The silence returned.
They didn’t bury him.
They didn’t need to.
The mont the knight’s breath stopped, the ash reclaid him.
It moved with purpose—sweeping over his corpse like a tide, dragging bone and cloth and lted armor into the dirt.
No one moved to stop it.
Not even Caelia.
Especially not Caelia.
"He shouldn’t have been able to speak," she murmured.
Elaris turned to her.
"Explain."
Caelia kept her eyes on the settling ash.
"The god-rot burns everything sacred. Mind. mory. Will. The body dies in minutes. But he walked. He spoke. He... knew things. That’s not infection."
She looked up slowly.
"That’s possession."
Silence.
Then Valaithe giggled.
"Possessed by what, darling? He was stuttering prophecy like a drunk bard in a haunted alley."
"You didn’t feel it?" Caelia snapped.
"He wasn’t alone."
Rein said nothing.
His heart was still racing, but it didn’t feel like fear anymore.
It felt like sothing beneath fear.
Recognition.
The things the knight said—
"The gods fear what loves you."
"The ash followed you."
He couldn’t shake them.
Zeraka moved closer.
She didn’t say a word.
She just touched his face, thumb brushing just below his eye.
A rare, vulnerable motion—rough hands gentled to a whisper.
"Don’t think too hard, prey-boy," she muttered. "That’s when the monsters crawl in."
Rein almost smiled.
Until Valaithe leaned in from the other side.
"What if they already have?" she whispered near his neck.
"You didn’t scream when he died. You didn’t cry. You watched."
He pulled away.
Just slightly.
She laughed.
Caelia turned sharply, stepping between them.
"Enough. He’s still shaken. We all are."
"Speak for yourself," Zeraka said.
"I am," Caelia growled. "Because I recognize god-rot, and none of you are taking this seriously."
She pointed to the ash which simred.
"It doesn’t follow the laws of this world. It answers to sothing else."
Rein looked down at his hands again.
They were clean.
Too clean.
Even the blood from earlier had vanished.
As if the ash had... claid it.
Erased it from existence.
"Why ?" he whispered.
"Why is all of this... ?"
Iris answered, distant.
"Because they can’t touch you."
Rein turned.
She hadn’t moved from where the knight died.
But her gaze was elsewhere—locked on sothing none of them could see.
"The gods. The heroes. The angels behind their mirrors. They built a world they could na."
"And then you walked into it without one."
Zeraka bristled.
"Then we na him."
"No one else."
She moved to Rein again, wrapping her arms tightly around his chest from behind.
Not gentle.
Not seductive.
Possessive.
"Mine," she whispered.
Valaithe leaned in too, a breath from his lips.
"Ours."
Even Elaris stepped closer—though she said nothing, her sword still in hand.
Only Caelia stayed where she was.
Frozen.
Watching the knight’s ash pile smolder like it rembered breathing.
_______
Far away...
...through a still-burning glass eye now buried in the dirt...
...sothing divine watched.
And smiled.
_______
They left the clearing.
But it did not leave them.
The ash followed—silent, obedient, unholy.
It didn’t fall like snow anymore.
It flowed, curling behind Rein’s footsteps, coiling around the prints he left like vines of soot and mory.
Caelia noticed it first.
She stopped walking, staring down at the trail.
"It’s writing sothing," she whispered.
They all turned.
The ash behind Rein was forming symbols.
Not letters.
Not runes.
Just marks—like the alphabet of sothing older than language.
Each one flickered for only a second before dissolving.
But Elaris had drawn her sword again.
Zeraka snarled.
Valaithe licked her lips, amused.
Only Iris smiled.
Rein froze.
"Stop following ," he whispered to the ash.
It didn’t.
It just kept tracing.
Until one glyph—one symbol—lingered longer than the others.
Burned into the dirt.
𓆤
Not a word.
A na.
"What does it an?" Rein asked.
No one answered.
But Iris turned to him, eyes glowing faintly.
"That’s the one they tried to erase."
"Your na. Before you had a body. Before they built the thrones and the temples and the lies."
"The na they swore no one would speak again."
Rein stepped away from the symbol.
But the ash drew it again beneath his next footstep.
And the next.
Each ti, the sa sigil.
Each ti, closer to permanence.
Zeraka grabbed his arm—not hard, but firm.
"You don’t need to know what it ans," she growled.
"You just need to stay close. Let them burn trying to reach you."
Valaithe ran a finger up his spine.
"Let them scream your na," she whispered, "when they realize they can’t touch you."
Rein closed his eyes.
But the images didn’t stop.
— Flas burning in the sky.
— Crowns split in half.
— A woman hanging in chains, laughing as she whispered his na through blood.
He opened them.
And the ash spelled 𓆤 again.
This ti without movent.
Without fading.
It had learned how to rember.
Far above in the sky, a crack of light split the clouds.
Not lightning.
Not sun.
Sothing else.
And Rein heard it.
Not in words.
Not in prophecy.
But in himself.
A voice.
His voice.
Older.
Stronger.
Frighteningly calm.
"You are mine."
________
The fire burned low.
Rein slept.
Not peacefully.
His breathing was too shallow.
His hands twitched.
His legs jerked now and then like he was running from sothing even dreams couldn’t catch.
But he didn’t wake.
Not when the air shifted.
Not when the shadows thickened.
Not when she approached.
Iris knelt beside him.
She didn’t hesitate.
Her fingers, pale and blood-flecked, moved with terrible grace—sliding beneath his tunic, baring a patch of skin just above his heart.
She didn’t sigh.
Didn’t smile.
She simply started carving.
It wasn’t a blade.
It was a quill—black and brittle, plucked from a bird that never existed.
It bled ink that hissed against skin, and where it touched, the mark began to bloom.
A rune.
Not like the first.
This one was shaped like an open eye with no iris—just the hollow of a scream drawn in a circle.
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