Chapter 1
Part II – Bone Cage
The floor trembled—faint but distinct. Loose dust fell from the stone ceiling above, breaking the silence like soft ash tumbling through still air. Velrona, tethered to the brittle nerves of a dead mouse, froze.
Her borrowed heart did not beat. But the old instincts surged anyway—stillness, calculation, intent.
The footsteps above were deliberate. Not a wanderer. Not a mourner. The weight of each tread, the pause before the next—this was someone who knew what they were entering.
Grave robber.
Ritual desecrator.
Fool.
And yet…
Tool.
Velrona's presence slipped deeper into the mouse's remains. The body had already begun to stiffen, its tendons losing elasticity, muscles turned to waxy string. Still, she made it move—slow, careful jerks. Like walking inside soaked cloth.
The chamber was cramped, shallow. Once a sacred site, now caved in, the air stank of soot and old blood. Smoke-burned murals peeled from the walls in curling layers. Symbols that had once bound spirits now lay cracked and meaningless.
Velrona, in the mouse's body, scurried behind a fractured urn and stilled.
The sound of metal scraping stone rang through the tomb like a blade over bone.
Someone was prying open the seal above.
Her borrowed body trembled with instinct. Small lungs didn't breathe, but they remembered. Somewhere in the rodent's fading nerve map was panic. She drew it into herself—not to feel, but to focus.
A dull clunk, followed by a shift in air pressure.
They were inside.
Velrona climbed a shattered stair with careful, skittering leaps—half by will, half by muscle memory stolen from the vermin. The top ledge of the crypt offered a broken view of the entry hall. Her view shook as she peeked over the ledge.
Boots. Cloaks. Torches.
Two figures. Both young. One carried a crowbar etched with minor warding runes, the other held a dim alchemical torch that pulsed red with soul-flux.
The taller one spoke first. "Spirits damn me, it's real."
"Of course it's real. You think I dragged you into Blackspine for a story?" the shorter one snapped, voice high and fast. "That's the pyre-mark right there. Saint Velrona's tomb. Unopened. Untouched."
"Until now."
He grinned.
Velrona watched, cold and utterly still. She felt no rush of rage. Not yet. Emotions were things for people who breathed.
System Notification: Spirit Tether at 46% stability. Host presence degrading. Anchor vessel unsuitable for prolonged possession.
She ignored the warning.
The taller youth circled the chamber like a vulture preparing to feed. "They say she killed four hundred people with one ritual," he muttered, tone somewhere between reverence and fear.
"Seven hundred," the other corrected, tapping a dusty scroll. "She bled the Veil into the mortal world. Said death should never be behind a curtain."
"Then why'd her own daughters burn her alive?"
The smaller one didn't answer.
Velrona watched them approach the cage—the iron lattice, scorched black, surrounding her mummified corpse. Her body lay inside like a puppet left behind after a festival, hands folded in false serenity, skin leathery and shrunk against bones.
They stood over it. She could hear every breath. The taller one took a step closer.
"She's got no eyes."
"They replaced them with obsidian beads. Tradition. That's what the text said."
The boy's hand reached out—hesitant, but greedy.
Velrona's vision flickered.
From the cage.
Not the mouse.
From the corpse.
A split-second burst of perspective—she felt the fingers nearing, the heat of the living, the pressure of proximity triggering dormant bindings.
Her spirit was still tied there. Beneath the System. Beneath the code. A soul-thread stitched into bone and pain.
She could not move her body. But she could feel it.
And that was worse.
Suddenly, she was back inside.
Her real body.
If only for a heartbeat.
And the world was pain.
She was burning again.
Not memory.
Not illusion.
Now.
She couldn't scream. Couldn't thrash. Her nerves were gone, but the fire had never left. Not entirely. They'd done something to her. To her soul. The fire lived inside it.
"Let her feel everything," someone whispered again.
Seven voices. Seven shadows.
Each one with a torch. A chain. A prayer. A betrayal.
Ythara. Siloh. Kassien. Liris.
Their faces had once been soft. Devoted.
Now their mouths were taut with doctrine. Their hands shaking with righteousness.
"She's too strong. She won't stay dead unless we trap the soul."
"She'll hate us. Forever."
"She already does."
She remembered trying to speak.
To ask why.
But they'd sealed her mouth first.
Then set her ablaze.
Velrona snapped back into the mouse's perspective, shaking from the aftershock.
She had no breath, yet the sensation of hyperventilation flooded her.
The system hummed—calm and unaffected.
"Trauma anchor detected. Psychological overload minimized. Anchor vessel deteriorating. Please acquire suitable host within 10 minutes."
"Working on it," she growled internally.
She turned her rodent gaze to the two intruders again.
They were still talking. Arguing now. One wanted to remove the beads from her eyes. The other wanted to break the cage and take the hands—said they'd sell for more.
She made her decision.
If she couldn't reclaim her original body…
She'd take one of theirs.
Even for a moment.
But they were alive. She had no power over the living yet. The only option was to wait—for blood.
She crawled silently down the ledge, slipping behind a broken funerary idol.
They circled, whispered, bickered. Time dripped like cold sap.
Then, finally, it happened.
The taller boy—the nervous one—stepped too close to the iron cage and sliced his palm on one of the jagged bindings.
Blood hit the stone.
And something answered.
The air in the chamber turned brittle. Cold not of weather, but memory.
Velrona felt the tremor of spiritual law.
The wound was shallow. The death, minor. But it was enough.
A trace of life leaving the body.
A foothold.
Her mind reached for it, slipping like oil across stone. The mouse's corpse collapsed as her presence withdrew fully.
The boy staggered back.
And then he stilled.
His breath caught.
He blinked once, twice.
And then his hand twitched.
Velrona opened her eyes.
They weren't hers.
Not entirely.
Not yet.
But they were human.
Warm. Capable. Alive.
She held the breath, testing its weight. The throat burned faintly. The hand bled. The pain was distant—barely real.
She flexed her fingers.
The taller boy looked across the tomb, dazed.
The shorter one furrowed his brow. "Erlin? You good?"
Velrona didn't speak.
Not yet. Her voice wasn't ready. Her control was fragile.
She nodded once.
Then smiled.
The boy flinched. "What's with your face?"
Velrona stepped toward him.
Deliberate.
Measured.
Human.
This body wouldn't last. It wasn't hers. The soul hadn't entirely left. She could feel it clawing, confused.
But it was enough.
Time to leave the cage.