The tower felt colder the second time.
Not the kind of cold that makes your teeth chatter.
The kind that crept up your spine like memory.
The Queen didn't escort me this time. No guards. Just silence. Just me. My steps, soft on the obsidian stairs. The door at the top was already open, like it knew I'd be back.
Inside, the Soul Keeper waited.
He stood facing the window, or whatever passed for one in this place — a pane of glistening black stone veined with silver that didn't reflect anything but light that wasn't there.
He didn't turn when I entered.
"You are...late."
His voice wasn't raised.
But I felt it in my ribs.
"I wasn't told a time."
"You were told...to listen."
I didn't answer. My fingers tightened at my sides. I hated how slow he talked, like time waited for him alone.
But I hated more that it made me slow down, too.
The Soul Keeper finally turned. His face was mostly shadow — except the gleam of his eyes. Sharp. Bright. Not cruel. But... unmovable.
Like staring at something that knew what it cost to die. And worse, what it cost to keep living.
"Come."
He led me out the far side of the chamber, down a corridor I hadn't seen before. Everything was stone and wind and something below the floor that groaned. I followed him to a vast courtyard carved into the cliff itself — high above the forest canopy. Open sky loomed above like a throat waiting to swallow stars.
There were no weapons.
No training dummies.
Only a circle of white ash, faint and precise, drawn onto black stone like a spell not meant to be spoken aloud.
"Stand there."
I did.
The second my bare feet touched the ash, something buzzed. Low. Deep in my molars. I didn't flinch. But I tasted metal.
The Soul Keeper circled me once. Then twice.
"Do you know what you are?"
The words stung more than they should've. "A girl."
"A vessel," he said instead. "A Breath. Contained. Half-awake. You carry pain like a cage with no door."
I said nothing.
"You do not remember your name."
I didn't nod. I didn't want to give him that. But my fists clenched.
"You must remember your pain... before you remember your self."
He raised a single hand — long fingers, stained with something that shimmered like ink and bruises — and pressed his palm to the center of my chest.
No warmth.
No force.
Just gravity.
Then—
My knees hit the ground. My ears rang.
Screams. Not mine.
Flashes. A body. Fire. A ribbon. Hair.
A woman — the smell of her skin, earth and heat and flour. She was burning. No — I was burning. No — she was screaming my name—
The ash blew up in a gust. My body arched.
Then silence.
I gasped.
The Soul Keeper hadn't moved. Not one inch.
"...What was that?"
His voice, steady. Unchanged. "Memory. Not yours. Not yet. Echoes. The Breath buried inside you wants to be known."
My chest heaved. I stared at my hands, half expecting them to flicker.
They didn't.
They were just shaking.
He stepped back into the circle.
"You feel pain. That is good. But you must give it shape. Otherwise it will rot."
He held out his hand.
A glimmer formed in the air — dark light, thick and silver, twisting.
"Feel the Breath," he said. "Not as a wound. But as a weapon."
I reached forward.
The second I touched it — I saw her again. Not a memory. Not a vision.
A shadow.
She looked like me.
She smiled like someone who forgot how.
And then she screamed, and the light shattered in my grip.
The Soul Keeper caught me as I staggered back.
His arm around my shoulders was stronger than it looked. Not warm. But... firm. Like iron bent for you, just once.
"You are not broken," he murmured. "You are learning... where the cracks go."
I looked up at him.
He didn't smile. But something passed in his eyes.
A flicker of... not pride. Not yet.
But interest.
I nodded once.
"Again," I said.
He did not praise me.
But he let go gently.
______________
Antics POV:
I adjust my overall shorts as their loose against my thighs
The training ground was quiet except for the wind and her breathing.
I crouched on a balcony above, tucked into the shadow of a stone gargoyle with one chipped fang and a busted nose. Good company. I'd been there since sunrise, chewing on an apple core and watching her move inside the white circle drawn into the courtyard stone.
No Eyes.
She didn't look like a warrior. Not the bloody, scarred kind from the old forest songs. She still walked like she wasn't sure where she was supposed to be. Still spoke like she was quoting from a book she hadn't written. Still slept like she was waiting to be yanked back into something worse.
But watching her now—arms raised, sweat clinging to her brow, the air humming around her—I wasn't so sure she wasn't some kind of force.
Not loud. Not flashy.
Just… unmovable.
She stepped forward, bare feet sliding into the ash, and with a flick of her wrist—
Bang.
The light cracked like a whip, spiraled into a shape, vanished before it landed. Her hands dropped. Her jaw tightened.
The Soul Keeper, five paces from her, didn't flinch. His voice rolled out slow like thunder pretending to whisper.
"Again."
And she did it again. Again and again. Even when her arms shook. Even when she winced like something inside her ribs was splintering every time she moved.
I leaned my chin into my hand.
What the hell was that? Admiration?
Yeah.
That. And something worse.
Something closer.
She didn't know how to flirt. She didn't know how to lie. She barely understood sarcasm. But the moment she focused—
It felt like she was staring straight through me. Even without eyes.
I sighed and bit into another apple.
Of course I liked the ghost girl who didn't laugh at my jokes, didn't know her name, and probably had ancient cosmic death magic pumping through her veins. Of course.
Down below, she tried again.
Light formed.
This time it held.
For a second.
Just enough to shine.
Boom.
She fell to her knees. But didn't cry out.
I felt it, though. In my own chest.
"...Shit," I muttered, tossing the apple core over the ledge.
She looked up then. Right toward me.
I flinched.
Could she—? No.
She couldn't see.
Could she?
She tilted her head slightly. Then turned back to the Keeper.
Still.
That head tilt?
I was doomed.