Chapter 4
It's been about a week since I first woke up here, and Dustbridge is starting to feel… not familiar, but less like a dream. The mornings are slow — light seeps through the gray clouds, dust rises with the wind, and people shuffle out of their homes wrapped in cloaks that look older than the town itself.
I help where I can. Hauling crates, fetching water, patching roofs. It keeps my mind quiet.
The people still watch me like I'm some bad omen. I hear the whispers, but no one dares say much — not after the Chief told them to leave me be.
Lea's the one teaching me the rules of this place. She's sharp — the kind who doesn't waste words, but when she speaks, you listen. She says souls here don't just sit still. They flow, like rivers, feeding the land and the people. The pure white ones can coat their weapons with soul light — the only thing that kills the black. The black ones are stronger, faster, and when they lose control, they twist into something like an octopus — all tendrils and hunger, sucking the soul out of anything pure. Mine's gray — neither. She doesn't say it's bad, but I can see it in her eyes: she doesn't know what to make of me.
Sometimes she takes me beyond the gate to hunt hollowed — things that used to be people, before their souls cracked and emptied. She says you kill them by cutting the flow that binds them. The first time, I couldn't even move. They don't scream when they die. They just fade like smoke.
I wait for something — a twitch, a pulse, that old rush I used to get when my blood ran hot. But nothing comes. My bloodlust self, the one that should be howling right now, is quiet. Too quiet. Maybe it died with me. Or maybe it's just waiting.
Chief Silas watches everything. The old man's quiet, but his words carry weight. The eyepatch over his right eye isn't just for show — I've seen it twitch, like something beneath it still sees. Once, I asked Lea what happened. She just said, "He gave half his sight to Nowhere." Whatever that means.
Elai still doesn't talk. He follows Lea like her shadow, always a few steps behind, clutching that carved wooden bird of his. Sometimes he looks at me like he wants to say something, but when Silas calls, he freezes. Once, I caught him flinch before even turning his head.
The town's quiet tonight. I sit outside the inn, watching the sky fade into violet. Lea's sharpening her blade, sparks flashing in the dim. For the first time, I feel like I belong somewhere — even if it's a place built for lost souls.
Then I see Elai across the square. He's staring at Silas again. The Chief's talking low, hand resting on the boy's shoulder. Elai's eyes are wide, like a trapped animal's. When Silas turns away, Elai's hands shake. The wooden bird drops from his grasp and cracks in two.
Something in my chest tightens.
This place might be quieter than death, but it's not safe.