The wound pulsed in time with the dying light.
Aash lay motionless on the cot, fingers still buried in the unnatural opening in his side. The voice—that impossible, whispering voice—lingered in the hollows of his bones like a forgotten hymn. Across the room, his shadow remained frozen in its grotesque mimicry of a smile, edges flickering as though lit by some unseen flame.
Veer stood in the doorway, his silhouette sharp against the bruised twilight filtering through the inn's cracked shutters. The cautery iron in his hand had cooled to a dull gray, its tip blackened from repeated failures. His oldest scar—the one cutting through his left brow—throbbed with faint luminescence, casting ghostly highlights across the sharp planes of his face.
"We need to move," he said, voice stripped of its usual gravel. "Now."
Aash withdrew his fingers from the wound with a wet sound. The skin knit itself shut behind them, leaving no mark save for the faintest blue glow beneath the surface. His breath came in short, ragged bursts.
"They're coming." It wasn't a question.
Veer's jaw tightened. He crossed the room in three strides, hauling Aash upright with a grip that threatened to bruise. "The Herald's been sighted at the western gates. Eclipse starts at midnight." He thrust a worn satchel into Aash's chest. "Supplies. The blackroot will dull the pain—"
"I don't need it." Aash's fingers closed around the strap of the bag, his other hand pressing against his side. The wound answered with a deep, resonant thrum—not pain, but anticipation.
Outside, the wind had stilled. The usual chorus of night insects, the distant howl of Dhaamrath's feral dogs—all silenced. Only the creak of the Ashhollow Inn's ancient timbers remained, each groan sounding eerily deliberate.
Veer moved to the window, peeling back the shutter with two fingers. His breath fogged the warped glass. "They've lit the pyres."
Aash joined him, his shadow stretching long and wrong across the floorboards. Beyond the glass, the city burned—but not as it should. Flames crawled in reverse, retreating into their sources like serpents into burrows. The great bonfires along the Processional Way collapsed inward upon themselves, their light bending toward the black silhouette of Mount Veerbhadra looming in the distance.
The first toll of the Eclipse bell shattered the silence.
It was a sound that bypassed the ears entirely, vibrating directly in the teeth, in the hollow of the throat. Aash's wound flared in response, the blue light intensifying until it cast their faces in ghastly relief.
"Move." Veer was already at the door, his knife drawn.
They descended the inn's rear staircase, each step groaning underfoot. The common room stood empty, chairs overturned, tankards of ale left to sour in the unnatural hush. Veer paused at the threshold, his free hand pressed against the doorframe. His scar pulsed brighter.
"Three blocks east, then the old sewer pass," he murmured. "The Herald will be watching the main—"
The second bell tolled.
This time, the sound carried something within it—a whisper, a name half-remembered. The floorboards beneath them trembled. From the corner of his eye, Aash saw his shadow twitch, its grin widening impossibly further.
Veer shoved open the door.
The street beyond was a study in wrongness. Shadows pooled where no light source existed, stretching toward the mountain in perfect parallel lines. The air smelled of wet parchment and burnt honey—the scent of unraveling ritual.
They ran.
Aash's wound burned with each stride, the blue light pulsing in time with the distant bells. Behind them, the inn's sign—the Ashhollow's namesake—swung violently despite the absence of wind, its rusted chains shrieking.
At the third intersection, Veer skidded to a halt, hauling Aash into the shelter of a collapsed colonnade. His breath came in sharp bursts, fogging in the suddenly frigid air. "It's herding us."
Aash followed his gaze. The shadows in the street ahead had begun to twist, forming a crude approximation of the trishul brand between his shoulder blades. The message was unmistakable: the mountain or nothing.
The third bell struck.
This time, the sound tore through Aash like a physical blow. His knees buckled as the wound in his side split open with a sound like tearing vellum. Black fluid—thick and iridescent—spilled down his leg, pooling on the cracked cobblestones only to rise again in twisting spirals.
Veer cursed, dragging him upright. "Keep moving!"
They staggered into the open, the mountain's foothills now visible between the sagging rooftops. The Eclipse proper had begun—the sky yawned like a wound, its edges shimmering with unnatural hues. Stars winked out one by one, swallowed by the growing darkness.
Then—movement.
At the far end of the street, the Herald emerged from between two leaning tenements. Its antlers scraped the overhanging eaves, sending showers of rotting thatch to the ground. Where it stepped, the cobblestones blackened and curled like burning paper.
"Run." Veer's voice held no room for argument.
Aash turned—only to freeze as his shadow wrenched itself free from his feet. It pooled on the ground for a heartbeat before surging forward, elongating into a spear of darkness that pierced the nearest wall. The stones screamed where it touched them.
The Herald advanced.
Veer stepped into its path, his knife gleaming with reflected Eclipse light. "Go!"
The wound in Aash's side tore wider. Not pain—invitation.
He leapt as the Herald's chains lashed out, silver links singing through the air. The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was Veer's knife meeting the first chain in a shower of sparks—and the blue glass shards embedded in the Herald's chest, each reflecting a different fragment of Mount Veerbhadra's peak.
Then—
Falling.
Upward.
Into the god's dreaming wound.