The blackness of the nightmare shattered, replaced by the flickering, orange-yellow light of the infirmary.
He lurched upright, a sharp, ragged gasp tearing from his new, small lungs. The world slammed back into focus. The oppressive, dry heat. The smell of herbs and vinegar. The roaring fireplace.
'I'm... back.'
His hand flew to his chest, his small fingers clenching, not on the cold, sodden, and torn linen of his previous garment, but on something new.
It was dry.
He looked down. He was dressed in a fresh, loose-fitting nightshirt, the rough-spun linen clean and pale in the firelight. The cot he was on was warm, the coarse, woollen blanket beneath him blissfully dry. The oppressive, bone-deep, paralysing chill that had defined his new existence was gone.
He scanned the room, his movements stiff, his small body aching.
He was alone.
The two guards, the ones Elara had called Kael and Garret, were gone. The only sound in the hot, smoky room was the loud, hungry crackle and roar of the massive fireplace.
But the silence was not empty.
There was a strange, new sensation in the air. It was a feeling. An encompassing, vibrating energy that seemed to hum at a frequency just below his hearing. It was a low, subsonic thrum, a static charge that tingled against his skin, making the fine hairs on his forearms stand on end.
'What... is that?'
It was not there before. Or maybe he had just been too cold, too... dead... to notice it.
He slumped back against the cot's hard, wooden headboard, his new, small body feeling impossibly weak. He had no time to plan, no energy to truly analyse his new prison. His mind was stuck. It was a broken record, replaying the final, frantic, impossible moments of the dream.
The library. Her.
The crushing, metaphysical weight that had pinned him to the chair.
His lunge.
The feeling of his small, weak, child's hands, his new hands, wrapping around her throat. The pathetic, useless, furious attempt to end her.
And the book.
He replayed it, over and over—her gentle, mocking, parental touch.
He remembered the dizzying, nauseating feeling of his gaze being forced to the side, his head turned by her gentle, iron grip. He saw the book, the one that had been in front of him, fallen open on the floor during his clumsy, furious charge—the one with the writhing, swimming, unreadable letters.
But they weren't unreadable.
Not at the end.
In that last, final, impossible second... they had stopped swimming. They had snapped into sharp, perfect focus.
He could read them.
The nightmare had ended, but it had left something behind. It had unlocked something. It had left... a residue.
A weight.
He felt... heavy, not with the physical exhaustion of his small, frail body. This was in his mind. It felt as if he was suddenly, instantly, carrying a secret. Something vast, and dark, and forbidden. A knowledge that no human was ever meant to possess.
And the secret... it seemed to hear him.
'What... what did I see? What did I... read?'
The air in front of him ripped.
It was not a sound. It was a tear. A wisp of thin, black smoke, like a strand of dissolving ink in clear water, appeared in the air, just feet from his cot. It was not smoke from the fire. This was too dark, too... clean.
It was blacker than the stone, a sliver of pure, cold void.
It held a strange, impossible, sentience.
It twisted. It coiled. It wrote itself into the air, shaping itself with a horrifying, silent, intelligent purpose.
It formed letters. Numbers.
A glowing, dark panel of information, hovering in the air as if it were a solid, tangible thing.
The moment the panel solidified, a new sound filled his head.
It was not a sound he heard with his new, small ears. It echoed, deep in the back of his skull, a dry, sibilant, cacophony. It was the sound of a thousand brittle, ancient, inhuman voices, all whispering the same, impossible words, all at the same time.
The whispers spoke the words as his eyes read them.
[Name: Brandt Rimescar]
[Age: 9 Years, 8 Months]
[Level: 1]
[Health: 35/35]
[Skills: None]
[Titles:] [Curse of the Remnant]
[Experience: 0/10]
He just... stared.
His mind, which had been reeling from the nightmare, went perfectly still.
'A... panel? A... system?'
This... this was something from a video game. It was a joke. It was insane.
But it was real.
It was floating in the air, a rectangular screen of pure, coherent, sentient darkness. He could hear it. He could almost... feel it.
'This is it. This is why she made me look at the book.'
It was not just a dream. It was an activation. A key. She had... unlocked... this. In him. Or for him.
His gaze, sharp and terrified, snapped to the most alarming line. The one that sat, like a malignant tumour.
[Curse of the Remnant]
He thought the words, his mind focusing on them, probing them with a desperate, frantic need to know.
'What... what is it? What does it mean?'
The panel reacted.
The black, smoky letters dissolved, and new ones, new whispers, instantly, obediently, took their place.
[Curse of the Remnant] - Your soul is forcibly tethered to a Remnant. This entity is bound to you as a permanent observer, perceiving your reality, thoughts, and emotions. Its presence and power may intensify under conditions of duress, physical pain, and isolation.
He read the words. Once. Twice.
There was no hot, panicked fear. Not this time. There was just a logical and sinking certainty.
'A Remnant.'
'An observer.'
'Forcibly tethered.'
'Perceiving your reality, thoughts, and emotions.'
It all... clicked.
'This... this is how she followed me.'
It was not a random, supernatural haunting. It was not a delusion, as Grace had so insisted. It was this. A tether. A bond.
'She didn't just haunt me. She... latched on. A 'Remnant'. Is that what she is? Or is that what she left?'
A permanent observer. The words echoed. She was here. She was in him. She was... watching.
He scrambled, his weak limbs flailing, his heart hammering a sick, frantic rhythm against his small ribs. He looked around the empty, smoky infirmary, his eyes wide, his breath catching in his throat.
"Where are you?" he whispered, his new, childish voice a dry, rasping thing.
He searched the shadows. The corners. The empty cots.
Nothing.
He turned his senses inward. He searched his own mind, that dark, familiar, internal space, bracing himself for her cold, melodic, mocking voice. He looked for the chill. He looked for the presence.
He found... nothing.
His mind... it was... quiet.
It was empty.
For the first time since her death, he was... alone... in his own head.
The silence was deafening. It was the most terrifying, unnatural, and wrong thing he had ever experienced.
The haunting, the apparition, the constant, invasive voice... it was gone.
It had been replaced by a simple, clinical fact, written in black, whispering smoke.
It was not a delusion. It was not a hallucination.
It was a feature.
He fell back against the headboard, his head spinning. This... this was worse. This was so, so much worse. The absence was the proof. The silence was the confirmation. She was no longer a ghost he could argue with.
She was part of a system—a... a mechanic.
This cold, quiet, empty mind... this was not freedom. It was the proof of a more profound and permanent cage.
His gaze, dull and horrified, drifted back to the smoky, black panel. It was still there, hovering, patiently waiting. The whispers had gone silent, but the text remained, glowing with a faint, dark light.
He forced his mind to move, to work.
He looked past the Health, the Level, the Skills. He looked at the very first line. The one that anchored all of this.
[Name: Brandt Rimescar]
He read the name. He thought the name, his mind wrapping itself around the new, strange, harsh syllables.
'Brandt. Brandt Rimescar.'
The instant his consciousness claimed the name, it happened.
It was not a thought. It was not a memory.
It was a deluge.
A dam, somewhere deep in the foundations of his new mind, just... broke. An agonising, violent, and impossibly fast flood of data slammed into his consciousness.
Nine years and eight months of a life, another life, his life, Brandt's life, erupted, not as a film, but as a feeling.
He was... cold.
He was in the keep, running down the stone halls, the air sharp and stinging, his small legs pumping. He could feel the stiff leather of his boot soles slapping against the worn, grey flagstones, the sound echoing, loud and lonely, in the empty corridor.
He was... proud.
He was standing in a training yard, his arm aching, a heavy, wooden practice sword in his hand. The smell of sawdust and sweat was sharp in his nose. A tall, broad-shouldered man with a grizzled beard... Falk... was nodding, his sharp, blue eyes piercing.
He was... sad.
He was very, very small, his hand lost in the grip of a giant, a tall, imposing, dark-haired man... Father. The Marquess. They were standing in the gloom, looking at a closed door. He could feel the profound, hollow, and confusing ache of loss.
He was... annoyed.
Two small, identical, dark-haired girls... Alara. Alise. The twins. His sisters. They were shrieking, a high-pitched, maddening sound. They were a blur of motion, running through the Great Hall, their laughter bouncing off the high, raftered ceiling. He felt the distant, protective, and deeply bored affection of an older brother who just wanted to read.
The memories... they were his.
He felt the sting of the ice on his cheeks during winter patrols on the battlements. He felt the scratch of the rough, woollen tunics against his skin, a constant, low-level irritation.
He tasted the plain, hearty, bland stews, the thick, greasy bread. He knew the echoing sound his boots made on the stone floors of the family wing. He knew the smell of the old, dusty tapestries that covered the walls, a smell of ancient wool, rodent droppings, and damp.
He knew Brandt's mind.
The quiet, reserved, almost arrogant confidence. The life of a noble heir, the endless, gruelling lessons in history, in lineage, in tactics. The weight of expectations, a physical, crushing thing on his small shoulders. The pressure from his father, a man who spoke little and demanded everything.
The loneliness...
That was the strongest feeling. A profound, isolating, and all-encompassing loneliness. He was the heir. He was different. He was not a child. He was a project. He had no friends, only tutors, guards, and duty.
He was Brandt Rimescar.
The flood was perfect. It was a complete, seamless life.
Until it wasn't.
The memories, the feelings, they raced forward, a high-speed, dizzying blur of nine years... nine years and eight months...
And then... blackness.
The stream of data... it just... stopped.
The last memory... Brandt's last memory... was... terror.
It was night. He was in the courtyard. The stone was slick with ice. It was dark. It was cold. The sound of... water. Splashing. The feeling of... falling. A high, stone wall... slipping.
And then... nothing.
A black, empty, terrified void.
The boy's memories... his memories... ended. They ended at the exact, precise, impossible moment… that his... Thomas's... soon would begin.
The deluge ceased.
It was over in a second. But it left him... wrecked.
He slammed back against the hard, wooden headboard, his new, small body shuddering. He was gasping, his heart hammering a sick, frantic, stuttering rhythm, his mind a howling, chaotic storm.
The smoky, black panel, its job, its assault, apparently done... dissolved.
The whispers. The light. The text.
It all just... faded as if it had never been.
Leaving him... alone.
He was... two.
His mind... his self... Thomas... was still there. He was the consultant. He was the man who had been pushed.
But he was... grafted.
He had been forcibly, brutally, merged... with Brandt.
The boy's entire life... it was his. He didn't remember Brandt's childhood. He had lived it. He was Brandt.
'This... this is my life. My... Father. My... sisters.'
The thought was Brandt's. It was full of a heavy, dutiful, and cold affection.
'No. That... that was his life. My... my...'
The thought was Thomas's. It was full of a desperate, horrified denial.
His mind fractured.
Thomas. Brandt.
Brandt. Thomas.
He stared, wide-eyed, at the dark, smoky, wooden beams of the infirmary ceiling. The room felt... familiar.
He... Brandt... had been here before. He'd cut his hand badly in the training yard. Falk had carried him. He remembered the sharp, acidic smell of the lye... Maester Vorin... the gentle, wrinkled hands...
He slowly... painfully... lifted a hand.
He held it up to the flickering, orange firelight.
It was a small hand. Pale. Weak. The fingers were short.
'My hand.'
He made a fist.
It was a small, weak, pathetic thing. But it was his. It was the only tool he had left.
His mind was at war. A war of two lives, a storm of impossible, new, old... feelings. He had so, so many questions.
Who was he?
What was he?
He had... no... answers.
The silence of the room settled, heavy and hot. The only sound was the roar and crackle of the fire, a hungry, living thing in the corner.
A new sound cut through the silence.
It was not a whisper. It was not in his head.
It was a real voice.
It was soft, dry, and reedy. An old man's voice, kind and gentle. It came from the shadows, from somewhere near the tables with the gleaming bronze tools.
"Ah, you are awake, Young Master."
A figure, small and stooped, emerged from the gloom, leaning on a simple, gnarled, wooden staff.
"Good, good. And how are we feeling?"