Gemma clapped once. "Good. Now dessert before I die of boredom."
She set the Chasmcloud Puffs on the table. Sea-glass glaze fractured the lanternlight into soft halos across their pale crowns.
Komus eyed his. "If it moves, I bite first."
"It won't," Niraí said, then added, "Probably."
They ate sweetness that ached. They breathed under gothic lanterns that burned like patient stars. And while the inn remembered how to be a room and not a tribunal, Zcain spoke the last words like a hinge:
"The war is already coming," he said. "But so is something else."
He looked to Qaritas.
"Becoming."
Rnarah's voice followed, low and knowing. "We don't become by forgetting who we were. We become by choosing which pieces still deserve to live in us."
The word landed. Firm. Controlled.
But under the table, Zcain's spoon slipped from his fingers. Just once. Just a soft clink against porcelain.
He didn't reach for it right away.
The spoon stayed where it fell. Like a question neither of them wanted to answer yet.
Qaritas noticed. It wasn't the slip that caught him—it was the pause.
His jaw tightened before he could stop it, the ache settling in his teeth. Gods didn't fumble, not when people were watching. But Zcain had. And he hadn't rushed to fix it.
Something inside Qaritas stilled. Maybe because he recognized it—not weakness, but the moment right before it turns into something honest.
Rnarah noticed. Said nothing. Just touched the back of his hand. Anchor.
Chairs scraped back. Gemma's cane tapped twice against the stone floor, calling the meal to its close.
They stepped through the inn's wide door into the cool night air, the lanternlight behind them spilling like a farewell across their shoulders.
The violet-blue flames leaned once, as if in agreement.
Lanterns had multiplied—constellations, yes, but crooked, uneven. He wondered if the gods had ever made their skies this flawed on purpose. The stalls spilled outward like galaxies that had forgotten their center, too many colors colliding. The music pressed against his ribs, less celebration than insistence—as though the Chasm itself was reminding him whose voice carried longest.
The air was damp, the lantern heat close against his skin, as if even the festival leaned too near.
Gemma rapped her cane against the inn's lintel. "Rules: Don't fight my neighbors, don't drink like you're immortal, and if something invites you to jump into a glowing hole, say no. Rnarah?"
Rnarah touched two fingers to her veil. "Anchor."
"Anchor," the rest echoed.
Zcain offered his arm. She took it. They stepped into the press of the living.
A scent bazaar caught them first—steam from vent-kettles coiling with crushed citrus, smokevine, and black-butter.
A vendor flipped ember kelp skewers over a portable vent-stone.
Komus sniffed. "If this fruit screams when I bite it—"
"Then you've made a friend," Daviyi said, already buying two.
Children darted past, laughter trailing like light. One skidded to a halt and held up a bead loop—glass twined with silver thread.
Niraí nodded, throat tight. "Then I'll keep it close."
His own stayed caged where no one could see it, his shoulders already carrying the weight she could wear so lightly.
They moved on, drawn toward a ring of chalk at the plaza's center where ribbon dancers flicked starlit silks that left luminous afterimages like comet tails. A demon boy in lacquered sandals bowed at Cree with exaggerated flourish.
"Teach me fire," he demanded.
Cree glanced at Gemma.
"Outside the rope," Gemma said. "And nothing that sets my laundry on pilgrimage."
Cree laughed with them—but it came too easily. Their fingers twitched against his palm, as if holding a flame he couldn't see.
Qaritas caught the tremor in his fingers, a ghost of fire he hadn't lit. He looked away, tongue pressed hard to the roof of his mouth, before he recognized too much of himself in it.
They didn't open their eyes right away. The note vibrated in his ribs—not grief, not memory. Something worse: stillness. The kind that asked who you were without the noise.
Cree flexed their hand. It didn't hurt. And somehow, that scared them more than any scar.
On the far side, balancers played on a rope bridge—basalt stones stacked on plates. Daviyi watched, snorted once, and climbed up.
Komus called, "If you crack your skull, I want your dumpling."
"I will outlive your pettiness," she said, stepping. The plate wobbled, then steadied. She reached the post and allowed herself a brief grin. The crowd clapped. So did Komus—grudging but real.
"Come break something properly," a masked gladiator called from a glass-sand sparring ring. "Illusions only. Bruises optional."
Komus's eyes lit. "Permission?" he asked Gemma.
"Five exchanges," she said. "No blood. I am off-duty."
Komus vaulted the rail. His opponent conjured a blade of violet light. Komus ducked, pivoted, and tapped them on the shoulder—three sharp beats.
"Strategist," Zcain murmured to no one, pleased.
Rnarah kept close to Zcain's side, moving with her head slightly bowed. A line of mask-painters beckoned anyone who wanted anonymity or truth. Rnarah considered, then shook her head. "Not tonight."
"You're safe," Zcain murmured.
"Safety isn't the same as consent," she said. "Anchor."
He squeezed her hand. "Anchor."
At a weaver's circle, elders threaded starlace into bracelets while telling stories. Ayla lowered herself to a cushion, listening as a woman with silver-moss hair showed her how to knot two colors into one cord.
"This pattern means home you carry," the elder said.
Ayla's fingers faltered. She started again. The cord came out imperfect and beautiful. She tied it around her wrist and didn't hide the tremble.
Qaritas admired that—the courage to show a fracture. He wondered if anyone would ever see his without mistaking it for a weapon.
Qaritas lingered near the Echo Chasm.
Here, the festival's heart was thickest.
A small boy offered Qaritas a bead.
"For shadows," he said. "They remember longer than light."
Qaritas took it.
Mercy, he thought, wasn't softness. It was steel shaped into restraint.
The refusal to let power excuse cruelty. His fingers flexed once around the bead, knuckles whitening, before he let it fall.
The bead was slicker than glass, cool as river stone. It clung to his skin a breath too long. Then the Chasm answered—rose-gold light across stone, a silhouette too small to be his.
The Chasm sang—not loud, not triumphal—just steady, a thousand low notes holding hands.
A child appeared beside him, though he hadn't seen her arrive. Small. Dark-eyed. Solemn. No bead in her hand.
"Some voices never leave," she whispered. Her words stitched themselves into the hum.
Qaritas turned—
But she was already gone. Not pushed into the crowd. Gone like mist.
As if the Chasm had swallowed her shape too.
Niraí found a tea-gong stall and struck a low, bronze disk with a padded mallet. The Veilquell steam from kettles trembled into patterns. The gong-keeper interpreted them: "You will forgive yourself slower than you think. That is still forgiveness."
Niraí laughed once, brittle and grateful.
"Eat," Gemma commanded, appearing with a tray balanced on her palm.
Gemma appeared with a tray: spiral-fried lumenstrands, bramwing bites laced with citrus ash, and sea-glass candy that cracked like frost.
She glared at Komus's split lip. "Illusion bruises still need salve."
"They add depth," Komus said, chewing his pride and a bramwing bite.
"I'll add stitches," Gemma promised. He shut up.
Sky-kites swam above them—translucent manta shapes and jelly-lights pulsing like soft stars.
Cree and the children ran beneath them, their laughter sharp in Qaritas's ears, like glass too thin to last the night. The joy was real—and he did not trust it to hold.
But behind Cree's laugh was something sharp—like memory hadn't given him permission, just a temporary truce.
Daviyi paused at a strategy game stall—a grid carved into boneglass, obsidian stones like tiny planets. She played a silent game with a hooded stranger. Halfway through, the stranger said, "You're playing to lose slowly."
Daviyi changed tactics. She didn't win. She did not lose slowly.
Hydeius drifted back with a paper cup of hushwater. "Peace tastes like minerals."
"It tastes like permission," Ayla said, joining him, her starlace bracelet glinting.
Rnarah stood at the edge of the dancers' ribbon ring. The music shifted—bone flutes softened, drums tightened into a heartbeat cadence. She lifted her veil just enough to take a slow breath. "I want to dance," she said, surprised at herself.
Zcain offered both hands. "Rules?"
"Anchor," she said. She looked to the circle, lifted her chin. "Anchor?"
"Anchor," the nearby dancers echoed, half-grin, half-reverence. They made space without stepping back—space you're invited into, not pushed into.
Rnarah stepped. Zcain followed, mirroring, letting her lead.
She kept her gaze down—until something in the crowd caught the corner of her eye.
Her veil shifted. For a breath, she looked not into the circle but toward the edge of the Echo Chasm.
And her breath caught—not in fear, but in recognition, as if the abyss whispered a name she dared not speak.
For a moment, Qaritas thought her veil shifted not from awe, but from recognition. His throat worked, dry, as though he'd almost spoken the name himself.
The kind that comes when a shadow carried a child's shape.
A name that could unmake silence. A name carried in secret so the fragments themselves would not hear.
Then it passed. She blinked once, slow, and kept moving.
The ribbon brushed their shoulders. The crowd's center of gravity shifted—not toward her, but around her, like the festival itself understood the difference between awe and permission.
As night deepened, the Fallen Stars Rite began.
People gathered at the Chasm rail with memory lanterns—boneglass globes on long cords, each seeded with a single mote of lake-light. Zcain took one. Rnarah took one. Gemma passed them to anyone without empty hands.
A caller stepped onto a low platform. "What do we do with grief?" she asked.
"We dance," the crowd answered.
"What do we do with memory?"
"We keep it breathing."
"What do we do with the dark?"
"We light it from inside."
Qaritas thought to himself he was only holding the lantern. But his knuckles whitened until the glass groaned in protest. He eased his grip, pretending it was choice, not fear.
One by one, lanterns tipped over the rail, trailing down like a galaxy learning to fall. Among them, one seemed too small, too quick—like it carried the outline of a child before vanishing into the dark.
The Echo Chasm sang—not loud, not triumphal—just steady, a thousand low notes holding hands.
Neither spoke. But between them, something broken and ancient passed—a grief too old to name, too young to bury.
His fingers lingered in the air a moment longer than the light.
It wasn't fear that tightened his throat—it was the ache of being seen.
And for the first time, he wondered: if he unmade who he had been... what would survive the becoming?
Ayla leaned into the rail, eyes hot. "You built this," she said to Zcain without looking at him.
"I curated it," he said softly. "They built it."
Rnarah's veil fluttered as she breathed out. "A year in a night," she murmured.
"A night to carry a year," Zcain answered.
When the last lantern vanished into singing dark, the drums changed once more—lighter now, playful. Vendors reopened lids; someone passed a bowl of Chasmcloud Puffs down their line without asking for coin. Children fell asleep on laps they claimed like territory. The plaza smelled of sugar, iron, and salt.
"Tomorrow," Zcain said, just to them, "Taeterra."
Gemma thumped her cane. "Tonight, bed. Your bones can fight philosophies in the morning."
Komus yawned mid-protest. Daviyi caught it and smirked. Niraí tucked her bead loop into her sleeve, close to the pulse. Hydeius handed Cree the last sea-glass shard. Ayla tapped her bracelet twice, as if promising it a job.
Rnarah lifted a hand to the dancers and bowed the smallest bow. "Anchor," she said again.
"Thank you," she whispered.
The plaza murmured back, not with a word—but with a rhythm that made room for her.
The silence after the lanterns fell was thick—the world caught its breath and refused to break it.
Ayla looked toward the west gate. Her bracelet caught light.
"The horizon's too quiet," she murmured.
Zcain said nothing. Just glanced toward the sky, where one star had begun to pulse a little too fast.
Once. Twice. Too steady to be chance. Too patient to be natural.
The light did not fade when they turned away. It waited. Watching.
They walked back under thorned lanterns that burned like patient stars. The festival did not end when they left; it simply kept on breathing for them until they returned.
Tomorrow… Taeterra.
Sugar and dusk citrus lingered on Qaritas's tongue as sleep pulled him under.
But cruelty, he was learning, was a god's oldest inheritance.
His chest rose once, shallow, as if even breath resisted the shadow waiting in his dreams.