The Emporium had never been this still.
There had been quiet before—moments between visitors, long stretches after relics were traded or sealed. Times when the forge slept and the garden withdrew its breath. Even days when the mirror refused to reflect.
But this was different.
Not peace.
Not rest.
Absence.
The god stood alone in the main hall, his hand resting on the red-bound book. It lay open but empty, the pages waiting.
The forge glowed faintly. The coals pulsed, not with heat, but with memory, as if they burned only because they didn't know how to stop.
No rift shimmered in the far wall.
No footprints marked the floor.
No visitor came.
---
He walked slowly.
Each step felt like a question without an answer. The shelves, usually humming with potential, remained still. No jars shifted. No tools lifted themselves from their racks.
The kettle sat cold, though he'd filled it this morning.
Not cold with neglect—cold by choice.
Even the Emporium had withdrawn.
The fox watched him from the rafters, eyes half-closed. Tail flicking in a slow, uncertain rhythm.
"No visitor today?" he asked.
The fox blinked. "No need found its way."
"And the shop?"
"It waits."
"For what?"
The fox didn't answer.
Neither did the shop.
---
The mirror in the garden had gone dark.
Not shattered.
Not broken.
Just blank.
A black surface, absorbing light, refusing reflection.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers neared the glass, it pulsed once—softly, not hostile—and pushed him back. Not physically. Not forcefully.
It simply said: Not yet.
The garden's vines rustled, uneasy. Blooms remained closed. The central cradle, once housing the Ashbloom seed, was empty.
The soil felt colder.
Or maybe he did.
---
Back in the main hall, the red book had turned a page.
One word etched in pale ink:
Search.
He stared.
"For what?" he whispered.
The book did not reply.
The forge hissed once. A drawer slid open and shut of its own accord.
The fox leapt from above, landing beside him. "The Emporium remembers something you do not."
He frowned. "Then why not show me?"
"Because some memories must be found."
---
He searched.
Room by room.
Corner by corner.
The Emporium did not resist him, but neither did it help.
Shelves remained rigid. Paths to familiar spaces twisted—where once the Scriptorium had opened, now there was only stone.
The Archivum's door had vanished entirely.
The shop was closing in on itself.
Not in fear.
In preservation.
---
He entered the backroom.
Tools were gone.
Drawers empty.
Even the storage chest for unshaped relics sat hollow, lid ajar.
The air tasted of dust.
Of endings.
He knelt beside the forge. Not to tend it. To listen.
The floor beneath the anvil felt… thinner.
As though something pulsed behind it.
He pressed his palm to the stone.
It yielded.
---
A drawer, hidden beneath the hearthstone.
Unmarked.
He opened it.
Inside: a compass.
Carved of root-veined stone and bone, its needle spun—not toward north, but toward absence.
He lifted it.
The forge flared once.
The fox tensed. "That's not a relic."
"What is it?"
The compass pulsed.
And pointed downward.
---
The floor unknit.
Stairs spiraled into shadow—not to the Hearthkeeper's Ring or Archivum.
Somewhere new.
He descended.
The compass glowed faintly in his hand.
Each step felt heavier than the last, as though he was walking not downward—but inward.
At the base: a door.
Not unfamiliar.
The first door.
The one the Emporium had given him when he awoke.
It opened without his touch.
---
Beyond: a small room.
Empty.
Silent.
Except for a pedestal.
Upon it: a scroll.
Unfurled as he neared.
His handwriting.
"You chose to forget."
"Not for escape. For protection."
"The shop remembers what you chose to seal."
"Beyond the next door is who you were."
"Do not open it until you are ready to carry the weight of yourself again."
A creak echoed through the wall.
It shifted.
A second door emerged.
Etched with the same symbols on his skin.
At its center: a word.
Wait.
---
He reached out—
The compass vibrated.
Then fractured, splitting open.
A wave of air rippled outward.
The shop shuddered.
Above, shelves groaned. Lanterns flickered.
A relic shelf toppled.
The forge hissed.
He staggered, holding the fractured compass.
From within, a single shard of light hovered—shaped like a glyph.
His glyph.
The one on his hand.
He touched it.
Memory flooded.
---
A forge, different yet familiar.
A woman's voice.
A relic—half-shaped—burning in his hand.
A choice.
He recoiled.
The glyph dissolved.
The room steadied.
The door remained.
He stepped back.
"I'm not ready."
---
Back in the Emporium, the forge burned bright.
But something was… wrong.
A relic had stirred on its own—a lantern once traded by a visitor long gone. It now flickered, casting shadows that reached too far.
He approached.
The lantern hummed a name.
Not his.
A name never spoken.
A visitor who had never arrived.
He touched the lantern.
It fell silent.
The red book wrote:
Relic breach avoided. Memory integrity at risk.
---
The mirror flickered.
And then—a hallway.
Not real.
Reflected.
But beyond the mirror's edge, voices.
Not conversations.
Whispers.
Names.
A corridor of what could have been.
He turned away.
The mirror dimmed.
---
He stood.
Still.
Listening.
To a shop that was no longer just waiting.
It was remembering everything he chose to forget.
And it was no longer sure it should.
---
At the far wall, a hallway had opened.
One step beyond where the shop should end.
He walked to it.
The walls on either side breathed—soft pulses of starlight beneath stone. The air shimmered, not warm, not cold, but familiar, like breath caught between lives.
The floor beneath him wasn't wood.
It was memory. Solidified.
Each step felt lighter and heavier all at once.
Then—voices.
Faint.
Distant.
Not words, but names.
Names the shop had never spoken aloud.
Names of visitors who never came.
A girl with no shadow. A man with no voice. A beast stitched from grief. All passed through the Emporium.
But these names… they hadn't.
And yet, they were remembered.
Held.
Trapped.
---
He stopped.
The hallway extended, endless.
But before he could step further—
The shop sealed it behind him.
A wall rose soundlessly.
The glyph etched on its surface was his own.
The fox's voice echoed faintly behind the wall.
"You built that door yourself."
He whispered, "To keep them out?"
"No," came the answer.
"To keep you in."