
Merlin turned his head.
