The knowledge of the forgotten rule spread through the camp like a slow-burning fever. It changed the atmosphere, infusing the daily grind of training with a new, sharper ambition. The idea of acquiring a second Aspect was intoxicating, a tangible goal beyond simply "getting stronger." Fights during sparring sessions became more intense, and the scouts who patrolled the Petrified Sea now moved with a new purpose, their eyes searching not just for artifacts, but for signs of recent, final deaths.
Olivia felt the shift acutely. Gregor and his faction of glory-seekers were energized, seeing this as a shortcut to the power needed to win the Grand Melee. Even the more cautious members of the group would hold whispered conversations, speculating on which Aspects would be most powerful, which combinations would be unstoppable. The seed of mistrust that Silas had warned her about had been planted.
She tried to keep the focus on their collective goal. "Power is useless without control," she would tell them during training. "A second Aspect you can't master is a liability, not a weapon."
Her training with Echo continued, but now with a new focus. She began to use her Aspect to "read" the other fighters more deeply, to understand the very structure of their powers. She wanted to understand what made an Aspect "compatible." What she discovered was that every Aspect had a core narrative, a central theme. Silas's was "ending." Elara's was "stasis." Lorcan's was "passage." Her own was "context." A compatible Aspect, she theorized, would be one whose core narrative complemented, rather than contradicted, her own.
One cycle, about thirty days into their countdown, a scout party returned with urgent news. They had found something at the northern edge of the Petrified Sea, near a series of deep, wind-carved canyons. It was a body. And it was fresh.
Olivia assembled a small team: herself, Silas, Lorcan, and, at his own insistence, Gregor. Echo came as well, its placid face unreadable. They moved quickly through the silent, grey forest, the news hanging heavy in the air. This was the first death, final or otherwise, they had encountered in this quiet, static arena.
They found the body at the bottom of a narrow canyon. It was a woman, a warrior clad in dark, functional leather. Her face was frozen in a mask of surprise, her eyes wide and staring at the grey sky. There was a single, clean wound in her chest, a puncture mark with no blood.
"No entry wound, no exit wound," Silas observed, kneeling beside the body. "Her heart was just… stopped. An assassin from the Silent School, maybe?"
Gregor nudged the body with his boot. "Who cares who she was? Is her token cold?"
He reached down, but Olivia stopped him. "Wait."
She knelt, her eyes scanning the scene, her Aspect engaged. She was reading the story of what had happened here. The narrative was faint, but clear. The woman had been running. She had been hunted. And the story of the attack was strange. It wasn't a narrative of steel or energy. It was a narrative of… words.
"Her Aspect," Olivia murmured, focusing on the lingering traces of the woman's power. "It was some kind of illusion. The story of 'what is not.' She was a deceiver."
"A useful skill," Gregor grunted, his eyes gleaming with avarice.
"Echo," Olivia said, standing up. "Scan for residual Aspect data."
The construct stepped forward, its eyes glowing with a faint, golden light. It stood over the body for a long, silent moment. "Confirmed," it said. "The contestant's data has been purged. The Rebirth Token is inert. A derelict Aspect is present. Designation: Aspect of the Unspoken Lie. Compatibility with your core narrative of 'context' is… high. Probability of successful integration is 78.4 percent."
The air grew thick with tension. Seventy-eight percent. It was a tangible thing, a number that represented a massive increase in power, just lying there for the taking. Gregor took a step forward, his hand clenching. Lorcan instinctively put a hand on Olivia's shoulder, a gesture of support, but his eyes were also fixed on the body.
"How is it done?" Gregor demanded. "The integration protocol. Tell us."
"The process requires the compatible host to place their hand over the subject's heart and initiate a full-sensory narrative link," Echo explained calmly. "The host must then overpower the derelict Aspect's residual consciousness and absorb its core code. The process carries a 21.6 percent chance of catastrophic data corruption, resulting in the host's own final death."
The number hung in the air, a stark reminder of the price. A one-in-five chance of utter annihilation.
"I'll take those odds," Gregor said, his voice a low growl.
"No," Olivia said, her voice sharp and absolute. She stepped between him and the body. "You won't."
"You can't stop me," Gregor challenged, his hand moving to the axe on his back. "That power could win us the Melee. You're a fool to let it go to waste."
"I'm not letting it go to waste," Olivia said, her gaze unwavering. "I'm the one who is compatible. The choice is mine."
She had not planned this. The idea of taking another's power was abhorrent to her. But Silas's warning, her own ambition, and the sheer, desperate need to be strong enough to find Leo all crashed together in that moment. This was a weapon the system had left on the battlefield. To ignore it felt like a form of surrender.
"You'd risk your own life?" Lorcan asked, his voice laced with concern. "Livy, you're our leader. We can't lose you."
"And we can't win if I'm not strong enough," she countered. She looked at the dead woman. This was not just an abstract source of power. It was the last remnant of a person. She felt a pang of guilt, of profanity. "I have to do this."
She knelt beside the body again, ignoring the tense standoff between Silas and Gregor behind her. She took a deep breath, steeling her nerves. She had edited stories in the world around her. Now, she would have to edit a story inside herself.
She placed her hand on the woman's chest, over her still heart. "Echo, the protocol."
"Focus on your own core narrative," the construct instructed. "Define the story of who you are. Then, extend your Aspect. Do not try to seize the derelict data. Invite it. Offer it a new context to exist within. If it is truly compatible, it will anchor to your Animus. If it is not, it will attempt to overwrite it."
Olivia closed her eyes. The world of sight and sound vanished. She plunged her consciousness inward, focusing on the very core of her being. She defined her own story: she was Olivia. She was a sister. She was a reader. She was an editor. Her purpose was to find the truth. Her Aspect was Context.
Then, she reached out.
She felt it instantly. A cold, slithering, chaotic presence. It was the Unspoken Lie. It was a whirlwind of false images, of whispers and deceptions, of shifting shapes and hidden daggers. It was a story with no truth in it, a narrative of pure, cynical manipulation. It sensed her presence and recoiled, then lashed out, trying to infect her own story with its lies.
She felt a phantom image of Silas turning on her, his face twisted in betrayal. She heard Lorcan's voice whispering that her quest was hopeless. It was trying to break her, to overwrite her reality with its own paranoid, deceitful one.
But Olivia's Aspect was Context.
She did not fight the lies. She did not try to deny them. She simply… contained them. She took the image of Silas's betrayal and wrapped it in the context of a "possible, but unlikely, scenario." She took Lorcan's whisper of hopelessness and filed it under "a fear, not a fact."
She was not trying to destroy the story of the lie. She was offering it a new library to exist in. A library where it would be just one book among many, a book to be read and understood, not a reality to be lived.
The chaotic, lashing energy of the derelict Aspect began to calm. It had been a story without an author, a lie without a purpose. She was offering it a purpose: to be a tool, to serve a larger narrative. Her narrative.
She felt a final, great pull, a moment of immense pressure as the two Aspects, the two core stories, tried to merge. For a terrifying second, her own identity felt fragile, stretched thin. Then, with a silent click, it locked into place.
Olivia gasped, her eyes flying open. She pulled her hand back from the dead woman's chest. She felt… different. She felt like herself, but with a new room added to her mind, a room filled with shadows and whispers.
"Status?" Silas asked, his voice tense.
Olivia held up her hand. She focused, not on her own power, but on the new one. She thought of a lie. A simple, harmless one.
A perfect, shimmering, blue butterfly, a creature of impossible beauty, coalesced from the air above her hand. It fluttered its wings, a silent, breathtaking lie in the grey, dead world. It looked utterly, completely real.
Gregor stared, his jaw slack. Lorcan's eyes were wide with wonder.
Olivia closed her hand, and the butterfly vanished into nothing. She had done it. She had acquired a second Aspect. She felt a surge of triumph, but it was immediately followed by a cold, heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. The dead woman on the ground seemed smaller now, emptier.
She had become stronger, yes. But she had done it by plundering a grave. And as she looked at the expressions of awe and envy on the faces of her companions, she knew that the delicate, fragile story of their unity had just been edited, and a new, dangerous chapter had begun.