His footsteps echoed twice.
That was the first thing Ezekiel noticed as he left the mirrored chamber behind.
The statues did not follow. They did not bow again. The obsidian dragon remained kneeling, still as prophecy.
But the sound of his walk—his new walk—made two echoes.
One real. One lawful.
It was not a metaphor. Not a feeling. It was literal. There were two footsteps for every one he made, one soft and broken, the other thunderous and distant, like a king walking through a courtroom where no man stood.
He didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
---
The hall stretched long before him, the smooth white marble now dull and faintly gray. The silence did not vanish, but it lessened, like it was retreating from him, step by step, unwilling to stay near whatever he had become.
Ezekiel's body ached.
No—itched. Beneath his skin, things were still shifting.
His restored arm—his left—twitched with a kind of phantom heat. The veins glowed sometimes, dimly, when he clenched his fist. The letters appeared under the surface again, and each time he tried to focus on them, his vision shimmered like heat rising from stone.
---
What am I now?
He could still feel his heart beating.
Still feel his tongue in his mouth, dry and cut from where he'd bitten it.
He was alive.
But he had not been healed.
He had been rewritten.
---
A cough echoed ahead of him.
Wet.
Broken.
Not his.
Ezekiel's steps slowed.
His eye narrowed.
He turned a corner in the pale corridor—and there he was.
Velric.
Prince Velric, second in line to the throne, heir of noble blood, liar, tormentor—
Still breathing.
Barely.
He lay slumped against the curve of the wall, one hand at his throat, blood dribbling from between his fingers. His voice had not returned. His tongue moved, trying to speak, but nothing came. His eyes were glassy, wild.
When he saw Ezekiel—
His face contorted with confusion.
Then fear.
Then something else.
Recognition.
Not of his brother.
But of something wrong.
Velric's lips shaped the words: What are you?
No sound.
Just movement.
Ezekiel stopped two paces away.
He stared down at the boy who had mocked him, cursed his mother, threatened Amelia. The boy who had laughed when Ezekiel was shoved into the cave first.
He didn't feel hatred.
He felt…
Nothing.
That scared him.
---
He knelt.
The letters on his left hand stirred.
Velric flinched.
For the first time in his privileged life, he looked small. Human. Bloodied and pale, no crown, no confidence—just a child who thought he was a god, now realizing he was meat.
Ezekiel spoke quietly.
"You're not dead."
Velric's eyes fluttered. A nod. A plea.
"Why?"
He didn't mean to ask it. But it came out anyway.
"Why are you alive?"
The air around them shifted.
Velric shivered violently, like a dog in a storm.
And then—Ezekiel felt it.
In his chest.
Behind the ribs.
A pulse.
Not a heartbeat.
A concept.
It rose, involuntary. Natural. Like breath.
The air grew hot.
Then cold.
Then dense.
Velric's skin turned clammy.
He backed away a few inches, scraping against the wall like a worm, eyes wide in terror as he mouthed something over and over—
Please. Please. Please.
And Ezekiel—
Didn't move.
But the light around his body bent.
The hallway darkened.
His shadow stretched forward without source.
And Velric began to scream.
Silently.
As if sound had been judged unworthy of him.
---
Flames—not real ones, not fire—but flickering sigils, began to crawl up Velric's arms.
They were made of light, but they burned. His skin blistered where they passed, leaving behind truth.
Memories.
Ezekiel could see them.
Velric's thoughts. His worst acts. His cruelties. A servant whipped for crying. A bird drowned for singing too loud. A girl slapped until she stopped stuttering.
Judgment.
Unfiltered.
Unforgiving.
Azrael's power had awakened.
And it was acting.
Ezekiel hadn't asked for this.
He didn't know how to stop it.
He reached out with his right hand—
And grabbed Velric by the wrist.
---
"Enough."
His voice cracked like a whip.
The air snapped.
The glow died.
The hallway stilled.
Velric slumped forward, unconscious. His skin blackened in places, as if charred by memory.
Ezekiel knelt there a moment longer, hand still clenched.
His mind raced.
That wasn't a spell.
That wasn't rage.
That was concept.
Burned into him.
And it had lashed out on its own.
What am I becoming?
He stood slowly.
Looked down at Velric one last time.
And turned his back.
---
As he walked toward the mouth of the cave, the wind met him—real wind. From the outside world. Carrying dust and light and the promise of day.
He didn't walk faster.
He didn't weep.
He passed the final statue at the threshold, and it did not move.
It only whispered, faintly, across the stone.
> "Vessel."
Ezekiel stepped into the light.