Chapter I — The Goddess and the Grave
The wind moans through the hollow ribs of the old temple, carrying with it the dust of centuries. Once, this place might have shone — walls of marble, banners of gold, a home for light and prayer. Now the stones are pitted with frost and streaked with the black veins of time. The air smells of cold and old incense, a ghost of devotion long since abandoned.
I move carefully through the debris. My kind leave no footprints anymore — just the faint scrape of bone against stone. I have walked these ruins before, scavenging for relics to bring back to Bastion. The city needs weapons, always weapons, to keep the mad ones at bay.
They call me Grimm. The name feels heavier with every century. I think I'm six hundred and eighty-three years old, give or take a few decades. I stopped counting when the world stopped breathing.
My skin is stone-grey, cracked like old bark. My hands are claws of sinew and bone, and within my skull two pale-blue flames flicker where eyes used to be. They are my only warmth, the only reminder that once, I burned brighter.
That's when I see her.
She lies at the heart of the chamber, surrounded by the wreckage of idols and shattered altars. A faint glow clings to her like mist — soft, golden, alive. I haven't seen anything truly alive in centuries. Her chest rises and falls. Her hair spills around her like sunlight remembered.
I stand there for a long moment, afraid to blink in case she fades.
Then she stirs.
Her eyes open, blue as the old sky, and when she speaks, her voice doesn't belong to this world. "You… are not the one I expected."
I step closer, the sound of my movement echoing in the empty hall. "That makes two of us."
"You are undead," she says quietly, disbelief trembling at the edges of her tone. "But there were to be survivors — a hero who still lived, one who could find the spark."
Her words dig at something I buried a long time ago. "The living haven't walked this world in centuries," I rasp. "If you're looking for a hero, goddess, you've come too late."
She pushes herself up on trembling arms, still weak but determined. "No. That cannot be. My father's vision—" She cuts herself off, pressing a hand to her brow. "He said there would be hope left. A light waiting to be found."
"Then your father was wrong." I turn away, gazing at the broken windows where twilight seeps through. "This world has no room for light. Only the echoes of it."
She shakes her head, rising to her feet. "I do not believe that. I can feel life still — somewhere. A pulse hidden beneath the cold."
"That's the wind," I say dryly. "It howls in every ruin. Makes you think something's still breathing."
She looks around at the fallen pillars and broken idols, eyes wide with a kind of wonder that's painful to see. "What happened here?"
"What didn't happen?" I mutter. "The gods tore the world apart. Then one of them decided to fix it by killing everything. And now here we are — a kingdom of corpses arguing about whose rot smells better."
Her expression softens, not with pity, but sorrow. "You speak as if you've already died."
I give a hollow laugh. "We all have. Some of us just haven't stopped walking yet."
She studies me for a long moment, then says quietly, "If you know this world, then guide me. I must find the spark before it's lost forever."
"I'm not your guide."
"Then be my witness," she replies. "Someone has to remember where we began."
I stare at her — this impossibly living thing standing amid a graveyard that spans the world. "You'll be dead before you find what you're looking for."
"Then at least I'll die searching," she says, her voice soft but unyielding.
There's a silence between us, filled only by the wind whispering through the ruins. I should walk away — leave her to her foolish hope. Yet something about her — that stubborn, radiant defiance — refuses to let me.
"You truly believe there's a spark left," I say.
"I know there is," she answers. "But I cannot reach it alone."
The blue fire in my skull flares, flickering with something I don't want to name. I sigh. "You'll find nothing but dust and madness beyond these walls."
"Then I'll need someone who knows the dust and the madness," she says.
I shake my head, though there's a ghost of a smile hidden in the motion. "You're a fool, goddess."
"Perhaps," she says. "But I think you were one once, too."
That stings more than I expect. I turn toward the broken archway, where the wind howls like a warning.
"Fine," I mutter. "I'll take you as far as Bastion. After that, you're on your own."
Her smile — faint, tired, but real — feels like sunlight on old stone.
And for the first time in centuries, I wonder if the world might be capable of something more than just decay.