Fay sat down on the beach where the mud turned to grit.
She pulled out a strip of jerky and a heel of bread, then stared at the river as if the waves might tell her what her own mind would not.
A waterskin rested in her lap. She drank, swallowed, and kept watching.
All the while her fingers worried the silk thread. Not even thinking about it, just clutching it like it was the last true thing she owned.
Like if she let go, the mory would go with it.
Radeon understood then. It was not the river water. She had not been foolish enough to drink from it.
It was the rations. Bread and jerky had gone damp with river water when she dove down.
Droplets carried no rot her tongue could na, no poison that burned the gut.
Murmurs could not affect her through the Heavenly Dao's protection.
But forgetfulness was not a whisper you could shut out. It was a rule.
A bone deep law that the Underworld River obeyed, the sa as water obeyed its fall.
It did not argue, and it did not care who you were. It made the river what it was.
Radeon knew he had to act at once. If he rushed in and spooked her, Fay might bolt away, and then his work of reconstructing his physique would only grow a dozen tis harder.
He drew a slow breath and chose caution. A guidance, sent by voice transmission.
"Fay. You hear ?" Radeon kept the voice through the silk faint, deliberately unclear. "Fay."
Fay's eyes flew wide. She turned in a slow circle, searching the riverbank and the dead reeds and the hunched stones.
There was nothing. No one. And yet soone had called her.
She could not tell from where. The sound seed to co from everywhere at once, and nowhere, like a thought that was not her own.
Fear climbed into her throat. A young woman alone in this place, with the Underworld river breathing cold beside her. A mortal, at that.
Dread sat heavy on Fay's chest, and she pressed it down.
She released the silk thread and set her palm to the earth, as if dirt might carry voices the way it carried roots.
Nothing. Only the dull hush of packed soil.
She leaned down until her cheek nearly brushed the river's skin.
The water was black, the sll sharp as old iron.
Still nothing. If anything, the voice had thinned, drawn away.
"Where are you?" she whispered. "Am I losing my mind? If I am, no. No, I'm not. I'm not imagining this. I'm not hearing things."
Her fingers snatched up the silk thread again and held it tight, knuckles paling.
At once, the whisper swelled, deliberately louder, as if answering her grip.
Fay took it for a sign. Wherever this silk was tied, that was where she needed to look.
She traced the thread with care. Near her hand it was knotted with a small braid, neat and stubborn.
She tugged. The silk did not give. It felt strong enough to catch fish and not snap. Another tug, down toward the soil, and the line pulled into the ground as if it had been swallowed.
Her breath ca quick. She dropped to her knees and began to dig.
The earth was cold and grudging. Dirt packed under her nails, against the creases of her fingers.
She scraped and clawed until sothing pale broke through the brown.
A toe. A man's toe, half-buried, the nail rimd with soil.
Fay yelped before she could stop herself, the sound bursting out of her like steam.
In the sa heartbeat she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes darting to the empty bank.
She did not want attention. Not here. Her other hand reached, trembling, and touched the toe.
Warm. Not corpse-warm, not river-chilled. Warm as living flesh.
Fay kept digging at the solidified clay, panic ticking in her wrists. She could not afford delay.
Her fingers fumbled for a palette knife and she drove the thin blade down, prying and scraping where her nails could not bite.
Radeon helped. Fay did not see all of it and she did not even know how. She only that the earth seed to loosen under her hands, and the packed clay gave with a small shiver.
Then Fay wrenched Radeon free with a hard pull, and the last crust broke apart. What lay beneath stopped her cold.
A man. Mangled beyond belief. Flesh torn and bruised, angles wrong, skin charred in all over.
Patches of maggots worried at him, pale and busy against the dark.
The sight punched the air from her lungs, and sound tore out of her anyway.
Fay sobbed hard, helpless, unable to swallow it back.
"Fay, is that you?" His voice was hoarse and dry.
"Don't. Don't speak." Fay said, the words breaking as she fought for breath. "Save your strength."
Fay took him by his remaining arm and propped him up as gently as she could.
She uncorked her waterskin, braced it with both hands, and tipped it to his mouth in small careful sips so he would not choke.
When his throat worked and the worst of the dryness eased, she set the skin aside and grabbed a stone.
She pounded the hardtack against another rock until it crumbled, then ground it down with the edge of her palm, adding a little water until it beca a rough paste.
Her hands shook. Mud streaked her fingers and the heel of her sleeve. She fed it to Radeon with slow, trembling care.
He smiled. Half his jaw was gone. One cheek had lted into a scarred ruin, the other hollowed as if sothing had eaten him from the inside.
The smile should have been monstrous. It was not. It was only human.
Fay broke all over again. She cried harder, not from fear.
She cried from rage, sharp and hot and choking. Rage at herself. At her helplessness.
At the weakness that made her hands tremble and her stomach knot.
All of it turned inward. She could not even rember who he was.
She rembered three things and only three. Her na. The treasure she carried. Her destination.
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