*********************
"If they kill you, I'll bury every god who allowed it."
Caldus had whispered that to him in the iron cages of Valewatch.
Kaelen hadn't believed it.
Until he lived.
**********************
The torchlight in the catacombs burned low.
Caldus Thorne moved like a shadow between relics and bones, a leather-bound codex strapped to his chest, and Kaelen limping behind, blindfolded and blood-soaked. His wrists were still bound in sacramental chains. The same ones the Inquisitors had used to drag him from the abyss three years ago.
But Caldus had come back for him.
Even now, Kaelen said nothing.
"You can hate me later," Caldus murmured, pressing open a broken stone doorway that led into the old sanctum. "Right now, I need you alive."
Kaelen grunted, his voice raw. "Is that what I am to you now? A broken sword you want reforged?"
"No." Caldus hesitated. "You're the part of me that didn't die."
A long pause.
Then: "I should've died."
The silence between them was heavier than the stone they walked through. And somewhere deep in the dark, a creature's breath echoed—watching them. Always watching.
Back in Ashengar, Lysara stood before the High Assembly of Inquisitors.
"Dren Talovar lives," she said without ceremony.
Murmurs rose like flies.
She dropped the mirror shard on the obsidian table. "He speaks to me. Sends messages. He's leaving sigils in blood, whispers in glass. He's back—and he's not working alone."
One of the Elders leaned forward. "You sound more haunted than certain."
"I am both," she answered.
"Then you should not lead the hunt."
Lysara's eyes didn't waver. "You won't find anyone better. You didn't kill him last time. I almost did. This time, I won't hesitate."
The council didn't argue further.
Beneath the old sanctum, Caldus finally reached the chamber carved into the bones of an old dead god. The symbols on the walls were pre-Inquisitorial—forgotten faiths, erased in fire.
"We're not supposed to be here," Kaelen rasped, reaching out blindly, fingers brushing a shrine.
"You think I care what they forbid?"
"No," Kaelen whispered. "I think you care too much."
Then he fell to his knees. The pain from the cursemark across his spine rippled again—just as it always did near relics. He hissed, grinding his teeth.
Caldus knelt beside him. "Let me see."
"No."
"Kaelen—"
"Don't touch me."
But Caldus ignored the protest. He peeled back the torn shirt. The scar was alive now—glowing blue veins seeping across his skin, pulsing like veins of corrupted light. Caldus's hands trembled.
"This wasn't supposed to spread," he murmured. "This… this is old magic. From the Blackwater Wards."
Kaelen said nothing.
Because he knew.
And Caldus knew too.
Only one person could've survived that curse.
Only one could've left it behind for someone else to carry.
Dren Talovar.
In another part of the realm, Naeven Korven carved a fresh symbol into her skin.
She smiled, bloody and beautiful.
The game had begun again.
Lysara wandered the courtyard later that night, where the roses bloomed in black and the sky dripped silver ash. She couldn't sleep—not after the mirror, not after the meeting. And not after the way her body still remembered Dren's voice like a lover's fingers across her spine.
He's always known how to make her unravel.
Suddenly, she turned—blade drawn.
No one.
And yet… she felt watched.
Felt him.
In the sanctum, Kaelen finally spoke. "You were supposed to let me die."
Caldus sat across from him. "I couldn't."
"You left them all. For me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Caldus met his gaze, soft and unwavering. "Because I remembered the first thing you ever said to me."
Kaelen blinked.
"You said, 'I want to be someone's reason to live.'"
Silence.
Then Kaelen whispered, "I forgot I ever said that."
Caldus smiled. "I never did."
In the high towers of Ashengar, Lysara placed the shard back into its silver box. She didn't look at her reflection.
Because it was changing.
Something inside her was cracking.
And she wasn't sure whether it was because of fear…
Or longing.