(Grimpel's POV)
There are thirteen fragments to Clive's soul. Three now burn in his chest. The rest wait—scattered across flesh, ruin, memory
You ever float through a ceiling made of old oak, overhearing two guilt-riddled idiots trying not to fall in love while pretending they're only chasing soul shards?
Well, I have.
And let me tell you—Clive's got some nerve, and Selvara? Let's just say Maedra built her like a dream you don't wake up from. Durable. Dangerous. Damned beautiful in firelight.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
You're probably wondering: Grimpel, you handsome skull, where the hell did you vanish off to? Why all the ghostly theatrics during that whole Lena situation?
Fair. Let's rewind.
When Clive touched that last shard—the third of thirteen, mind you—he cracked open more than just memory. He bled grief into the fabric of the world. Real, raw, soul-drenched grief.
And when that grief bled, something else stirred. Something ancient. Something mine.
See, when you're bound to a man by magic older than kingdoms, you pick up echoes. But this? This was a scream. One I hadn't heard in centuries.
I slipped out—not just from the inn, but from this place. Between the cracks in reality, through the old places where spirits walk and memory swims like minnows in wine-dark water.
I didn't walk Clive's past.
I walked mine.
Yes, skulls have memory. Just because I'm made of bone and sarcasm doesn't mean I don't feel things.
And what I saw... was Lena.
Not the fractured vision Clive sobbed over. No. I saw her whole. Alive. Her laugh was birdsong after storm. Her smile had teeth in it—the mischievous kind. She looked at me like she remembered everything.
That's when I remembered what I wasn't supposed to.
I came back wrong.
Didn't want them to see me like that. Not yet. So I drifted through the walls of Darswich—into lantern flames, whispers between shutters, alleyways lined with false joy and spilled cider. Ghosts live here. I made good company.
But when Clive screamed her name—Lena—in the middle of the night, his voice cracked so hard it pulled me back together. Just barely.
I didn't return through the door. Too obvious. I floated in through the beams like a haunting with a schedule.
Which brings us back to the room.
The bed creaked. The woman gasped. The fire flickered like it was blushing.
And I? I hovered overhead like the world's most judgmental chandelier, watching two fractured people try to glue themselves together with moans and murmurs.
Morning came. Roosters crowed like they'd survived a demon orgy.
I reappeared—casually—as Clive's pack rattled under my sudden weight.
Selvara's eyes widened. She elbowed Clive so hard he choked on air.
He sat up, wild-eyed. "Grimpel?!"
I gave my best toothy grin. "Miss me?"
"Where the hell have you been?" he rasped.
I spun lazily on the strap. "Floating. Sulking. Dodging sexual tension thick enough to drown a troll in. By the way—House Bear-Boy gets ten points for stamina."
Selvara flushed from her ears to her toes. Clive looked like he was considering using me as a skipping stone.
"We're leaving today," he muttered, voice dry. "The shard's somewhere in town."
Shard number four. Ten remain. Each one a scar waiting to open.
Selvara pulled on her boots, tightening the straps like she was wrapping bandages around a wound. "You're sure it's here?"
I paused. My socket flared.
"Oh, it's here," I whispered. "And it knows you're coming."
See, Darswich isn't just cider and dancers and mask festivals. It's built on a ley-line thick with old magic, the kind that doesn't like being woken. And this shard?
It isn't buried.
It's hunting.
---
The Festival of the Eye had begun.
Color. Music. Masks. Drunken kisses behind temple doors. Townsfolk dressed like demons, gods, beasts, and skeletons—none realizing the irony of celebrating what once made their ancestors scream.
They don't know what they're dancing on.
But I do.
And then I felt it.
It stirred.
From somewhere beneath the cobblestones, the magic flared. Old. Raw. Hungry.
The flame in the hearth hissed. Selvara stiffened. Clive clenched the Wyrmstone at his throat until his knuckles bled.
I laughed.
Not kindly.
They weren't ready.
Later, the three of us stood before a crooked little shop wedged between alleyways like a secret. Bone-laced shutters. A door carved with a sigil older than the Loud Moon. One only I recognized.
Behind that door?
A gate.
Not just to a cellar or tomb. No. A chamber that sings to the soul and bites at memory. A place where the next shard sleeps beneath incense and masks.
"Ready?" Selvara asked, brushing fingers along the doorframe.
Clive nodded—but his fingers trembled on the Wyrmstone.
He's got three shards inside him now.
Each one cuts deeper.
Each one pulls back something he forgot he left behind.
And still—he walks.
I respect the idiot.
I fear him too.
But as they reached for the door, someone else watched them from the rooftops.
A figure in slate-gray, legs crossed like a lounging cat, blonde braids catching the moonlight. Her lips curled like she already knew the ending to this tale and wasn't impressed.
Nylessa.
Flirt. Killer. Spy. And Guardian of the Gate.
She guards what lies beyond. But not for Clive.
She guards it from me.
Let her come.
Let the masks fall.
Let the next shard burn a little deeper into the heart he swears still beats.
Because tonight, the gate opens.
And the moon above Darswich?
It's never laughed harder.