The shimmer became a mirage, then a curse.
Aelric's crystallized blood had pooled in the desert's heart, forming an oasis where the water was black ice and the palm trees grew chains instead of dates. At its center stood a miniature city carved from his stolen vows—spires of fractured promises, bridges woven from broken oaths, its clocktower a hollowed-out ribcage from some long-dead god. The citizens were no taller than his thumb, their forms shifting between human and raven as they reenacted his greatest thefts in grotesque pantomime:
Here, a clay figurine of Linya stabbed a shadow-puppet Aelric.
There, a swarm of jeweled beetles rebuilt the banquet hall from Chapter 5.
Above it all, a faceless queen draped in his mother's stolen smile held court.
"Amusing, isn't it?" The dark raven voice slithered from his iron-feathered leg. "A shrine to your sins."
The melodic voice emerged from the oasis pool: "And a map to your salvation."
Aelric's shadow—now more machine than memory—plunged its chain-link fingers into the black water. The oasis rippled, revealing a reflection not of his ravaged face, but of his mother's frozen corpse suspended in a glacier's heart. Her lips moved:
"Break the cycle, child. Shatter the—"
The vision exploded. Miniature citizens swarmed his boots, stitching living vows into his flesh with needles made of his own crystallized hair.
"We are your promises!" they chirped in unison. "Feed us new lies!"
Aelric stumbled back, crushing a dozen oath-creatures underfoot. Their deaths released stolen memories:
A warlord's final breath (Chapter 5) reforming into a venomous flower in his lungs...
The impostor's laugh (Chapter 4) nesting behind his right eye...
Linya's frostblade (Chapter 3) carving sigils into his shadow's core...
The oasis darkened. The pool thickened into a vortex as the surviving oath-creatures chanted:
"What is stolen must be repaid!"
His shadow's chain-hand seized the miniature queen. "Negotiate," it rasped in the dark raven's voice—the first words it had spoken independently.
The queen's smile widened. "Relinquish your claim on the Ravens' prison, and we'll restore your flesh."
"Liar," spat the melodic voice through the pool.
"Truth-teller," countered the queen, her form shifting into a perfect replica of Linya.
Aelric's crystallized fingers twitched. Four chapters' worth of stolen power simmered beneath his skin—unstable, corrosive. He knelt, letting the black ice water lap at his corrupted jawline.
"You want repayment?" He pressed his oath-forged palm to the oasis floor. "Take it."
The desert screamed.
Every stolen vow, every fractured oath surged into the miniature city. Spires melted into liquid contracts that boiled the oasis creatures alive. The queen's Linya-facade peeled away, revealing a pulsing mass of raven feathers and broken chains.
"Fool!" she shrieked as her kingdom dissolved. "You've doomed us all to—"
A familiar frostblade pierced her chest.
The real Linya emerged from a sandstorm, her once-pristine robes now tattered, the blade in her hand rusted beyond recognition—except for the sigils glowing beneath the decay.
"You," she hissed at Aelric, her eyes lingering on his iron feathers. "You're the reason my Order thinks I've turned heretic."
Before he could retort, the dead oasis erupted.
Black geysers of liquid vows flooded the desert. Linya's frostblade reacted first—its rust fell away to reveal glowing sigils that pulled at the corruption. Aelric's shadow lashed out to stop her, but the raven voices intervened:
"Let her cleanse it!"
"Make her share the burden!"
The desert split. From the fissure rose a sandstone colossus with the Ravens Three's sigil carved where its heart should be—and cradled in its palm, a frozen heartbeat Aelric recognized from his mother's deathbed visions.
Linya's blade flared. "That artifact belongs to the Frostspire Temple!"
"That heart," Aelric corrected, his shadow coiling for a leap, "belongs to me."
The colossus laughed with the desert's borrowed voice.