The silence in the fissure stretched, thick with the weight of my discovery. The small fire popped, sending a shower of sparks upward like fleeing stars. I stared at my hands, trying to reconcile the physical reality of my flesh with the calm, silver sphere that had become the new center of my universe.
"It feels... different now that I know its name," I said, my voice low. "Less like a foreign object. More like a foundation."
"That is because you are beginning to understand it," Croft replied from his perch. "Knowledge shapes perception. Before, it was a mystery. Now, it is a tool you are learning to name."
I focused inward again, on the Spark. With conscious effort, I tried to push my awareness into it. The moment I did, the world shifted. It was not a wave of vertigo, but a sudden, profound stillness. The crackle of the fire, the whisper of the wind—they became distant, muffled. My awareness was drawn into the Spark, and I felt its true nature not as a source of raw power, but as a nexus of absence.
It was not a light that pushed back the dark. It was a deeper dark that consumed all light. It was a perfect, silent void, and it was the heart of me.
I pulled back, the sudden return to the noisy, physical world jarring. "It's not just power," I breathed. "It's silence. It's the space between things."
"Describe it," Croft urged.
"It's a well of shadow. It doesn't generate; it consumes. It negates." I looked at the small fire, its light now feeling aggressive. I focused on the Spark, and this time, I didn't try to draw power out. I invited the shadows in.
I held out my hand and willed the space above it to become more than just dimly lit. I demanded the light leave.
A sphere of absolute blackness coalesced above my palm. It was a hole in reality. Holding it felt like trying to keep a fistful of water from flowing through my fingers; it required intense, unwavering focus. After only a few heartbeats, a dull throb began behind my eyes, and I let it go. The world snapped back into place. I was shivering.
"Fascinating," Croft whispered. "Your Spark is aligned with the concept of shadow itself. But you see the cost. To create a true void is to strain against reality."
The realization struck me then, a connection I should have made days ago. "My sight," I said, looking at Croft. The silver glow of his soul was a constant, gentle luminescence. "And the shadows. When I step into them... it's not a separate ability. It's this. It's the Spark."
I stood, my injured leg protesting only slightly—the earlier application of shadow-energy had muted the worst of the damage. I walked to the back of the fissure, where the darkness was deepest. Before, I had simply... done it. Now, I paid attention. I focused on the Spark within me, on its nature as a well of absence, and I willed my own physical form to partake of that nature. I didn't push the shadows away. I asked them to welcome me.
The world didn't go dark. It went quiet. The sensation was not of blindness, but of a profound and sudden intimacy with the darkness. I felt myself unravel at the edges, my substance blending, merging. I was still there, I could still see Croft and the fire, but I was also part of the still, cold stone around me. I was a whisper in a silent room. It was an effortless transition, a homecoming. It required no focus to maintain, only a gentle acknowledgment of my own nature. This was different from creating a void; this was being the void.
I stepped back into the faint light near the fire, feeling solidity return. "Hiding in the shadows... it's restful. It's what the Spark is. But creating darkness, shaping it... that's work. That's forcing the Spark to act against the world."
"An astute observation," Croft said. "One is a state of being. The other is an act of will. Your vision in the dark is likely the same—your senses attuning to the subtle truths that light often obscures. You are not seeing light where there is none. You are perceiving the reality that exists within the shadow."
It made perfect, terrifying sense. My very perception of the world was filtered through this divine fragment of negation. I saw the soul-light of others because I could perceive the life that stood in opposition to the stillness I represented. My vision was that of the void looking out at a world of clamorous, glowing things.
My gaze fell upon the waterskin. I took a small, clay cup and poured a little water into it. I focused on my Spark. I didn't push energy into the water. Instead, I focused on the concept of purity. I willed the shadows to consume everything in the water that was not pure.
A faint, grey mist seemed to seep from the surface of the water, drawn into a tiny, swirling vortex of darkness. I felt a faint, sickly tug on my Spark—the effort of defining and then negating the microscopic impurities. It was mentally exhausting. After a moment, the vortex vanished, and I was left panting, my forehead damp with sweat.
I looked into the cup. The water was perfectly clear, with an almost unnatural stillness. I took a cautious sip. It was the pure, neutral taste of water. I had refined it by subtracting its imperfections. But the cost was immense; I couldn't purify more than a cupful without complete mental exhaustion.
"Precision is always more costly than brute force," Croft observed. "A scalpel, not a bludgeon. But a surgeon's hand tires faster than a butcher's."
The effort left me feeling hollow and lightheaded. A deep, gnawing hunger awoke in my gut. This power consumed my physical energy as readily as my mental focus. I fumbled for the waybread and water, devouring them. The limitations were clear.
As dawn's light seeped into the fissure, the final piece clicked into place.
"Croft," I said. "The drop of power I absorbed in the palace. The 'ichor'... that's wrong. Only the blood of gods is ichor."
Croft tilted his head. "You are correct."
"So what I absorbed was a fragment of a god." The truth was staggering. "My Spark is pulling me toward pieces of him. The Death God. I'm not just an angel remembering his purpose. I'm a vessel gathering the shattered remains of my deity."
Croft was silent for a long moment. "That would explain the nature of your Spark. It is a divine anchor, a shard of a dead god's power that serves as your soul."
The compass in my chest pulled toward the Spires. I felt its nature with terrifying clarity. It was the call of a divine fragment to its source. A god's blood, calling to its own.
The journey east was a sacrament. A gathering of a corpse. And I was both the priest and the reliquary. The power it granted was a thirsty, demanding thing, and my very senses were now bound to its shadowed nature.