The air thickens, pressing against my eyes. The silence pressing against me does not fade.It creeps inward, threads into my lungs, slides beneath my ribs until it feels like my own body has turned traitor. My breath drags heavy and strange, as though the air itself resists me.
I press a hand to my chest. Something answers—heavy, solid, wrong.
A faint light wavers in the dark ahead...a pedestal? Its glass case gleaming as though something precious waits within. For a heartbeat I almost believe I see the compass there. Relief catches sharp in my chest.
But the light bends. The shape blurs, ripples, and dissolves.
Something presses beneath my ribs, heavy and wrong. My breath stutters, caught in its grip. I look down and the compass is now lodged in me, just above my heart, pressed deep into bone. Its rim bites cruelly with each shallow breath. I cannot draw air without scraping against it. My ribs feel as though they've been built only to hold this weight.
The pedestal still stands before me, glowing faintly, though the case is now empty. My reflection kneels in front of it as if it still holds something sacred. The false light crowns her brow, serene as a priestess at her altar. She tilts her head, lips parting, letting my voice spill out—familiar but edged, as though every softness had been pared away.
"It was her wound first. Now she's passed it to you. An heirloom of pain dressed as a gift."
Her hand brushes the empty glass. Pain spears through my chest, sharp enough to buckle me. I clutch my ribs, but the compass only digs deeper. The one in my palm flickers weakly, trembling like a bird trapped in a hand. For the first time I wonder if it trembles not in defiance but in fear.
Then his voice enters, quiet but assured, as though he's been waiting for me to break before speaking.
"Of course it hurts," he murmurs, velvet low and close. "That's all it knows how to do. Wound. Pull. Remind you that you are hers, even now. And you, little flame… you mistake the pain for guidance."
The words move through me like a warm breath at the back of my neck—not sharp, nor rushed, just certain, as though he has already won.
My reflection rises. She circles me slowly, eyes fixed, smile unblinking, her every step noiseless.
"You cling to it because you're afraid of the dark without it," she whispers. "But it doesn't light your way. It blinds you, leading you deeper into nothing."
The pedestal hums louder. Veins of light crawl across its glass like cracks through stone. With each flicker the compass in my chest grows hotter, heavier. My ribs groan as though splintering. The compass in my palm burns too—faint warmth flickering stubbornly, alive but too small.
The reflection leans close, her mouth grazing my ear, her voice intimate as confession.
"It never loved you. It never even knew you. It clings because it cannot end, and so it drags you with it. To your end. To hers."
Her words drip like secrets the compass itself has been hiding from me.
His voice drifts in after hers, lazy, amused, savoring how easily her words cut me open.
"And you welcome it," he breathes. "Because it spares you the burden of choosing. How sweet… to be led, to let silence think for you. Tell me, my stray—has it ever spoken? Has it given you reason? Or has it only pulled, tugged, dragged…and left you bleeding?"
The compass in my chest pulses, searing white-hot. I crumple to my knees, stone bruising bone. The pedestal glows brighter, fissures racing across its glass.
My reflection crouches in front of me, folding her hands neatly in her lap, eyes calm, voice steady.
"It's eating you, piece by piece. Look at yourself. Smaller. Thinner. Weaker. Soon there will be nothing left for it to drag. And when you're gone, it will simply reach for another hand to chain."
The compass in my palm flares suddenly, desperate. It shakes so violently I nearly lose it. Blood streaks the rim where it has cut me.
His voice leans closer, smooth as if he were already inside my thoughts, finishing them for me. I can almost feel his hand cupping my cheek, his whisper meant for no one else.
"Drop it," he says softly. "Let it fall. You'll breathe easier without it. She tied you to silence. But I… I can give you purpose. Fire. Vengeance. Think of what you could be if you stopped clinging to scraps."
The pedestal quakes. The glass fractures wider, glowing hotter, brighter. The compass in my chest burns until I cannot breathe at all. My heart feels branded by it, my ribs threatening to split open. I claw at my sternum but find nothing—only heat, only absence.
The reflection leans closer until her forehead nearly touches mine. My eyes stare back from her face. Steady. Merciless.
"It will strip you hollow," she whispers. "That is all it knows. And still you cradle it like salvation."
The compass in my palm pulses faintly, its heartbeat too weak to match the fire inside me.
His voice lingers after the silence, velvet-soft, cruel in its tenderness, as though he pitied what he'd made of me.
"You are lovely when you despair," he murmurs. "Every fracture, every tear…they suit you."
The pedestal shatters.
Light bursts outward, searing through me. The compass in my chest ignites like fire, ripping a scream from me that the silence devours whole.
He continues steadily, unfazed.
"Hope was never yours to hold," he says. "But you could be mine, little shadow."
My ribs blaze. My heart sears raw. I claw at myself but find nothing. Nothing but the trembling compass in my bloodied palm.
When the light dies I collapse onto the stone, gasping, shaking. My palm throbs, blood streaking the compass where its rim cut deep, but I hardly notice. It feels smaller. Colder. Diminished. As though something vital has been taken from it.
The reflection straightens, head tilted, studying me with a smile sharper than before. She is steadier now, stronger.
His voice curls upward, rich and unhurried, like smoke rising from a fire—beautiful, suffocating, impossible to escape, every word a hand closing around my throat.
"Look at you, bleeding for a trinket. Dying for silence. Exquisite in your ruin…but wasted like this. You were never meant to follow, little flame. You were meant to rule…and I could make you more than this."