*Day 20 - The Ruins of the Forgotten Fortress*
Ky'arahh found him trying to crawl away.
Not run. Crawl. Netharion's perfect legs were broken. Ora's roots had done that before withdrawing, leaving him human again but wrong. Everything bent where it shouldn't.
"Going somewhere?" Ky'arahh circled him. Always circling. Shark around blood.
"Please—"
"No."
She kicked him. Not hard. Just enough to flip him over. Make him look at the sky that had cracked when dragons came.
"Lyra's dead."
"I didn't know—"
"Lie." Another kick. Ribs this time. "I saw you take payment. Soul-coins. You knew exactly what would happen."
"The greater good—"
"Whose?"
Netharion tried to crawl again. Pathetic. His councilor robes, once perfect, now mud and blood and wrongness.
Ky'arahh didn't kill him. That would be stillness. Instead, she paced around him. Constant motion. Making him turn his broken neck to follow.
"She was fourteen."
"The plan required—"
"She was brilliant."
"Sacrifices—"
"She was mine."
That stopped him. The possessive. The personal.
"You were nobody. Merchant trash. She would never—"
Ky'arahh knelt—still moving, weight shifting foot to foot even kneeling—and showed him something.
A lock of hair. Golden. Kept in crystal vial.
"Three years. Best friends. Every night she could escape, she came to the merchant quarter. We'd talk about everything. Brilliant noble daughter and merchant trash becoming sisters by choice. She said I was the only one who saw her as Lyra, not as crystal nobility."
Netharion's face did something complicated.
"More honest than Council meetings where you sold us for coins that scream."
"You don't understand. The Distillatori offered—"
"I. Don't. Care."
Each word punctuated by movement. Standing. Pacing. Never still.
"Here's what happens. You live. Broken but breathing. And you watch."
She gestured to the refugees. The survivors. Building something from rubble.
"You watch them rebuild without you. Watch them forget you. Watch your name become nothing."
"Kill me."
"No."
"Please—"
"Stillness is mercy. You get motion. Constant, painful motion."
She pulled out rope. Not to hang—to drag.
"Every day, we move camp. Every day, you follow. Crawling. Broken. Moving. No rest. No peace. No stillness. Just constant, endless motion toward nothing."
"That's torture."
"That's justice."
She started walking. The rope went taut. Netharion had to crawl or be dragged.
He crawled.
Behind them, Ora watched. Said nothing. Justice wasn't hers to define. Vorgoth was a tree that screamed. Netharion was a broken thing crawling. Different justice for different crimes.
Thom'duhr documented it all. The scholar in him needing record. Writing even as his hands shook.
Duh sat—half crystal now, unable to walk. But Spun Duh carried him. Brothers in corruption.
The vendor's daughter—she had a name now, Sera—helped other children. Moving like Ky'arahh taught her. Never still. Still meant remembering.
"How long?" Netharion gasped, crawling over sharp stones.
"Until you die. Or I do. Or the world ends again."
"I'll die first."
"Maybe. But you'll die moving."
That night, camp made, Netharion collapsed at its edge. Still breathing. Still broken. Still forced to watch life continue without him.
Ky'arahh sat by Ora. First time sitting still all day.
"You were really her best friend?" Ora asked.
"Yeah. Like a sister she chose. Said I made her laugh, made her feel real."
"She never laughed at home."
"Different laughs for different places."
They sat—Ora still, Ky'arahh's leg bouncing—and didn't talk about Lyra. Didn't need to. Grief was its own language.
"What now?" Ora asked.
"Now we rebuild. Move forward. Never stop."
"The corruption's still in me."
"The motion's still in me. We all carry our damage."
Philosophy through exhaustion. Through shared loss. Through choosing to continue.
In the morning, they'd move south. Always south. Toward whatever came next.
Netharion would crawl behind them. Broken justice for a broken world.
Ky'arahh would never stop moving. Even sleeping, she'd twitch. Kick. Motion even in dreams.
Because Lyra was light, then nothing.
And someone had to remember her best friend by never being still.
Someone had to carry her forward through pure momentum.
Someone had to prove that friendship was motion, and motion was remembrance, and remembrance was the only revenge that mattered.
Ky'arahh stood. Started pacing. Always pacing.
The vendor's daughter—Sera—joined her. Learning the rhythm. Understanding that sharks die if they stop swimming.
In this new world, everyone was a shark.
Or they were Netharion. Crawling. Broken. Forced to move but never arriving.
Justice was motion without destination.
Mercy was stillness.
Ky'arahh offered no mercy.
Never would.
Never could.
Because being still meant accepting Lyra was gone.
And that was the one thing she'd never accept.
Not through all the motion in the world.
Not through all the crawling men and broken councilors and soul-coins that screamed.
Never.
Still.
Moving.
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*End Chapter 18.5*
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