The nights had grown heavier. It was not simply the silence of a city at rest, but something thicker, weighted, like a veil draped across Aurealis. The palace's golden spires glimmered still under moonlight, but within its chambers, shadows pressed close, and dreams bled into waking thought. Lysander no longer knew when he truly slept, or whether the Fog itself had found a way to creep into his mind.
The child dreamed first. She called out in the night, soft cries muffled by blankets, her small frame trembling with visions no child should have borne. Lysander, woken by her murmurs, would sit at her side, quill in hand, recording fragments of her words. At first they were scattered nonsense—whispers of rivers that bled into skies, of voices without mouths. But as nights passed, the fragments grew sharper, more precise.
"There is a heart," she whispered one night, her breath shallow. "A heart beneath the world. It beats when we fear. It sleeps when we love. But it is waking now, because too many hearts are breaking."
Her eyes had opened then, clouded yet piercing, as though someone else spoke through her. "You will see it soon. In your dreams. And you must not run."
Lysander could not forget those words. And when, the next night, he felt himself dragged beneath the thin crust of sleep into a vastness that was not his own, he understood.
He stood upon a plain without horizon, a sea of shifting mist that glowed faintly from within. Shapes moved in the fog—hands stretching, faces half-formed, dissolving as quickly as they appeared. A sound pulsed beneath it all, low and deep, the throb of an immense heartbeat. With each beat, the mist quivered, swelling and contracting like breath.
He walked forward, though no ground supported him, and the mist parted to reveal something colossal: a shape not of flesh, but of thought. It was a heart, vast and translucent, suspended in endless space, every pulse sending tremors of light through the fog. But within its chambers, he saw not blood but shadows—countless human silhouettes writhing, their whispers escaping like smoke.
"Do you hear us?" The voice was not singular. It was thousands layered, broken, yearning. "We are the forgotten, the abandoned, the buried fears. We are the hunger of kings and the grief of mothers. We are the silence you never treated. We are the wound you would not name."
The sound shook him to his marrow. He felt himself shrinking before the immensity of it, his own heart stuttering against the rhythm. He wanted to speak, but his voice broke.
"You seek to heal," the voices continued. "But healing means opening. To cut. To bleed. To suffer with. Will you bleed with us, physician?"
A flash of pain seared through his chest, and he fell to his knees, clutching at his ribs. He could feel the great heart's beat mirrored inside him, dragging his pulse into its rhythm. A flood of memories not his own poured through him—wars he had never fought, plagues he had never seen, children he had never lost. He drowned in grief that was not his, and yet became his.
The child's voice, distant but clear, cut through the torrent: "Do not run."
He forced his eyes open. Through the haze, he saw a thin thread of light descending from above, like a surgeon's scalpel gleaming in shadow. He reached for it, though every nerve screamed. His hand closed around the light, and for an instant, the voices hushed.
Then he woke, gasping, drenched in sweat, his hand still burning as though he truly held something. When he opened his palm, a faint mark remained: the impression of a line, straight and precise, as if etched into his skin.
The child stirred. Her eyes opened at once, locking onto the mark. She nodded, as if she had been waiting. "The scalpel of light," she whispered. "One of the three. You've been chosen."
Before Lysander could speak, the palace doors burst open. Servants entered with torches, followed by armored guards. And behind them, tall and regal in silks of midnight, came the Empress. Her crown glimmered like frost, and her eyes, sharp as drawn steel, fixed upon him.
"You have been walking paths unseen, physician," she said, her tone smooth, but laced with suspicion. "Do not think I am blind. Dreams linger on your face like stains, and whispers follow you even through walls. Tell me, Lysander—do you dream of me as well?"
Her presence pressed on him as heavily as the Fog itself. He bowed slightly, masking his unease. "I dream only of the sickness that threatens your Empire."
Her lips curved faintly, not quite a smile. "Then you are faithful still. Yet take care. Faith, like flesh, can rot if left unattended. I would hate to see you… stray."
She turned her gaze to the child, who shrank beneath her blankets. For a breath, something unreadable flickered in the Empress's eyes—curiosity, perhaps even hunger. Then she swept out, leaving silence in her wake.
Lysander sank onto his chair, his pulse still bound to the echo of the great heart. He knew now: the Fog was no simple plague. It was the cry of countless souls, the wound of the world itself. And the scalpel burning in his palm was only the first of three instruments he would need.
But even as clarity came, danger sharpened. The Empress suspected him. The Resistance waited in shadow. And the heart of the Fog had seen him—and would not let him go.