Daviyi whispered, "I've read this feeling. In a forbidden tome on recursive hauntings. But this… this is the footnote they refused to finish."
Hydeius's jaw tightened. The air smelled like something he forgot to mourn—wet feathers and salt.
Niraí touched her temple. Her fingers came away slick—not with blood, but the memory of it.
Cree exhaled smoke. "I'd call him a parasite, but even worms have the decency to squirm."
Hydeius murmured, "He's not a god. He's a miscarriage of memory."
Niraí clutched her own wrist. "He's out of sync. Like the universe is pretending it never invented him."
Ayla said nothing—but her hand never left the shard at her throat.
Komus didn't blink. "We brought death before. He just learned how to wear it better."
Something twitched in the realm.
A hum beneath their feet—low, wet, wrong.
The sky didn't open.
The light didn't bend.
A ripple in the realm—not a flash, not a sound. Just a moment out of sync.
Something behind their ribs clenched. Then relaxed.
The light inverted—for a second too long. And when the world blinked back into shape, he was standing there.
Wherever he stood, the air shifted—sweet, acrid. The scent of burnt myrrh and mourning silk, soft as prayer, wrong as mercy withheld.
The air where he stood thickened. Breathing through it was like sipping through spun metal—fine, bitter, wrong.
It tasted faintly of rotting ink and wilted roses—like forgotten prayers turned to mildew.
As if the void had coughed him up in self-defense.
Qaritas's breath caught—sharp, unearned. His body reacted before thought could. His curse flared in silence, tracing heat up his spine like recognition unspoken. He blinked, and the world felt *off by one second*—like memory had skipped a frame.
One moment: air. The next: him.
Standing. Smiling.
Like he'd always been there.
The ground beneath him stayed dry, even as the mist curled to meet everyone else. As if the realm refused to touch him—or had already been touched too deeply.
His eyes didn't blink. They rearranged sliding across his face as if bored with where they were.
The sound—soft, wet—like fingertips dragging over glass underwater.
It was his voice. But not.
Don't react. He wants a reaction. But gods, that voice—why does it sound like it knows what I buried?
It slid down Qaritas's spine like a familiar hand pretending to comfort. There was something in it—something that wanted to be remembered.
"Ah," he said, as if tasting them.
The word was soft. Private. Like it was never meant to be heard aloud.
It wormed down their spines like affection turned inside out.
"You made it past the gate. How precious."
The scent deepened—coating the inside of their throats with velvet rot. Qaritas nearly gagged. The sweetness pretended to comfort. But grief had never smelled this gentle.
Daviyi blinked once—hard. Her pupils dilated.
A name surfaced in her mind—her own—but it sounded wrong. Backwards. Like someone had whispered it through a scream and wrapped it in salt.
Knowledge rearranged in her skull like pages turning too fast to read.
Cree flinched—not physically, but something in their flame flickered like recognition of a former captor.
Komus's hand twitched mid-air, as if reaching for a memory only Mercy could cut.
Hydeius's soul-lights dimmed a fraction, as if choosing not to draw attention.
Niraí pressed one palm to her chest—her gate-thread pulsed out of sync. Something in her remembered a scream not hers.
Ayla didn't move. She never did when it hurt this much.
Don't look at it like it's sacred. That's what he wants. Reverence. Like he's still owed it.
He gestured lazily to the massive bone structure behind him—arched ribs, lacquered in sigils, reaching skyward like prayer. "Demalik," Ecayrous said fondly. "My little cathedral of contradiction. Where I learned how to rebuild gods out of grief."
None answered.
"Perfect." He smiled.
"Still so quiet," he drawled. "You used to sing for them, Ayla. Even after. Even when your throat was raw from screams. The lullabies were the only part of you I didn't break. How precious that was."
Ecayrous continued , "Komus, you hid your mother's bones in a planet no one remembers. And still you think you're the better son."
"And yet here you are—hoping she never opens her eyes down there. That she never asks why her bones echo."
Qaritas flinched, his knuckles tightening. A low vibration pulsed in the air around him. Not magic—rage. But Ayla's hand brushed his wrist—light as thought.
They turned left. Tents of stitched skin flapped in breathless wind.
The seams puckered as they flapped, stretching like mouths mid-whimper.
Garnun merchants—stitched-together immortals—hissed in tongues.
Their limbs moved in syncopated patterns, arms too long, eyes stitched shut. One brushed past Qaritas—its skin cold, papery. Too dry for something that bled.
Qaritas's senses twisted. Nothing smelled like it should. Blood smelled like sugar. Laughter tasted like salt. He blinked—and one merchant's face turned to mirror his own. The reflection wept. It didn't stop when he looked away.
His tongue tasted copper, then honey. Then shame.The shame curdled behind his molars, thick and sour, like milk soured in sunlight.
Each breath scraped the inside of his throat like a forgotten scream.
Nearby, something exhaled—not wind, not voice. Just the pressure of regret needing shape.
A skull flickered above them—no flame, just a jar of teeth clicking softly in place of light.
Somewhere nearby, a whetstone sharpened itself—without a blade.
"This way," Ecayrous said. "Mind your eyes. The bazaar enjoys collecting them."
Qaritas's boot hovered—then stopped. Beneath him, the gold pulsed wetly, rippling like breath held too long. It moaned. Not in pain. In *invitation.* He stepped back. It sighed.
One merchant unraveled a robe of regret-thread—each stitch shimmered with a face mid-sob, fading before you could recognize it.
"Teeth necklaces. Soul-threaded robes. Bottled sobs..." Ecayrous gestured. "All handcrafted by regret."
"Your mother helped make the first robe," Ecayrous murmured near Ayla's ear. "I kept it for a while. Slept in it, even."
A merchant waved a vial. Inside: a baby's laugh, bottled and crying.
A single thread of fabric drifted from one tent—pale blue, embroidered with stars too small to be seen by gods.
It didn't bleed. It didn't scream. It shimmered softly in a draft no one felt.
Qaritas stared.
It reminded him of a shawl Ayla used to wear—before memory was something they paid to forget.
It hiccupped softly. Over and over. Like it didn't know how to stop.
Qaritas growled under his breath.
Break him. Just once. Make him stop smiling.
No. Not yet. Not here.
The air around him shimmered faintly, divine resonance building in his bones.
Ayla turned her head slightly.
"He wants your anger," she whispered in the link. "Don't feed him."
Ecayrous's smile didn't widen. It curled inward, like his mouth was remembering how to be a wound.
"You've inherited so much fire, Qaritas," he purred. "Would you like to see what it burned the first time you lost control?"
"I kept the smell of that moment, you know. Like charred promises and childhood. Want it back?"
You don't own my memory. You don't get to decide what it means.Qaritas chanted in his head. Ayla grabbed his shoulder.
Before
He lifted one hand.
The air didn't change. Reality did.
Before them: a boy. No older than ten. His skin glowed with internal fire, not burning—but bruised with it. He stared at Qaritas with eyes that held too much knowing.
No flames moved. No one screamed. The air curled around the child like a shrine made of failure.
Qaritas's breath hitched. The taste of ash and sugar rose in his throat. His fingertips tingled—not with heat, but with guilt he hadn't earned yet.
His spine itched—not from pain, but memory trying to crawl out the wrong way.
Qaritas's mouth opened. No name came.
I know him.
No, I don't. It's not real. It can't be real.
But what if it is?
Only heat—rising in his throat, pooling behind his eyes. The child's face was wrong—but familiar.
One eye shimmered—just a fraction off—like it was trying to remember how to cry but hadn't been programmed right.
Like a name lost between syllables. He wanted to reach. To kneel. To burn.
Not screaming. Just... looking at Qaritas.
Ayla moved to stop it—but Daviyi grabbed her.
"It's not real," Daviyi hissed. "But it will be if he believes it."
Qaritas closed his eyes—not to flee, but to find something real. Ayla's voice. The moment Komus handed him Mercy's hilt without words. The sound of Cree laughing after their first failed spell.
He wasn't here for vengeance.
He was here for them.
For the ones who hadn't made it. For the ones still dreaming in chains.
When he opened his eyes, the boy was still there. But his fear wasn't.
Qaritas staggered. The curse flared.
The fire in his eyes flickered—but didn't break.
Daviyi shuddered. Niraí looked away.
The sigils on her wrist prickled. Not heat—recognition. Her skin remembered more than her mind did.
"Why keep this open?" Hydeius murmured.
The scent lingered, even after he moved on. Burnt myrrh. Mourning silk. It clung like memory—sweet, persistent, and too familiar to forget.
"Economy," Ecayrous said. "Even gods must eat."
Down a slope. Black smoke rose in coughing columns.
As they passed beneath a half-shattered arch, a strange sound tickled Qaritas's ear.
Laughter.
Not cruel. Not mad.
Children.
Seven voices, weaving through each other in innocent cacophony.
The sound came from above. No—from below. From inside the walls, or their ribs. It didn't echo. It threaded.
Then—gone.
Ayla stopped in her tracks.
Her knuckles whitened.
"I used to tell them stories here," she said softly. "In the ash. They loved when I did the voices."
The children didn't cry. They wept in meter—perfect rhythm. Like song. Like rehearsal. The sound wormed into Qaritas's ears and made his teeth ache. He tried not to count the syllables.
Magic flickered in and out.
"Every breath here costs a day of your life," Ecayrous noted casually.
Ayla froze. "Is that... her? That scream..."
Komus said nothing. But his hand gripped the air tighter.