Wind returned.
Cold, heavy, smelling faintly of iron.
He stood on a narrow ledge that curved around an abyss. Across the gulf rose a wall taller than mountains, its surface black and faintly breathing. Shapes moved inside it—people, or memories pretending to be people.
"This is the fifth gate," God said.
"The test of shadow and sympathy. Every man carries a piece of this wall. Look close."
He did.
Faces surfaced from the darkness, each whispering in a different tone:
a friend he'd betrayed, a lover he'd forgotten, strangers he'd judged.
The murmurs overlapped until they became one long note of accusation.
You are the damage.
You failed them.
Carry the shame.
He felt the weight of every voice settle on his chest.
The sword at his side dulled, its light turning ashen.
"Listen carefully," God said.
"The wall offers penance that never ends. It feeds on kneeling."
He pressed a hand against the surface; it was slick and warm, like the skin of some sleeping beast.
Whispers slid up his arm, threading into thought. He saw himself wandering forever through other people's pain, an infinite loop of apologies.
"No," he said, voice cracking.
"You are not the damage. Pain is momentary. I am not the wound."
Lightning flashed inside the wall, splitting it from crown to root.
For an instant the faces looked relieved—as if the truth had given them rest.
The crack began to close again, slower this time, deliberate.
Another whisper crept through, softer, almost kind.
Then carry the shame as proof you care.
He almost agreed.
The idea felt noble.
That was the trap.
He remembered God's earlier warning: comfort masquerades as virtue.
"Shame isn't for carrying," he said through his teeth.
"Feel it, then drop it."
The wall convulsed. Every mouth screamed once, releasing centuries of swallowed sound.
The black surface melted into mist that rolled across the abyss and vanished.
Only a single stone remained, small enough to hold, engraved with a sigil shaped like a tear.
He slipped it into his pocket.
"Good," God said.
"You've kept the lesson, not the knife."
From the mist a narrow bridge extended, glowing faintly gold.
At its far end a faint light flickered, warm and rhythmic, as though someone beyond the void was breathing.
"What waits there?" he asked.
"The throne that believes itself the end," said God.
"The next gate tests the will to rule."
He crossed the bridge slowly. Each step rang like glass.
Behind him the last fragments of the wall fell into the dark and dissolved, leaving the air strangely light.
He realised he was smiling.
The scar on his palm—burned there by the Tower's door—throbbed once, bright and painless.
"Grief is a gate, not a grave," God whispered.
"You've walked through. Don't look back."
The scholar nodded and stepped into the light ahead.