The ceiling above him creaked softly.
Faint ribbons of light slipped through the cracks in the wood, tracing shifting patterns across the stone wall.
He lay there for a long while, eyes open, listening to the silence of the morning.
He saw her face again.
That woman who had appeared beside him out of nowhere — calm, radiant, unreal.
The way her brown hair caught the dim light, the strange golden hue of her eyes, the stillness in her movements.
And most of all… the end.
That change in her gaze — the sudden urgency, the flicker of fear, as though she had sensed something coming for her.
He ran a hand over his face and exhaled slowly.
"What was that… a dream?" he murmured.
The rough canvas of his bedding stuck to his skin, damp with sweat.
His room was barely more than a cell — four stone walls, a crate for a table, a bucket of water in the corner.
He pulled on a worn shirt, splashed water on his face, and stepped outside.
Morning light washed the alley in a pale gold.
The Bone Bastion was only beginning to wake. Hammers rang in the distance, merchants dragged open their shutters, and the air smelled of dust and wet leather.
He stopped by the old well at the center of the courtyard, grasped the rope, and hauled the bucket up. The iron pulleys groaned in protest. The water was freezing when he poured it over his shoulders — a violent shiver, but it cleared his thoughts.
For a moment, he simply stood there, breathing in the sharp air.
Then he looked up.
Between the ribs of the Leviathan, the sky seemed strangely pale. Too pale.
"Even the sun looks nervous today," he muttered.
He slung his satchel over his shoulder and walked toward the tannery.
The old master was still asleep when he arrived.
The man's rasping breath filled the room like a beast's growl.
The young worker started in silence — cleaning the tables, rinsing the vats, scraping the hides. The familiar rhythm steadied his hands but not his mind.
His thoughts wandered back to her.
To the circle of darkness.
The chill in the air.
The glint of her bow.
And those final words that still rang in his head — words he hadn't understood, yet couldn't forget.
He shook his head, muttering to himself.
"I need more sleep."
But he hadn't really slept since that night.
The hours dragged on. The heat swelled. The tannery stank of salt and flesh.
And yet, beneath it all, a quiet unease hummed through him — like a faint tremor beneath the surface of the world.
He kept glancing toward the corners of the workshop.
Every time, he felt it — that same, unmistakable sensation of being watched.
Even the shadows seemed heavier than they should have been.
He wiped his forehead, his breath coming quicker.
It was nothing. Just exhaustion. Just his imagination.
A few hours later, the old man stirred, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
"You're early," he grumbled. "You look sick."
"It's nothing. Just the heat."
"The heat makes men mad, boy. Especially the ones who think too much."
The young man smiled faintly.
"Then I'm already lost."
He left the tannery before noon. The air outside felt thicker somehow, as if the city were holding its breath.
And though he couldn't explain why, every step toward home felt heavier than the last.
***
Silence fell before the light.
A silence so heavy it almost breathed.
Even the wind stopped. The sounds of the city died.
The Bone Bastion stood motionless, as if the world itself had turned to stone.
He lifted his eyes slowly.
Between the Leviathan's colossal ribs, the sky had opened.
A slit of light, thin at first, cut across the heavens — then widened, spilling into a river of gold and silver.
It wasn't light. It was revelation.
Something too pure to belong to earth, too perfect to look at for long.
The Comet of Wisdom.
Its glow rolled across Soléara like a tide.
The ivory bones shimmered with molten gold, and every shadow sharpened into clarity.
The city gleamed like a cathedral built from the corpse of a god.
All around him, whispers rose — soft, trembling, awestruck.
Some knelt. Others wept.
Far away, a single bell rang, slow and uneven.
He did not move.
He did not pray.
He simply watched.
A warmth spread through his chest — faint at first, then growing, pulsing, alive.
It rose into his throat, climbed behind his eyes.
His heart beat to the rhythm of the light above.
And then, suddenly, he understood.
The Comet was looking at him.
The air thickened.
The crowd's voices faded, melting into a low hum.
The world narrowed to that golden light and the fire blooming under his ribs.
Then came the words.
Not heard — felt.
A whisper that bypassed ears, spoken directly into his mind.
A harmony of a thousand tones, too perfect to be human.
> "Chosen.
You have been seen.
Carry the Voice.
Receive the Wisdom."
He gasped, staggering backward.
Pain flared behind his eyes — a heartbeat of light and fire.
His knees hit the ground.
"No…" he whispered. "Not me…"
The sky flared brighter.
The world blurred into gold.
He turned, stumbled through the narrow streets, half-blind, half-mad.
The light followed him, pulsing with every beat of his heart, as if tethered to his breath.
When he reached his door, he pushed it open and collapsed onto the bed.
The ceiling above him pulsed faintly.
The cracks in the wood bled light — a slow, golden trickle, like liquid sun seeping into the world.
Then, the Voice returned.
> "Receive the gift.
Bear the Word.
Through you, the Order will rise again."
His back arched.
His fingers clawed at the rough sheets.
His body convulsed as the heat became fire.
A thousand unseen throats whispered in unison inside his skull.
And then—cold.
A breath passed through the room.
Not air, but absence.
The golden light faltered, recoiled, and began to fade — devoured by a deeper darkness.
The air thickened, heavy as water.
The silence shifted, turned alive.
Something spread from beneath the bed — a dark film, fluid and translucent.
The Umbra.
It crawled up the walls, swallowed the corners, reached the ceiling.
The room bent under its weight, warped as if it were breathing.
And then, from within that liquid shadow, a shape emerged.
A woman.
The same woman he had seen before — and yet not the same.
Her face was flawless still, but her body bore the ruin of battle.
Blood darkened her white garment; wounds crossed her skin like cruel constellations.
Her breath was shallow.
Her beauty hurt to look at.
She walked toward him, slow, uncertain, her steps silent on the floor.
The dim light of the fading Comet wrapped around her like a dying halo.
She knelt beside him.
Her cold fingers brushed his cheek.
"Listen to me," she whispered.
He stared at her, trembling, unable to speak.
"I choose you," she said softly.
"I choose you to bear my will."
Her eyes burned — not with gold, but with sorrow.
"You will not be a slave to the Voice of Wisdom."
She took a trembling breath.
"You will carve your own path."
Light gathered in her hand — a single arrow, pure and alive, not forged but born.
It shone with a brilliance beyond the world, humming like a living heartbeat.
"Forgive me," she breathed.
The arrow sank into his chest.
A pulse. A flare. A storm of light.
The world folded inward — and he was gone.
The woman stayed where she was, gasping, shaking.
She looked down at the space he had vanished from, and a faint, broken smile crossed her lips.
For a moment, all was still.
Then came a step.
Soft. Behind her.
She turned her head slightly — just enough to glimpse the blade.
Steel pierced her chest, bursting through her heart in a bloom of light and blood.
Her eyes widened.
Her lips parted in a whisper.
The man behind her was beautiful.
Calm. Silent.
His hair was black as the Umbra, his eyes molten gold — the same as the one who had vanished.
Her voice was faint, fragile:
"…You."
The blade slid deeper.
And the world went dark.
***
He felt nothing.
No weight. No warmth. No breath.
His body — if he still had one — was gone.
He floated through a blackness so complete that it seemed alive.
There was no up or down, no distance, no time.
Just a vast ocean of void, stretching beyond the idea of space.
Thought came slowly, like a spark sinking in water.
He tried to speak.
He had no mouth.
He tried to move.
He had nowhere to go.
Only his mind remained — small, flickering, fragile — drifting through an infinite dark.
Then came the Voice.
It wasn't sound. It was pressure, pushing directly into his skull, as if the void itself were trying to speak through him.
> "Chosen.
Receive the light.
Follow the Voice.
Become the Word."
Each word cracked apart as it reached him, dissolving like dust.
The deeper it spoke, the fainter it became — until all that remained were echoes of meaning, empty and lost.
> "…Orien… listen…"
The name faded.
The Voice faltered.
And then, for the first time, it died.
Silence reclaimed the dark.
A second passed — or a millennium.
He couldn't tell.
Then, suddenly, he fell.
---
He hit the ground hard.
Pain exploded in his chest — real, sharp, alive.
He gasped, lungs dragging in cold air.
The world had weight again.
A dull red glow trembled above him, seeping from cracks in the stone ceiling.
The air smelled of damp earth, rust, and something faintly metallic.
He was lying on his back on the floor of a cavern.
The stone beneath him was cold and slick.
Tiny droplets fell from somewhere high above, each one echoing like a drumbeat in the silence.
He pushed himself up slowly, his muscles trembling.
The reality of it — the hardness of the ground, the ache in his ribs, the taste of dust — felt surreal after the nothingness.
"Where… am I?" he whispered.
His voice sounded too small, too fragile for the space it filled.
No answer came.
The sound just… died, swallowed by the cavern walls.
He stood.
The faint red light traced slick shapes on the stone.
Veins of some strange substance — black and glistening — ran along the walls, pulsing faintly, as if the cave itself was breathing.
Something dripped onto his forehead.
Cold. Viscous.
He flinched and looked up.
And froze.
Above him, something moved.
A shadow uncoiled from the ceiling — vast, heavy, and alive.
It had too many legs, too many eyes.
Each eye glimmered wetly in the red glow, reflecting fragments of his own terrified face.
An arachnid — but not of this world.
Its body was grotesquely large, its fangs as long as blades, its abdomen wrapped in layers of pale, glistening silk.
The sound reached him next.
A wet, tearing crunch.
The sound of meat being chewed.
His eyes followed it — and his stomach turned to ice.
Three bodies hung from the ceiling, caught in thick webs.
Human.
Or what was left of them.
The creature's fangs sank into one corpse's chest with a soft, revolting squelch.
Something snapped.
Something dripped.
He couldn't breathe.
His mind recoiled, refusing to understand what his eyes showed him.
He stumbled back a step.
Then another.
His breath came fast, ragged.
Sweat broke out across his skin.
His hands were shaking violently.
He pressed his back to the wall, searching blindly for an exit.
The spider paused.
A drop of dark saliva fell from its fangs.
He froze.
Every muscle locked.
Even his heartbeat seemed to stop.
Then — a faint crack.
One of its legs twitched.
The creature turned its head.
Slowly.
And in that silence, its countless eyes found him.