The child woke knowing something was missing.
Not pain.Not fear.
Something quieter.
He sat up slowly, stone-cold air brushing his skin. The sealed room looked unchanged—the same carved symbols, the same pale torches—but the silence felt different, thinner, as if stretched too tight.
The man was still there.
Watching.
"You slept," the man said.
The child nodded. His head felt light, hollow in a way he could not explain. "I… had a dream."
The man did not ask what it was.
Instead, he asked, "What is your name?"
The child opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
He frowned and tried again. The sound caught in his throat, not from fear, but from absence. The name was there—he was sure of it—yet when he reached for it, his mind closed around empty air.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
The man's jaw tightened.
The Blood Sigil pulsed once, faint and satisfied.
"That," the man said, "is the second rule."
The child looked down at his chest. "A rule… does that mean I broke one?"
"No," the man replied. "It means you paid."
He knelt and drew a circle on the floor with a piece of chalk blackened by ash. Symbols bloomed as he traced them, responding to the mark beneath the child's skin.
"The first rule keeps it from entering the world," he said."The second rule keeps you in it."
The child's hands curled into fists. "What did it take?"
The man met his eyes. "It takes what you use to anchor yourself."
Silence settled.
"My name," the child whispered.
"Yes."
The torches flickered. Somewhere in the stone, something shifted, listening.
"You spoke to it in the dream," the man said, not accusing—stating.
"I didn't answer," the child said quickly. "I swear."
"You resisted," the man agreed. "But resistance has weight. And the seal must balance itself."
The child swallowed. "Will it take more?"
The man did not respond immediately.
"Yes," he said at last. "If you survive."
The child hugged his knees to his chest. Without his name, memories felt… loose. His thoughts slid too easily, like they no longer knew where to stay.
"What happens if it takes everything?" he asked.
The man's gaze drifted to the shadow on the wall. "Then you become the door."
The shadow twitched.
Just once.
The man stood. "There is one more thing you must learn."
He placed a hand over the Blood Sigil—not touching skin, but close enough for heat to bloom.
"The seal feeds on denial," he said. "But it grows greedy when you forget."
The child looked up. "So what do I do?"
The man's voice was steady, merciless. "You remember deliberately."
"How?"
"You choose what you are willing to lose."
The room seemed to lean closer.
The child nodded slowly. He did not fully understand—but something inside him hardened.
"I'll remember," he said. "Even without my name."
For a moment, the shadows were still.
Far beneath thought, far beneath stone, something watched with interest.
The second toll is paid, it mused.Names are light things.Soon, heavier things will follow.
It pressed against the bond—not to break it.
Only to taste what would come next.
The child shivered.
And for the first time, he realized the truth of the seal:
Survival was not victory.
It was negotiation.